I have to be honest in saying that I don’t love to exercise. In fact, sometimes I don’t even like it, and I have to force myself to go to the gym. That might seem weird coming from someone who’s a health coach, whose job it is to help people with just this topic, but the reality is that I have to work at it too.

This week I’ve done really well. I’ve been to the gym the last four days, doing a mix of weight training and cardio. But I also know that I can be inconsistent. I might have a really good week followed by a week when I barely get there (with all the necessary excuses to justify it). I hear that a lot too from my clients and people on my mailing list. It seems like it’s easier to get started than it is to maintain a rhythm over time.

As I was working out yesterday, it got me thinking about the whole idea of motivation when it comes to exercising. We all know that we need to exercise to be healthy, ward off disease and feel better, no surprise there. But there’s such a gap between knowing what we need to do and doing it regularly. Why is that?

It used to be that I was in a serious groove about exercise. I’d consistently go to the gym before work. I loved that I got strong and felt so good about my body, I loved that I was lifting weights, and even felt confident about lifting free weights (at my gym, you mostly find men in the free weight room). In fact, I met Bruce, my husband, working out at 5:30 in the morning in that very weight room (a fabulous but totally unexpected discovery).

But one day I realized that I was tired of getting up so early and pushing myself. Wasn’t I in good enough shape to slide for awhile (yep, that’s where things started to shift!)? What if I started going less often, wouldn’t that be OK? My motivation started to wane and I became inconsistent. Truth be told, it took me awhile to dig out of my gym rut. After all, I was juggling so many things in my life, I was having lots of fun with Bruce and there just didn’t seem to be enough time.

What got me going again? Well Bruce and I got married last month and I was definitely motivated to look great in my wedding dress. And now that we’re back from our honeymoon (where I ate far too much food and totally overindulged), I’m eager to lose a little weight and feel better in my body.

If I really boil it down though, in the end, I’m motivated by the feeling I get when I’m done with my workout. I love how exercise helps me get out of my head and de-stress. It’s that quiet feeling, my mind is at ease and my body feels nicely fatigued. I definitely can’t get that feeling by working 10-12 hours a day at a non-stop pace! And now that I’m hitting those mid-life years, I’m also seriously motivated by prevention.  I want to feel great in my body, prolong my health, and not buy into that notion that I’m going to need loads of drugs to keep me going.

What’s your motivation and inspiration to go the gym? How do you make it a priority and do it consistently with everything else you have to do and handle in your life?

Filed under: Exercise, Healthy Body, Healthy lifestyle, Motivation, Optimal Health, Prevention