Need some fitness motivation? Have you tried over and over to reach your fitness goals only to become frustrated and give up time and time again? Do you feel lost at where to begin or how to pick back up on your fitness journey? If you answered yes to any of these questions, keep reading. You just might find the motivation you need to get started back on your journey today.
#1 Your intensity is too high
I know it can be tempting to want to jump right into a super high intensity workout in hopes of seeing results immediately. But the key here is to take it slow, you don’t want to start off at level 10 and end at level 1. I see this a lot with gym novices who show up feeling great from getting their heart pumping and breaking a sweat for a few weeks but quickly take a turn as they begin to experience burn-out, extreme fatigue, or worse, injury. Even if you have experience with exercise in the past, it is wise to start at the beginner level of any exercise you choose and work your way up. This allows you to begin to enjoy your workouts as you begin to progress and not regress.
#2 You are not doing exercise that you enjoy.
People have a misconception that you must do all of these weird and different exercises in order to see results, this cannot be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is, is that there are only 4 main areas to focus on here. You’ll want to focus on upper body, lower body, core, and cardiovascular. Now, some people consider core to be upper body and vice versa (being a personal trainer you have seen and heard it all!) But the core is actually upper and lower body, this is why I suggest picking the core exercises you most enjoy and executing them on the days that work best for you. Here are a couple of examples: Ex:1 If I am to train 5 days a week, working upper body Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while working lower body Tuesdays and Thursdays. I may want to include upper and lower ab workouts during my upper body split. Ex:2 Using the example of the training regime above, If I wanted to train abs every day, I may instead opt to train lower abs on leg days with an exercise such as leg raises, while focusing on the upper part of my abs on upper body days choosing an exercise such as crunches. With all this being said, you only need to choose 1-2 exercises (that you enjoy) per upper body, lower body and core, just make sure to include at least one compound exercise for each such as squats or push-ups. When it comes to cardio, this is most definitely where you can be A LOT more flexible and do things you enjoy, such as swimming, biking, dancing, sports like kickball or tennis, the possibilities are endless here, so just make sure you are having fun!
#3 You haven’t found the sweet spot in your diet.
Most people know by now that you must eat well in order to see results. But just like your exercise intensity, people all too often jump to extremes and end up adopting a diet that isn’t sustainable for them. Remember that we are looking for progression, not perfection. Start by simply drinking more water, a great way to keep track of this is by drinking a cup and a half of water before you get your day
The most important thing to keep in mind is to have patience and take things slow in order to avoid injury.
What do you think? What are your experiences with exercising? Do you agree with the above reasons why some people quit? Let me know in the comments!
I agree that most people start off trying to lose weight overnight and push themselves to hard instead of enjoying the process and building up to a sustainable routine or diet!
Yes indeed! It is extremely important to START SLOW and with the very basics when beginning or starting back any fitness routine. Sustainability is one of the MAIN reason people quit! Thank you for your comment 🙂