3 Things That Made Me Stick to My Workout Routine
I was a quitter until I found these reasons.
I was a quitter. I promised myself to get back into sports after a week of unhealthy eating, full of motivation. I would start exercising the next day and give up after a week because I couldn’t stay motivated. Because it was hard. I probably repeated this pattern about 20 times.
I was resigned to the idea that I would never be as fit as I wanted to, and I tried to focus on not exceeding my body’s basic caloric needs so that I wouldn’t gain fat over time.
It’s been 10 months now.
I’m 10 months into regular training. This is the first time I feel so good about my body. It’s not perfect yet — it’s impossible — but I’m getting closer to my goals every time I put on my workout clothes.
I’m a 22-year-old woman. I’ve always been pretty active. When I was a child and a teenager, not a year went by without me joining a sports club, whether it was basketball, soccer, tennis, archery, Thai boxing, artistic rollerblading, swimming, and so on.
Then, at the age of 16, I moved to Paris. Everything was expensive, as was the little time I had left after all the tasks and chores of living alone.
I tried several times to get back into a kind of fitness routine. I signed up at a gym. I tried to go running. I joined a soccer team. I exercised at home. None of it worked. It just seemed like another chore.
At the same time, I couldn’t help but desperately watch my body store a little fat here and there. I also felt lethargic, as if less energy was running through my veins and muscles.
Last October, I was forced to find motivation somewhere.
“Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change” — Tony Robbins
Oddly enough, the motivation didn’t come from where I thought it would.
I started training to get closer to the body I wanted. That was step one. This motivation allowed me to start and finish the first five sessions.
Then it slowly faded away to make way for three more reasons to keep working out. Today, those three reasons are what keep me going with my training routine. Without them, I would have given up.
Body transformation is a very slow and difficult process. There are many ups and downs, and you can spend (too) long periods feeling that no change is happening — and that no change will ever happen, while at the same time you continue to sweat and have a hard time completing the series of exercises.
That’s why the motivation to transform your body is often not enough. You need to find other, healthier reasons to exercise.
Here are mine.
A transformer of negative energies into positive energies.
I’m not far from hyperactive. I’m super tense sometimes, and I have to make a big effort not to explode at times. I am also a sponge of energies, positive but also negative.
That is to say that when I spend too much time not evacuating the energy from my body, I am the incarnation of a sea urchin: a ball of prickles.
I began to observe the benefits of training by feeling an unexpected joy and happiness going through me when I finished my workout session. This is due to the endorphins that are released in your body as you work out. But I also feel that this well-being is simply due to the benefits of sport: doing good for your body and mind.
I got the confirmation the day I felt upset for various reasons and decided to exercise to feel better. And it worked. The negative energies were used during the effort and were replaced by positive energies that penetrated my body and lit up the rest of my day.
Sometimes I feel motivated to exercise just to feel good, for the benefits that come afterward.
A wellness multiplier, at two levels.
As I said before, training makes me feel good mentally, right after my session. But the benefits go even further.
Since the day I started working out, I feel calmer, more relaxed, and more focused daily. And these benefits tend to disappear if, for some reason, I spend too many days not training in a row.
Exercise makes me a different person. And I prefer it to the one who doesn’t exercise. By far. It’s a much more composed person, more thoughtful, even gentler.
But it doesn’t stop there.
There’s another kind of well-being that I even prefer to the previous one. It’s the well-being I feel in my body. This one is harder to explain.
I feel that my body is toning up. I can feel my small muscles when I move, walk, run, or lift. I can feel the energy healthily flowing through my body. I feel good in my clothes. I feel fit. And these are two of the greatest sensations in the world.
A couples’ therapist with food.
My relationship with food is twofold: I have physical goals that have not yet been achieved and a haunting to see fat deposited on my body while having a strong passion for food. It’s a constant dual relationship because I want to live my life freely and enjoy all the pleasures that come with it, but I also want to appreciate what I see in the mirror.
I am not a fan of junk food. But I do like a big burger and a delicious ice cream once in a while, as well as a cold beer on a hot summer evening.
I used to feel guilty when I indulged too much in these kinds of pleasures before. Now, thanks to training, I know that it makes up for a little and that these pleasures will be used by my body in the next workout. I would definitely get results faster if I stopped eating and drinking these. But that would prevent me from enjoying life’s simplest pleasures, and there’s no way I could do that.
Training is also an inspiration to develop better eating habits. Many people experience this as they start exercising: a desire — and pleasure — to eat healthier, more fruits and vegetables, and less junk food.
I’ve experienced it too. I want to make the best choices for my body, both so that it has enough energy for the next sessions, but also to keep the benefits of the efforts I make.
These three reasons are really at the heart of my new motivation. I wouldn’t have gone so far with the sole desire to see a more toned body in the mirror.
You must find your own reasons. When you know why you are doing something, motivation comes by itself.
Writing these lines has set the tone for a good workout. I think I’ll go put my shorts on.
