The Athlete

What are you getting fit for? Finding motivation.

Why would you want to get fit and healthy? There are many reasons that are very good reasons to look forward to fitness. Getting fit can increase your blood flow to you heart, lungs, and extremities allowing for better circulation. Exercising is a major part of being healthy. Exercising is great as long as you actually get down to doing it. Sometimes the motivation just isn’t there and we end up not doing anything.

A great way to find the motivation you may need to stay fit is to start out small. Start by setting specific goals, like if you wanted to flatten your abs in a certain amount of time or you would like to lose 10 pounds in a month. Be sure that your fitness goals are realistic. Setting goals that are impossible to meet in a short amount of time is only going to set you up for disappointment and that’s a major motivation killer.

Also, you can set an incentive for yourself for losing those unwanted pounds or being able to run a mile every other day. Great incentives would be to buy that dress you’ve been dying for that’s hanging on display in the window at the mall. Relieve a boring routine with some change. Don’t do the same fitness routine every time that you exercise. Alternate it and spice it up some. The same thing every time can make you not want to do it. Instead of running on the treadmill, try walking the same amount of time outside of the gym. Change of scenery can do you some good just as changing the length of time that you work out on each machine in the gym. If you usually workout for 30 minutes on each fitness machine, change it to 15 minutes on some days.

Always try to reward yourself after each workout, even if it is something small. Go to the video store and rent your favorite movie or buy a special low-fat treat at the grocery store once you’ve reached the fitness goal you’ve set for yourself.

Try to associate your fitness workout with something you enjoy doing. If you don’t like working out or find it painful, you will lose motivation and in turn not be able to complete your fitness program the way that you had planned. If you like running, try to make that the majority of your fitness routine. If swimming is something you love doing, you can enjoy it and exercise at the same time.

Setting adjustable goals will also help you reach your fitness goals. Adjustable goals can be changed if something unexpected comes up like an injury or a family emergency that may keep you from the gym. Setting time based goals are a great way of finding motivation also. If you run a mile in 10 minutes, the next time you run a mile, try to reach 9 minutes and so on. These are all great way to improve your fitness routines and get motivated to reach all of our fitness goals