Want To Lose Fat? Get Out of Your Comfort Zone!

by Teodora Sklayne

Do you go the gym regularly for years and haven’t changed a bit or even put on fat since? Do you want to lose body fat using the same routine for years?

Very often, especially in commercial gyms, I see people doing the same routine over and over again. If I were to come back 6 months later, I would see them lifting the same weights, or using the same cardio machine, obviously looking either the same or worse.

The very wise Albert Einstein has said it right – “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Basically it’s as simple as that – in order to progress, changes for better must be made on regular basis. Action leads to results. Many people tend to feel too ‘comfortable’ to make the necessary changes or afraid of failure.

Let’s look at comfort zone and how it can affect people’s lives. The comfort zone is a behavioural state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviours to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk (Alasdair White 2009).  Highly successful people step outside their comfort zones all the time in order to accomplish their goals. And we are talking about success anywhere – at work, at home with the family, or in the gym.

So how do we get out of the comfort zone?

Well you need to open your eyes to the world full of options and try different things. Some things might be easy and enjoyable; some will be hard, unpleasant and painful. Yes, change is painful whether literally or metaphorically. However if you embrace that pain positively, not only you will achieve your goals, but the journey will be much more empowering. So be prepared to go through that pain – whether it would be those last 2-3 reps of an exercise that are really hard and painful or pushing trough those last 20 seconds of the interval training.

The fact that you are in the gym doing some exercise is not enough to get you to your fat loss goals. You must push yourself and get out of your comfort zone. Perhaps working with a personal trainer or in a class with group of people with similar goals will help you go out of your comfort zone. Those last few reps or pushing yourself by increasing the weight you use, are the one that counts; they are the one that will lead you to success and will make you stronger and leaner. So don’t waste your time in useless everyday boring routine and try something new today!