4 reasons Why you are Inconsistent with Exercise
Exercise: You just can’t seem make it stick and it’s SO FRUSTRATING!
In my field as an Eating Psychology Coach, I get the privilege to work with people all over the world on their relationship with food and their bodies. I get to help people create more joy and balance in their lives in this area and I love what I do so much. A big part of that endeavor includes looking at ones relationship with exercise and movement. For many, exercise has always been a means to an end – to burn calories and lose weight. I know that was true for me for many years.
In my book, The Body Image Blueprint, I talk at length how I made a huge paradigm shift around the purpose of movement and how it really changed my life and healed my fraught relationship with exercise.
If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with exercise as well. Perhaps you get motivated, join a gym, go once and then give it up. Or maybe you have exercise ADD: You get swept up into exercise trends, (Soul Cycle, Zumba, Orange Theory, TRX, you name it!) try them for a while and swiftly go back to your default of either what you’ve always done or nothing at all.
Or maybe you’ve tried it all and just feel like you don’t have the time nor motivation nor wherewithal to keep up a movement routine consistently.
Is any of this resonating with you? It should, because we live in a culture where many people have lost touch with the purpose of movement and feel intense pressure to do something daily but just can’t seem to figure it out. Gone are the days of automatic, built in exercise in our daily routines. Now, we feel like we have to shell out money, buy expensive equipment and plan it into our schedules like an appointment to get it done at all.
I hear you, I understand the frustration and the good news is that there are solutions!
Check out the top reasons why you can’t make exercise stick and what to do about it.
You feel like you don’t have time
Solution:
You have many more opportunities for 10-minutes of activity than hour-long bouts. Aim to be ok with and then implement short- 10-minute bouts of walking, stretching, weights or stair-climbing during your day. This will take the pressure off a bit, give you lots of opportunities for time and will give your body the same health benefits, your brain the same stimulating lucidity and your emotional well being the boost it needs.
You don’t have money to spend on expensive gyms, trainers and classes
Solution:
Movement can happen anywhere, any time and completely for free. Try walks, On demand videos, yoga in your home, stair-climbing, hikes, or just play in a park or forest alone with a friend or with your kids.
You have no motivation
Solution:
Motivation doesn’t come out of thin air. It comes by taking small action steps forward towards a goal. Rather than making grandiose, unattainable long-term goals around exercise, make small, measurable goals and find someone to hold you accountable to those goals (ahem, I’m available to help!). Once you hit some small milestones, momentum happens and motivation is a by-product of momentum. Remember, a body at rest stays at rest. A body in motion stays in motion
You hate exercising and dread the anticipation part of it.
Solution:
Oh man, do I ever relate to this. Before my exercise overhaul I used to force myself to do activities that I hated! I’d be on the elliptical for an hour and a half of soul-crushing repetitive movements, or I’d try to run/jog which made me feel miserable and uncoordinated. Now, I choose activities that are meant for MY body mechanics, sentimentality and lifestyle. And most importantly, I choose activities that I find fun, meaningful, playful or make me feel empowered and alive. For me, those exercises include: kettlebells, hot yoga, hiking, walking outside, playing frisbee with my kids, and dancing. Stop trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. What exercises or movements make you feel good? It’s up to you to be an exercise sleuth and find your inner athlete. Trust me – when you do, finding the time to do it will be effortless.
Which of these 4 reasons speak to you the most? What will you do to change things up?
