3 TIPS FOR WHEN YOU HAVEN'T BEEN FEELIN' "IT"...FOR A LONG TIME.
It's common to experience lack of motivation to workout and eat healthily. Maybe you're tired after a long day of work and the last thing you want to do is hit the gym. Maybe ordering pizza sounds like a better idea than ordering a healthier option. These moments happen. However, when these moments turn into extended periods you may need to make some changes. I've listed below tips that can help you turn your down period around.
Small Changes Create Large Transformations...
When you focus on the larger overall transformation you miss all the tiny little miracles happening within your body. You miss the fact that you ran slightly faster than yesterday. You ignore that your workout was slightly easier for you to complete this time than the last. Remember to appreciate all the little changes because they contribute to the larger ones. Appreciation and gratitude for the small changes will prevent you from becoming impatient while your results rack up and progress. A watched pot takes much longer to boil than if you walk away and come back to it.
Pro Tip: If you're disappointed with your progression, it's probably because you're not paying attention to the right things.
Document Everything...
The power of keeping a journal is a new concept for me, but I feel compelled to pass on this gift. Not only should you be taking and comparing progress pictures, but you should be making videos of your form, and taking note of how you feel along your fitness journey, and paying attention to how your activewear fits. By tracking everything, not just your weight or measurements, you'll be able to see the progression in your mental state, your form, your strength, as well as your physique.
What You Resist Persists....
Your fitness journey should not be stressful, disappointing, and draining. If you don't feel uplifted and motivated to turn your goals into a lifestyle then revisit your goals. What are your goals? Are they all physique related? Include more goals like mood-boosting, or strength and flexibility improvement. At a certain point, pursuing my goals didn't feel good to me. I was obsessed with progress, and comparing myself with much leaner women. So I stopped. I quit fitness. I walked away, and I started focusing on myself in different ways. I renewed my therapy sessions, I became more introspective and I realized that I was relying on fitness to change me because subconsciously I didn't like myself.
This is advice that no other fitness blog will ever give you.
If fitness doesn't make you happy, STOP, and immerse yourself in other things that DO make you happy. I guarantee you that if you release the resistance you feel from fitness and focus on doing other things that make you happy you will return to fitness and with a much healthier perspective. Instead of feeling a burning feeling to change your body you will feel a grateful feeling of honoring your body. When you transform your thinking from changing things you dislike about your body to honoring your body by doing things that benefit it eating healthier will become easier, finding the motivation to workout will become easier, and being patient with your body will become easier.
You will change.
When I returned to fitness I didn't get right back to the gym and lifting heavy. Instead, I took walks through my neighborhood every day. I listened to songs that made me dance through wooded paths, and I imagined myself as this dynamic-invincible-superhero woman who could demolish all her obstacles. I no longer relied on fitness and transforming my body to make me happy. Instead, I got happy on my own and invited fitness back into my life as an expression of that happiness.