This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost Australia, which closed in 2021.

How To Get Fit And Actually Stay Motivated In 2016

Hit Refresh: How To Actually Get Fit And Stay Motivated
Healthy woman fitness training, doing press-ups with determined expression in urban industrial gym. Friend is giving encouragement beside her whilst other females workout in background.
Mike Harrington via Getty Images
Healthy woman fitness training, doing press-ups with determined expression in urban industrial gym. Friend is giving encouragement beside her whilst other females workout in background.

There's no better time to turn over a new leaf than at the beginning of the year. Emerging from the silly season, dazed, confused and potentially still clutching a bottle of wine, early January tends to be a time of self-reflection and declarations of "this year I'm going to..." (insert your choice of "get fit", "quit smoking" or "drink less" here).

But while it's all very well and good to promise yourself to embrace yoga, eat clean and go for a run every day, actually following through on your resolutions can be hard to do, especially once the distractions of work, family and general life kick in.

For those with fitness as their 2016 goal, celebrity trainer and founder of Bodyism, James Duigan, insists it can be done. The first step? Stop beating yourself up.

"The most practical and immediate and powerful advice I have is to be kind to yourself," Duigan told The Huffington Post Australia. "And by that I mean remembering you deserve a happy and healthy life.

"I know I sound like a sound like a hippie but it's the truth. So many people feel that they are not good enough and don't deserve to be happy and healthy.

"Once you recognise what’s going on, and you can say to yourself 'you know what? I do deserve this', then it all becomes easy."

The second thing Duigan recommends people do is to curb their social media use.

"People need to stop taking nutritional advice from Instagram," Duigan said. "It's like the wild west -- it is so dangerous there.

"Just because someone is in a bikini on a beach it doesn’t qualify them to tell you how to eat. It is just so false and fake.

"What we are seeing is the rise of the 'Instagram anorexic' -- someone without any accountability offering really dangerous advice.

"Limit your time on Instagram. I am training one of the most famous women in the world and even she will say to me, 'I was on Instagram all morning and I feel awful [about myself]'.

"Unfollow people who don’t make you feel good and go on an Instagram diet."

Not everything you see on the internet is real.

Duigan also encourages people to stick to avoid fads or food trends when it comes to approaching their diet.

"If something sounds crazy, it is," Duigan said. "Don’t have no food for a week, except for Chinese medicine and herbs -- that was a thing at one stage, and people started going to hospital and getting really sick.

"If it’s going to be permanent, it has to be sustainable. That is the happy fact of it all -- the fastest way to lose weight is to focus on your health. Diets don’t work.

"Being slapped in the face is gluten free -- it doesn’t make it good for you. Be aware of that. Don’t trick yourself into thinking all this stuff is without consequence. Be mindful of those cons.

"You are your own best nutritionist. You have to tune into your body and see how you feel after you eat. Listen to yourself and trust yourself and find sanity."

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