Consistency key to get health back on track

KUWAIT: With a busy life, demanding career, personal challenges or losing motivation, we may find ourselves farther from the path of health and wellness. Kuwait Times spoke with Fares Oraby, fitness trainer and nutritionist, to learn how long it takes to get fit again. "People who have stopped working out for a year can get back in shape in 3 to 4 months. The most important thing to do to get back on track and get your fitness level back is to set realistic goals, stay consistent and be patient,” Oraby said.

Oraby noted setting realistic goals is the most important element. "You were running 5K in 20 minutes, or doing 20 pullups in a row, but you are not what you were, so you have to work based on your fitness level at this moment, and from there you will build yourself again until you reach your fitness level,” he said. He indicated that one of the best ways to get back on track is to have short-term and long-term goals — "by reaching every week that short-term goal, we are one step closer to the long-term one”. "Short-term goals can be divided between building healthy habits and recording or writing your progress every week.

So let’s say if my long-term goal is to do 50 squats, then the short-term goal is to eat healthier, make sure to exercise, working on adding every week something harder such as more repetitions, more sets or less resting time between sets,” he explained. On the second step toward fitness, Oraby said: "Consistency is the key to reaching your goals; without consistency, you will not be able to reach your goals. Consistency is like a balloon — if you stop blowing it, it will get smaller. Do not skip days of workout and put a schedule in place that won’t affect your life, so that you will stick to the plan.”

Oraby stressed the need to keep moving. "Everyone feels down — you’re not alone here. Even the greatest people in the world have their down days. You have to keep pushing forward. One of the best examples of that is the soccer players. They are in their prime and they get injured. If they are not patient with what they want to achieve, they will never be back on the pitch.” Oraby explained the easy way to get back into shape. "We will talk about what makes it easy to do it.

First things first, if you want to reach a goal, you have to be surrounded by the right people. You cannot have it in your mind to run three kilometers every day while you smoke and play cards with your friends. Surrounding yourself with the right people will help you a lot. One more thing to help you reach these goals is to have either a coach or dietitian. They will help you a lot with staying consistent and working on your goals in a safe and right way. But even if you have both, you need to work for it,” he cautioned.