![]() Because here’s the clincher…we can’t out-exercise our food choices. To pigeonhole exercise to weight loss is a disservice to us all. But, no matter their shape or size, it’s beneficial to do. Now, this is difficult to do-especially for those who are not very overweight or unwell. When discussing exercise with clients who have weight-loss goals, one of the first things we address is mentally separating exercise from losing weight. If weight loss isn’t happening then the perception is the exercise is “not working.” While these individuals may or may not have negative health conditions related to their weight, they measure their success by stepping on the scale. If I were good at guessing statistics (and I am not), I would say that 50% of people who exercise are doing so with a primary goal of weight loss in mind. Contemplate, envision, and allow yourself to be energized by the prospect of what incredible health can feel like for you. You can exercise…even if you don’t want to!ĭaydream about your answers to these questions and don’t settle for so-so. How healthy and fit would you like to be in 10 years?.If you had greater health and endurance, what amazing things would you do?.Why do you want to be stronger, faster, lighter?.If you want to exercise and you want to do so consistently, it’s important to unpack your greater purpose: Truly, perfection is the enemy of “good enough.” If your driving motivation to work out is to lose weight, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll quit the gym when the scale doesn’t cooperate. However, if your goal is to start exercising so you can be stronger in body, mind, and spirit, then 4 days (vs no days) would be an incredible thing. For example, if your vision is to finish an exercise program flawlessly, then exercising “only” on 4 of the scheduled 6 days constitutes a failure. Is your motivation to exercise missing? Do You Actually Want to Work Out?īut, before we can ditch black-and-white thinking, it will benefit us to think about “why” we exercise. I bet you agree that this kind of thinking needs to be dealt with. But this mindset robs us of better health, progress towards our goals, and dancing with our kids because this is how we chose to do “cardio” today. When we get all-or-nothing about anything it is because we only see value in perfect completion. By identifying roadblocks, you can route new ways to get to your destination. ![]() If this sounds familiar to you, my friend, you have fallen into “diet side effects”in the realm of exercise. But, getting there can feel like too much. No doubt you value the outcome of an exercise plan-you want to be healthy, fit, and able to move the living room furniture around until you find the right configuration…without driving your husband up a wall. ![]() Or, if you weren’t as committed as you hoped, the frustration alone was a barrier to further change. If those expectations were more than you could reasonably handle, you probably threw in the towel altogether. You may have figured out those limitations before you began (well done!) or after you struggled to adopt this new practice (and then you felt like a failure). What were the options available to you? Maybe some of the programs required more time, energy, or resources than you had available. Take a moment and think about the last time you shopped for an exercise plan. To no surprise, I have seen the same ideas arise with exercise for many of my clients. Diets have caused us to walk down a path of all-or-nothing thinking with food-where we feel like anything less than a “perfect” is a wasted attempt. Here at Grace Filled Plate, I spend a lot of time talking about how we eat and the way we interact with food. ![]() When you think of exercise or working out, what comes to mind? Do you cringe at the prospect of trying it or sigh at your failed attempts to stick with a program? While our relationship with food is rarely straightforward, our experience and presumptions about exercise can be equally as complicated. Nope, the hours I spent inside those four walls were solely focused on a change I felt I just had to make-exercise was one of the ways I tried to do it. That reason certainly wasn’t because I enjoyed using those dingy weight machines or shuffling my feet aimlessly until they were numb on the Stairmaster. Check out this blog post for 3 key reasons to exercise when you don’t want to! You want to start exercising more or to begin again but you don’t know where to start! What you need are simple tips and the motivation to start your fitness plan.
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