After spending a year indoors, one of the biggest obstacles to getting back into shape is motivation. Even if you worked out a couple times a week, you may still have packed on the pounds and also lost the desire to get moving. With things finally looking up, now’s the time to get back into your fitness routine. Here’s five ways to break through your fitness resistance and rock a beach body this summer.
Determine Your Obstacles
The first step is determining what’s holding you back from resuming your fitness program. Is it a lack of motivation, or are you afraid of failing? The fear of failing has become a significant part of daily life. From social media to magazines, you’re bound to see something that reminds you how perfect you’re supposed to be. It’s hard enough to ignore these social cues when you have the right mindset, so imagine how difficult it can be if you’re already feeling less than your best?
A lot of people fell off the exercise bandwagon during quarantine, so taking that first step can be tough. You might not even want to see the inside of a gym. But your reason to get back in shape doesn’t have to be like anyone else’s. Define your fitness goals and reasons why they’re important. Think how regular exercise made you feel in the past. You can use this information, in addition with your past positive fitness experiences, to start easing back into an exercise routine. At this point, your focus should be on quality, not quantity.
Choose an Activity You Enjoy
Whether it’s yoga and strength training or dance and Pilates, choose an exercise you enjoy doing. When you force yourself to do something you don’t enjoy, your mind will subconsciously start to tell you it’s wrong. This can lead to you making excuses as to why you can’t do it and ultimately, causing you to feel guilty for putting off exercising again. Once your mind registers exercise as something positive, you’re more inclined to follow through. It’s also okay to choose activities that you never did before. Our bodies are made to move, so as long as you’re active, do what feels good.
Research Your Options
It’s easy enough to lace up your sneakers and hit the ground running, however, if you’ve inactive for a long period of time, you need to research your options on how to get started. Research different ways you can ease back into your fitness routine. If you were a runner, you may want to start by modifying how long you run. You can perform short sprints followed by brisk walking to help build muscle memory by at least taking a jog around the block. This also helps your brain recognize this as something you want to do, not something you have to do. As you rebuild your tolerance going forward, you can then space out the intervals of walking and running to maximize your efforts.
Track Your Progress
You also need to create a progress chart to track how far you’ve come in your newfound journey. It’s easy to feel demotivated if you aren’t tracking your progress. Even if you’ve had to make modifications to your exercise regime, you’re still making progress. Focus on mastering specific exercises, and pat yourself on the back once you perfect them. You also need to focus on your mental health as well. If you had financial struggles over the last year, trying to stay physically fit probably wasn’t a concern. Your mental well-being plays a huge role on how you feel physically. So, if you’re still trying to recover from a financial standpoint, there are things you can do. You can ask friends and family for help, as well as you can also review a guide on determining the value of your life insurance policy. It’s important to understand how coverage has an impact on value, and whether you have accrued enough value to cash it in. Feeling financially stable may also motivate you as well. Ongoing stress makes the simplest of tasks difficult, so once you feel better mentally, you’ll probably feel better physically as well.
Take Group Classes
Engaging in group fitness creates a feeling unity. Since everyone is there for the same reason, it also gives you a chance to build new friendships and possibly a new workout partner. Support from classmates and your instructor can make a big difference in how often you exercise and how much effort you put into it.
