The 5 Principles

The 5xFitness Consistency Blueprint is built around five principles:

PLAN → TAKE ACTION → BE CONSISTENT → LEARN MORE → BECOME EMPOWERED

These principles give you a simple way to think about your health and fitness, whatever you are working towards. That might be getting stronger, improving your fitness, changing the way you eat, losing weight, becoming more active or simply looking after yourself better.

They are not five steps you have to complete in order. Different goals and different stages of life will require different things from you. The principles give you something to come back to when you are deciding what to do, working through a problem or trying to understand why something is not working as well as you hoped.

The aim is not to find a perfect plan and follow it forever. It is to become better at working out what matters, taking action, learning from what happens and making changes when you need to.

1. PLAN

Create a realistic plan based on what you want to achieve and the life you're actually living.

A good plan starts with understanding where you are now and what you are actually trying to achieve. It also needs to take account of the life you are living.

You might want to get stronger, lose some weight, improve your fitness or simply become more active. The right approach will depend on your goal, your experience and what you realistically have time and energy for.

With exercise, that could mean deciding how often you can train and what type of training is going to help. With food, it might mean looking at what you currently eat and deciding where a practical change could make things easier. It could also mean thinking about sleep, work, family or other parts of your lifestyle that affect what you are able to do.

Planning is not about filling every part of your week. It is about deciding what matters and thinking ahead about what could make it easier or harder to follow through.

2. TAKE ACTION

Turn your intentions into something you actually do

A plan is only useful when you do something with it.

You do not need to wait until everything is in place or until you feel completely motivated. Taking action gives you the chance to find out what actually works for you.

That might be a workout, a walk, preparing a meal, making a better food choice or doing something that makes the rest of your week easier. It does not have to be a big change. It needs to be something you can actually do.

Once you start taking action, you also have something to learn from. You can see what fits, what creates problems and what might need to change.

3. BE CONSISTENT

Build behaviours you can repeat, while adapting when life changes.

Consistency does not mean doing exactly the same thing every week.

Work gets busy. Family needs your attention. You go away. Your priorities change. There will be times when your normal routine simply does not fit.

Being consistent means finding a way to keep the behaviours that matter going, even when the way you do them has to change.

Three gym sessions might work well for you at one point in your life and one or two might be more realistic at another. You might have plenty of time to prepare food one week and need simpler options the next.

The aim is not to do the maximum amount possible. It is to find something you can keep doing when life is not going exactly to plan.

4. LEARN MORE

Use experience, feedback and reflection to understand what works for you.

Learning more is not about endlessly looking for more information about exercise, food or health. Some of the most useful things you can learn come from your own experience.

What worked? What became difficult? What made something easier? What keeps getting in the way?

You might discover that a shorter workout fits your week better, that having a few simple meals available makes eating easier, or that a change in your work routine affects what you are able to do.

This gives you useful information. You can use it to make better decisions rather than simply repeating the same plan and hoping it works differently next time.

Feedback, self-monitoring and reflection can all help you understand what is working, where you are having difficulty and what might need to change.

5. BECOME EMPOWERED

Build the confidence and skills to make decisions, adapt and manage your health and fitness for yourself.

The long-term aim is not for you to need someone else to tell you what to do every time something changes.

It is to become more confident making those decisions yourself.

You might become better at choosing the type of training that suits your goal. You might become more comfortable making practical food choices without needing to follow a rigid diet. You might become better at recognising when work, family or other parts of life are affecting your routine and knowing what you can change.

That does not mean you have to do everything on your own. A coach, programme, app or other support can still be useful. The difference is that you become more involved in the decisions and more confident in working out what to do next.

Over time, the aim is to move from:

“Tell me what I should do.”

towards:

“I understand what I need to consider, and I can work out what to do next.”

That is what becoming empowered means within 5xFitness.

HOW THE FIVE PRINCIPLES FIT TOGETHER

The principles are not a checklist.

You might need to spend more time planning when you are starting something new. At another point, you may simply need to take action. If something stops working, learning from what happened may be more useful than making another completely new plan.

The five principles give you a way to think about those situations.

Plan what matters.

Take Action and see what happens.

Be Consistent by keeping the important things going.

Learn More from your experience.

Become Empowered by becoming better at making those decisions for yourself.

Then, when your goal changes or life changes, you can use the principles again.

The point is not to finish the Five Principles. The point is to become better at using them.

LEARN HOW TO START WITH THE WEEKLY RESET

When you sign up using the link above, we'll send you the WEEKLY RESET and a short series of emails to guide you through the process, including the 48 HOUR ACTION PLAN and what to do next.