How do you get motivated to exercise?

I also have a really hard time motivating myself to exercise. There's some really good suggestions posted that I need to try, thanks!

Well, I have been through it all, spending so much of my life choosing to be very overweight and from time to time trying to change magically from being out of shape and obese to fit and muscular. I am lazy and I like junk food.

Last year, someone close to me signed up to do an Ironman. This year, that person and a few more of us decided to sign up and do one as well. Nothing I have ever done in the past has motivated me more than having my training schedule on my computer, and being able to tick off every workout that I complete. I use a color-coded scheme to keep myself in check. Red is a missed workout, yellow is a decent partial, and green means I did it, baby!

I can influence my motivation from two directions: One, before I am supposed to have a workout, I work on removing every obstacle to the workout so that I am only facing my internal opposition to it, not to all of the other extraneous factors. For instance, if I have to do an indoor bike workout, I will move everything out of the way, set up my indoor trainer, and put on my workout gear. Everything is ready for hopping on the bike and pressing 'start' on my timer. I have found that this drastically removes resistance to doing my workout. I just keep telling myself, "remove the obstacles," until there are no other obstacles. Once you're all suited up and ready to go, it is so much easier to just do it.

The second direction comes from avoiding the pride hit if I have to color my workout in my training spreadsheet yellow or red. If I show up and do my best, I get the green. Keep in mind that I am a lazy person! Somehow, being able to punch in that green, and my reluctance to "color myself" red or yellow works wonders, at least for me.

My third secret weapon is listening to USMC cadences and other motivating material. It makes a huge difference for me and maybe it will for you too. Good luck, you can do this.

I started exercising last January and I said I would commit myself to 3 days a week. I started the couch to 5k programme which was 20-30 minutes of exercising. I found that running was the exercise for me and did it more than 3 times. You have to find what you enjoy doing. I stuck with it and its now at the point where I have to exercise, there is no doubt in my mind, and I do it 6-7 days a week. You have to form the habit and to do that, you just have to push yourself. Only you can do that. Find an exercise you like that doesn't hurt too much (remember all new exercises will hurt) and commit to 3 days a week - or even 2 to get you started, that means if you skip a day, there is always tomorrow.

Find yourself a workout routine and then plan out your workouts on a calendar. Each day you workout, you can check off that day.

Understand it will suck and you won't be comfortable in the beginning. Understand that's really how your body feels all the time, it's just spread out ofver time, so you don't notice the discomfort as much, or the damage it does.

Working out and strengthening your muscles, especially your back, will probably be quite uncomfortable initially, but strengthening your back and core can actually alleviate symptoms long term, especially if you pair it with something like hatha yoga.

I finished my one challenge and doing more stretching and yoga and know I need to get walking again. Doing something every day, but have to get more intense. Plans are to step it up after doctor appointments next week. I keep telling myself to follow my plan, but it is so hard at the moment. Thanks for the push.

Pie, Women, and stupid irrational goals/OCD

I love hiking and I love food and beer. The calorie burns I was getting from all-day hikes over the summer allowed me to eat awesome stuff and drink lots of amazing beer. As the days were getting shorter and colder, I realized I needed I more time-efficient method of getting a big calorie allowance. I did some half-assed attempts at running, but nothing really stuck.

One day I was out of town for work and was out on a jog. I decided I wanted to go to the world famous pie place, and since I didn't have a car, my feet had to get me there. Since I didn't have time to walk there, eat, and get back to where I was staying in time for that day's activities, I realized I HAD to run. That got me to realize that running was not horrible.

Over the next month or so I started running. Mainly to build up endurance to play hockey, and also to be ready for a couple week long hking trips I've got planned for the summer. Then I started running with a girl. On the days we didn't run, I had to run harder, faster, longer so I could look better on our "dates". Then she suggested we do a marathon together, and like a schmuck I said yes.

She got went out of town for a couple weeks at Christmas, so I really cranked up the training. I accidentally let some people at work know what I was doing. Then she came back and said she couldn't do the marathon, but by the point I had already committed myself, and told too many people.

So now, every morning, I get out of bed and say "Goddamn B*tch, I've gotta run because of the marathon because of her and so I can have duck leg confit and a couple Elysians tonight"

I look at myself in the mirror coming out of the shower and see changes every other day and freakin love it!

I motivated myself by just going to the sports shop and getting my self a sports kit and trainers. don't think about it just do it, plus you'll feel amazing afterwards!

I don't like my job, I am completely unmotivated to go every single morning. I don't enjoy a single minute whilst I'm there. But I go every single day because I have to, and when I am there I do my best to do a good job because I have to.

I view exercise in the same light

More or less you are saying that you don't like what you do at work, you don't like what you do outside of work but you force yourself to do it anyway :noway:

:laugh: :laugh: yeah I am either really miserable and at war with the world or you completely missed the point. Are you not very good with analogies :indifferent: