I am not an athletic person and I don’t enjoy working out but I have seen tremendous benefits in my mental health from working out regularly.
My depression and anxiety are both way more manageable when I am working out. Besides that, I feel better and have more energy than I have in years.
Regular exercise makes me feel stronger and more myself.
It has improved my life in so many ways and I really can’t recommend it enough.
Here are some things I learned on my fitness journey so far.
I hope it helps you on your own fitness journey this year. If you’re interested in doing at home workouts and joining an online community fill out the form here so I can contact you with more details about the fitness community I am starting in 2019.
Don’t Negotiate
When I started working out regularly I realized how much energy and time I was wasting negotiating with myself about working out.
My brain would start coming up with excuses and reasons for why I don’t need to exercise today and I would spend a ton of energy negotiating with myself about whether or not I was going to work out that day.
I actually decided to start working out seven days a week just to get in the habit of exercising with negotiating.
Whenever I start to talk myself out of exercising I remind myself that I exercise every single day and I do NOT negotiate.
This is really hard to do but it honestly has made the biggest difference with my fitness journey.
I think making a schedule and then making a commitment to stick to it no matter WHAT has been the most helpful thing I’ve done in my fitness journey.
Move Forward
Exercising has had a HUGE impact on my mental health.
I had not idea how much working out would impact my depression and anxiety. I’ve been on a break for pretty much all of December.
After my breakup, I went to my parent’s house for the holidays and pretty much used the holidays and my heartbreak as an excuse to eat all of the things and skip every workout.
It’s ok to take breaks and it’s OK if you fall off the fitness wagon sometimes. Honestly, this has happened to me so many times.
However, I used to beat myself up and get really upset at myself if I didn’t stick with my plan.
Now I forgive myself right away and just make a plan to move forward. The truth is life gets tough sometimes and exercise isn’t always my number one priority.
The best thing I’ve found to do is just to make a plan to move forward and not even think about the time lost. This works for me because I tend to be really hard on myself and if I think about the time off too much I get really disappointed and down on myself.
I no longer use taking a break as an excuse to give up and quit my fitness journey. If I do start to feel discouraged I remind myself of the bigger picture.
I am committing to living a healthier lifestyle to have better health and that is a long-term goal. I still have the whole rest of my life to get where I want to go and there’s no rush.
Make a Plan
Make a plan so you know exactly when you are going to workout and what kind of workout you’re going to do. I am pausing my gym membership as part of my no-buy challenge and using my home exercise program instead.
This actually gives me more structure because those workouts are with a trainer that tells me exactly what to do and each day is structured. It’s already planned out for me which day I am doing arms, back, legs etc.
All I have to do is push play and make sure I work out every single day. The program I am doing is four days a week so on the off days, I am planning on running or riding my bike.
As I mentioned in the video, working out seven days a week is a lot easier for me to maintain than only doing three or four days.
That’s because I don’t try to talk myself out of it if I’m committed to working out every single day. You can grab the free fitness planner below to help you make a fitness plan.
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