How I Maintain Momentum for Exercise

I am not a person who loves exercise. I am not a person who lettered in four varsity sports and ran half-marathons on the weekends for fun when I was young. I am not that person. 

What I am is a person who comes from a very long line of bad genetics.  My father died at 56. My aunts and uncles on both sides of my family are overweight at best and obese at worst. I am in my early 40s and have obscenely high cholesterol despite my mostly vegetarian diet and frequent exercise. I do all the lifestyle things I can because I can look at my family members and see my future if I don't.  

But.

I really don't like it. I'm clumsy and not really good at any movements and it's always a struggle and hurts.  It's not my jam.

I think that people always say something like "find an exercise you love and you'll love doing it" and that may be true for other people, but it's absolutely not true for me. I'm not convinced there's any exercise I LOVE. I'd much rather be reading a book on the couch than any type of exercise.  

So how do I keep going?  

1. Know thyself.

I'm not going to work out in the morning before breakfast. I wake up starving and the last thing I want to do is go for a run on an empty stomach. I also do not want to work out after dinner because after dinner I almost immediately begin winding down for bed, so knowing my window for exercise means I have to put something on the calendar for that time.

I also know that I get bored. If I have to do the same workout over and over again, I won't do it. So it's a variety for me - I try to get yoga, strength training, and cardio every week. I also don't like workouts that are based on the same X number of exercises, like a ladder workout where you do the same four exercise up and down a ladder. I like to have a variety of movements, so I look for workouts that are geared toward people with attention issues.

You know you better than anyone else. Are you never going to fit it in after work?  Then you're going to have to get up early. Do you hit the snooze button a lot?  Signing up for a 6am class is probably not going to be for you. Are you a person who will go to the gym or are you better off doing something at home? Set yourself up for success by figuring out what time works for and what types of exercise work for you.

2. Set reasonable goals.

It is not reasonable for me to say to myself that I will do a workout every day. Bless those of you who can do 30-day challenges and do yoga/run a mile/do 50 pushups every day for a month. I require rest days as motivation for myself (reward). I also am the kind of person who will think "oh, I missed day eight, the challenge is ruined, I might as well just give up the rest of it" and it actually becomes unmotivational.

So, for me, it is crucial that my goals meet me where I am. When I started tracking my quarterly goals, my exercise goal was only three times a week.  I say "only," but it was hard to do. Now my goal is five or six times a week, but I built up to it and I truly enjoy those days I take off.

3. Be accountable to someone (or something)

People always say have an accountability buddy, but I never really had someone I thought would be interested in what I do every day. Now I have a workout buddy who lives across the country from me, but she herself finds it encouraging that I do something every day, even if it's only for 15-30 minutes. After every workout, we send each other Facebook messages with a synopsis of the workout and how it made us feel. Since we've started being accountability buddies in August, she's much more likely to go on hikes with her kids and do random dance parties when she realizes she doesn't have time to do a formal workout by herself. I love that she's showing her children how to include movement in their lives and that she's being a good example for them.

But let's say you don't have a random friend in New Hampshire who wants to hear from you every day. Start an online journal that maybe only one or two people read.  Keep a calendar somewhere you look every day and document your workouts so you can see your progress.  Keep a record.  It really works.

4. Be kind to yourself

Like I said above, I am a clumsy person and I stumble and fall and run into things and don't really have a good sense of my body.  I sometimes find exercising frustrating because other people (teachers, people on YouTube videos, Britney Spears dancers) make things look so easy and I can't even figure out how to coordinate my right leg to go down at the same time as my left arm in the dead bug series, let alone do complicated dance moves. But I have to be kind to myself because movemen is not my natural oeuvre (which involves, as discussed above, a cat, a couch, and a book).  Likewise, if I fail at completing a workout or I have to make accommodations because I physically can't do a particular exercise, my mantra is that someday I will be able to do that.  

Don't blame yourself when things go wrong or you have to make adjustments. You are being kind and paying attention to your body and that's what matters the most.

Also, and this is the hardest part, I don't look like what I want to look like when I look in the mirror. I have to be kind and remind myself that my body is strong and capable, even if it isn't want. Kindness to myself is sometimes the hardest thing I do on a daily basis. Gratitude that my body can do what it and kindness that my body is not invincible is the best thing I can offer myself.

5. If you run into a hiccup, just get started

If you fall off the wagon, get back up. There have been plenty of times, particularly when I'm stressed at work, super busy, sick, or injured, when I just don't exercise in a formal way for an extended period of time.  Don't wait until the New Year, the birthday when you turn X years old, or there's a beach vacation on the calendar to get started - get started today.  Do something. Take the dog an extra block.  Do a ten minute YouTube video.  Dance to your favorite song.  

6. If you don't want to do it after 10 minutes, stop doing it.

I always tell myself to just get started with a workout and if, ten minutes in, I still feel like I don't want to be doing something, I give myself permission to stop. I rarely stop.  Just getting started really IS the hardest part and once you get started, you won't really think about stopping.  And, if you do think about stopping, it's probably a sign that you should listen to your body and make accommodations, including just finishing early.

Are you the type of person who loves exercise or are you like me?  How do you motivate yourself to do it?