I think this is such an interesting concept to talk about, because how long should you really stick with something before deciding that it doesn’t work or that it just isn’t for you. You can look at it from multiple different angles and that’s why I think it’s so interesting. You can look at it from a fitness, nutrition, health or just general life point of view. Everything that I have just listed has its own trial period.

It might not take long to figure out you don’t like to lift weights, but figuring out you don’t like following the keto diet (high-fat diet) might take a couple weeks or months. It all depends on: how new you’re to what you’re trying out, how big the changes are to what you were doing before, how it fits within your lifestyle, how motivated you’re, how well you know your own body, if you people around you that you can go to for help/information. It might just be that you don’t really know what you’re getting into and approach it the wrong way. For example, if you start following the keto-diet but all that person does is eat bacon, processed cheeses and fried foods I can guarantee that person won’t be experiencing any of the ”advertised” benefits of the diet.

As I have shown above, it’s usually not as simple as ”Do I enjoy doing this?”. I think setting the right expectations for yourself and doing research goes a long way when trying to find something you can enjoy for longer. This probably sounds like I am talking about the fitness/health world but you can obviously apply this to anything in life. For fitness, nutrition and health there’s fortunately enough so many different options, so many that you’re hard-pressed to find something that you don’t like, you just have to get out there and find it. You just need to understand what it is that you want and how dedicated you’re to that goal.

Let’s talk about specifics now. We’ll cover nutrition, fitness and health separately.

Nutrition

Now how long should you stick with your diet or nutrition related choices? In my opinion nutrition is all about making small and sustainable changes until you find what works for you. The best ”diet” is the one that you can stick to whenever life inevitably happens, because it will. Making too many changes to your diet will make you lose track of what works and what doesn’t. Our gym just launched this month long ”introduction” to nutrition where the main focus was reducing sugar intake and getting comfortable with the basics of nutrition. A month might not sound like a lot to some of you but if you use it right you can get a lot done. I wouldn’t even recommend making small changes every single day because it might take your body longer to feel the effects of whatever it is that you’re changing. For example, if you’re trying to cut out sugar it will probably take you somewhere between 2-4 weeks for your body to adjust, depending on how much sugar you were eating before. If you’re looking to follow the keto diet or implement intermittent fasting, you want to give your body around a week or 2 to feel the effects. This is where your own research comes in, every diet has their own ”trial” period that you will have to go through. Up to this point we have talked about the big changes but what about the small ones?

”Small” nutrition changes include: upping your protein, fat or carb intake (by 5 to roughly 15%), replacing one or two meals throughout the day, or changing up your meal timing. All of these things shouldn’t take you more than 5-7 days to figure out if it works for you.

We’re going back to minimizing the changes you’re making at the same time, because one of those things might be working and the other might not. Too many changes and you won’t be able to tell which one is which.

Fitness

Fitness is totally different from nutrition of course but in some ways the same. They’re the same as in if you’re not doing your research or if someone has misinformed you about something, it could have a big impact on your enjoyment anything fitness or nutrition related.

There are many of different variations of fitness. Fitness isn’t just lifting weights in the gym, running on the treadmill every day or doing your ab-exercises in the corner, it’s about so much more. Think about yoga, running, climbing, mixed martial arts and all of the other sports and fitness elements that can get you fit.

If you don’t like lifting weights because you feel like it might make you muscular or big, you have injured yourself in the past or you don’t care about your physique, It’s about so much more than that. But luckily you can choose out of huge variety of different activities that can get you moving and fitter. Again, the choice is yours. Try something out, make sure you get the help and coaching you need and if you’re still sure that it’s not for you, move on and find something else.

Health

Now this is very personalized, because it all depends on what you do for your health. For me, I have picked up habits and routines along the way that I like to go through on a daily basis. For example, I read and stretch every night to unwind and clear my thoughts before going to sleep. I sometimes write some poetry whenever I feel like it. I also like to drink my ”green juice” as the first thing to break my fast with.

All of these things are personalized for me. I like doing these things and it helps keep me sane, especially through these times. I personally don’t think this is something you have to spend weeks on weeks trying to figure it out. Find (small) activities that you can do throughout the day that keep your mind and body healthy.

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