We all know that working out and eating nutrient dense food has numerous benefits for our health and well-being. But, for many of us, that may not be the main reason that we are hitting the gym and eating yet another spinach salad. Instead of focusing on how exercising makes us feel, we often get lost in the motivation of how we want exercise to make us look.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight and feel confident rocking your beach body, but if this is your sole motivating factor for working out, it may not be a sustainable, long-term, or even healthy program for you.
So, here are some steps you can take to evaluate your current mindset, find your why, and create a healthy lifestyle that you can maintain long-term.
1. Set goals that aren’t related to weight
Although you may begin your program with weight loss goals, this is not something that you can keep up forever. So, it’s important to continue setting goals for yourself that don’t involve physical appearance aspects. Some of these goals could be, hitting a new PR, running a certain distance, etc.
Achieving these goals can help to keep you motivated to go workout as well as provide you with a sense of accomplishment that will make you want to come back for more. Pay attention to the goals that you are setting as they can also act as a guide to helping you find your why, what’s important to you and why you want to live this lifestyle.
2. Understanding the long-term benefits of exercise
Exercising can do so much more for you than just make you look good. It can make your heart healthy, improve your life expectancy, provide you with stress relief, and improve your mental health. Understanding all of these amazing benefits can help you to find a why outside of weight loss.
3. Love your body unconditionally
For some of you, this may be the hardest one and will therefore, be the most important. In order to escape the diet culture and find your why outside of weight loss, its important to accept your body in all its forms and learn to appreciate it for the amazing things that it can do.
4. Finding internal and external motivators
Now, for finding your why, your big motivator, your reason for choosing to live an active and healthy lifestyle. You will need to dig deep here and consider why this is truly important to you. Is it about how strong and confident you feel after weight training and how that confidence then spills into other areas of your life? Is it because you want to be able to play with your kids and your kids’ kids? Is it because you want to live a long, happy life? Whatever your reason, finding your why will not only help to make this a lifestyle, rather than a weight loss plan, it can also be a major motivating factor when you aren’t feeling it. When you have a clear understanding of your why, you can turn to it and remind yourself of it when you want to skip your workout or are even just feeling down about your body.