Motivation: you either got it or you don’t. And when you got it, there’s no stopping you. Fitting into a dress, going on vacation, running a 10k; these are all motivational factors. But what happens after the party, the vacation, the event? You take a well-deserved break of course. You reward yourself by skipping the 5am workout or if you’re really bold, you skip your workouts for the entire week.
The problem with that of course is not knowing when to stop with the “rewards” and start getting back to business. The motivation is gone, along with your enthusiasm. So why bother? If you put on a pound or two, no biggie. But what happens when it turns into five pounds, or even worse, ten! The alarm bells start going off and grudgingly you return to the gym, completely unmotivated. The question here is how does one prevent the inevitable burnout?
We all know we should workout, but sometimes even knowing that won’t do the trick. Or you know you’d feel so much better after your workout but the sofa is so much more comfortable. So the obvious method here is to come up with a new motivational factor. But how? Saying you want to lose 10 pounds won’t exactly do the trick. You need to think of ways to get yourself to lose those ten pounds through specific goals. Something like, “I want to be stronger.” Ok, how are you going to do that? You’re going to start lifting weights. “I want to lose belly fat.” Well then you need to focus on what you’re eating and start ramping up your cardio workouts so you burn more calories. “I want to tone up.” You need to combine weight training with cardio workouts at least three times a week, working towards five times a week.
Figure out what it is you would like to accomplish and then decipher how you are going to make that a reality. “I want to increase my endurance.” Take a boot camp class or zumba class. Some people don’t even want to think about what they have to do, they want someone else to do it for them. If so, hire a personal trainer, or buy a workout DVD, it’ll take the thinking out of the equation. Maybe you don’t want to invest an hour of your time. Workout for 15 minutes. Even 15 minutes of moderate-intensity activity will get your heart rate up and have you burning calories.
Whatever you want to achieve, you can. You just need to sit down and figure out a plan. Setting a goal + devising a plan = motivation and success. (And write it all down. The power of the written word is amazing.)
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I’ll see you back here Monday morning so we can talk about what you’ve done so far this month in bringing more fitness into your lives. (Remember, May is Get Your Rear in Gear month!)
