Need Motivation!
 

How do you guys stay motivated to work out and be fitter in general? I'm tired of making excuses so I made a pledge to wake up an hour earlier to fit a morning workout in my schedule. What's your pledge?

Honestly... the motivation is not always there. But I make it a commitment to exercise at least 4 days a week. And when I have met those 4 days, I reward myself with a day off. :)

My motivation lies in two places, guilt, and looking forward to the results that will come if you sweat hard enough. All I have to do is look down at how jiggly my arms are, and I remember that I have not worn tank tops in YEARS for this reason, and that I look forward to shopping for those cute little tops. So, much as I may hate it, I pack the bag, and sometimes I say I will just go and do 30 minutes of cardio, and before you know it, I"ve been there for an hour, and lifted, stretched, climbed stairs and become slightly more victorious.

Some days I just do it!!! It's like brushing your teeth, paying the bills, you don't want to, but you have to or you'll have bad teeth, bad breath and the creditors will come after you :lol: ... Same with exercise, we do it for the benefits to our long term health...

I don't focus on what a pain it will be to change into my workout clothes. I don't think about things I would rather be doing. I don't think about how much torture it will be to work out and sweat.

INSTEAD: I focus on how good I will feel when I am done. How, if I exercise today, it will be easier to do it again tomorrow. On Easter morning, I thought about how good it would feel to go to Easter dinner knowing I had squeezed in a 2 mile jog that morning. I think about how good it will feel to brag to my friends about how far/fast I jogged. I think about how good I will look with a little more muscle and a little less fat.

Thanks everyone. These have been very helpful to me. My biggest motivators are long term results and overall health benefits. I've been taking it one day at a time and I'm proud to say I'm sticking to my pledge. With time it's gotten easier too, I wake up feeling refreshed, I eat breakfast and I'm alert at yoga. Not too bad :)

How are everyone's goals coming along?

I still watch what I eat, but I've changed my focus. What I've done is to look at how much I exercise, rather than the pounds lost. I set myself a goal of 50 hours of exercise, and when I hit that, I get to go have an hour-long massage and NOT feel guilty about it. I aim for an hour each time I exercise (usually walking or aerobics) but I don't give myself credit for anything less than 30 minutes. I'm just over two weeks into it, and I've already racked up 15-1/2 hours towards my goal.

What keeps me motivated is the way I feel after I exercise. I used to deal with depression (still have some down days, but it's waaaay better now) and had a psychiatrist tell me that most people with mild to "medium" depression could be without medication if they only exercised routinely. Here I am a couple years later and I believe it to be true- working out just kicks in my happy endorphins!

My motivation comes from the thought of paying for the expensive gym membership and also wanting to fit into fashionable *thin* clothes and to be more confident in myself, so i make time, after work it is straight to the gym no matter what be it rain or shine. I am still trying to lose weight it is a hard process i agree ..

On my good days, I go the gym as part of my routine, just like Ilene says. Because it's like brushing my teeth, taking a shower, rubbing styling gel through my hair & blowing it out. It's part of my physical maintenance. I also know that it's a great way to release tension, to get out of my own head for a while, and to revel in the fact that I have a body, that I'm not just living from the neck upward, as my sedentary job & other past-times (reading, TV watching, Web surfing) tend to be.

On bad days, I march myself down there. I say, "You will go, young lady, and you will like it." Because I tend to be self-reproachful and rather hard on myself. By exercising, I get to quiet my inner critic, who can be very nasty & personal. I get to say to her: "No, I'm not fat & lazy. Well, maybe, um, rather sturdily built, but definitely not LAZY. I exercised today. See? I'm doing something about changing myself for the better. I did not let the opportunity presented by this day pass me by."

And also, I've got a long-time streak going here & I am loathe to break it. See, I exercise every single day. Yes. You read that right. Every day. (I believe I definitely missed a day back in January or February, but I don't have time to look it up.) So I don't want to mess up this continuing record.

And there's even more to it. I've learned to work with the quirks of my own personality. Part of me is orderly & fond of routine & takes great comfort in structure & sameness. (Okay, I'll call it what it is: Somewhat obsessive compulsive. Only somewhat. I've seen worse. I'm not Monk.) Gym-going is so much part of my routine that I feel a little unsettled & distracted, as if I'd forgotten something, if I don't do it. Yes, guilty, too, there's also that. Like my day is incomplete. I feel this so strongly that I prefer to do it in the morning, to ensure peace of mind for the rest of the day. That's getting into the weird zone, so I'm trying to counter it by going in the evening, after work. My great danger is unlike yours, and it's inflexibility. Which, eventually, I rebel against. So while I always go to the gym, I try to mix up activities & times & etc., so I don't feel myself narrowing down & setting into rigidity.