How to Keep Yourself Motivated to Exercise
It’s not uncommon to see people brimming with enthusiasm at the start of their new weight loss or fitness plan. However, the sad thing is that enthusiasm fizzles out within a few days or weeks, for a number of reasons.
Boredom is probably the main reason why people stop exercising. The same walking, running or weight lifting day after day can really bore the strongest adult to tears. Besides that, some people stop because they find it difficult to continue making exercise a part of their schedule, or find that exercise isn’t giving the results they want fast enough. The core of it all is that most of us lose the motivation to exercise, using all the above reasons as excuses.
How Can You Stay Motivated?
The good news is that you can motivate yourself to stick to your daily exercise with a couple of simple steps. The steps are as follows:
1) To kill boredom during exercise, engage in some other activity to keep your mind off it. Activities like listening to music, reading a book on the treadmill or watching television (when working out at home) help take the burden off exercise. Be sure to push your body to work out and not get too distracted, though. You can also switch up the types of exercises you do every day to avoid boredom. For example, lift weights and do the treadmill one day, and join an aerobic class on another.
2) Every move counts during exercise, so keeping track of your exercises and the amount of movements you do in a day can help you stay committed to your exercise plan. You can do this by installing a fitness app on your phone to see how far you’ve walked, or buying a pedometer to keep track of the amount of steps you take daily.
3) Occasionally, you can reward yourself if you managed to stick to your exercise regime. Give yourself a weekly, fortnightly or monthly treat if you’ve exercised the amount you should. Be mindful though that if you are trying to lose weight, food probably isn’t the best reward to give yourself. You can buy a new outfit, get a massage, or do something along those lines instead, that don’t involve food.
Exercise is a necessary element to add to your daily life, so don’t skip on it. Remember though for the best results – and to lose weight – it should be combined with a healthy diet too. Happy exercising!
