How to exercise when you feel lazy...

Today's post: Tuesday, 2-12-2008

In today’s world of sedentary jobs & recreations & virtually no walking to go places, people who exercise regularly gain enormous benefits. It helps enormously to compensate for the physical activity our bodies evolved to do & that we no longer get.

And, people who never exercise get all kinds of horrible effects -- from being more likely to become senile to poor or nonexistent sex lives to heart disease to type II diabetes that, as regular exercisers, they could have escaped all or most of.

In short, if you know what good things exercise does FOR you & what horrible things lack of exercise does TO you, it becomes easier to exercise even if you feel lazy. You know how very important it is.

And, if you don’t exercise when you feel lazy, it can become a habit. So, ways to get into exercise most of the days when you do feel lazy are often very important.

That’s my own best strategy to get myself to exercise whether or not I feel lazy that day.

I KNOW how very important it is.

And, I thought I’d include the article below & some of my other ideas that can help because this is such an important issue.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

“How to Get Motivated to Work Out

By Craig Ballantyne

Sometimes you just don't feel like doing your workout. It even happens to me, and I'm a pro! But I know that I feel like a million bucks after my workout. And I know I can't let myself get "soft" and start skipping sessions.
I have to lead by example. But what about you?

If you are set on achieving your fitness goals, you've got to grit your teeth and do the job. So here are some suggestions to inspire you.

1. Reward yourself when you finish a workout. Treat yourself to a magazine, a TV show, some extra time with your family, some new songs for your iPod, or even a little extra time for yourself.

2. Punish yourself when you miss one. Skip the workout, put $20 into a jar to spend on home repairs. (Make sure your spouse controls the jar.)

3. Review your goals every day and every night. Keeping your goals fresh in your mind will help you stay on track.

4. Realize that the hardest part of the workout is often getting your butt to the gym. Once you get five minutes into it, you will be over the hump. So tell yourself, "I'll just go in and do one set of the first two exercises. Then I can leave." Next thing you know, you'll have done the entire workout.

5. Visualize yourself performing a great workout and finishing strong. Get yourself mentally prepared, and you will have better workouts every time.

6. Crank the tunes. Seriously. Nothing motivates like music.

Now get out there and kick the fat to the curb!

[Ed. Note: Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne is the creator of the Turbulence Training for Fat Loss system.”

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Some of my added comments.

Here are some other ideas I’ve found to help.

1. I know on the nights that I go to the gym to work out with the heavier weights they have there, that when I go in feeling frazzled, wrung out, & tired, that I’ll feel OK within the first two sets. I literally go in feeling like a wreck & feel good in just a minute or two.

I’ve found that knowing that helps me make the effort to show up there quite a bit on days when I feel less than my best.

2. I keep track of when I go in a written log. If I do miss a session for any reason, I make a much stronger effort to go to the next session than I otherwise might.

If I make 90 % of the sessions, I know I’ll benefit. And, if I make less than half I’ll get a lot less out of it. So, I’m not upset if I miss one. But I make it a personal priority to not miss two in a row even if I feel lazy just before that second one.

3. The other thing I do is to also exercise virtually every day at home for a few minutes as part of my first thing in the morning routine. (I do upper body three days, every other day; leg exercise 3 of the days I’m off from doing upper body exercise; & one easy extra abdominal workout the 7th day.

This means that when I do have to miss going to the gym, when I go back, I can usually pick up about where I left off.

And, since it’s a part of my everyday early morning routine before other events can get in the way, I hardly ever miss.

I don’t even think about whether or not I feel lazy, I just do it.

I hope you find some of these ideas helpful & that they work for you also.