What is Motivation?
Motivation is a word that is thrown around a lot, especially when it comes to exercise. Moreover, maintaining a level of fitness, losing weight, or just improving your fitness all require you to get and stay motivated or you won’t do it. In addition, listening to other peoples motivating reasons will not help you, looking at pretty motivational pictures on the wall will not help you because we are all different and so our motivations are different.
The Statistics
Brace yourself. According to Rod K. Dishman, Ph.D., director of the Behavioral Fitness Laboratory at the University of Georgia, nearly 50 percent of people who begin an exercise program drop out within the first 6 months.
The Questions is… Why?
What is it about sticking with a fitness routine that causes so many people to abandon it?
The is Answer is… MOTIVATION!
They don’t want health and fitness badly enough. It is a simple fact of human psychology that if we want something badly enough, we’ll do everything we can to get it.
Your challenge is to find out what motivates you to get serious about fitness and stick with it.
You need to know what you want bad enough. One of our wonderful members and a big part of our Strand Family Cameron Smith recently completed his first 8 Week Challenge with us.
His success was mainly due to his MOTIVATION and WANT to change his life. Cam wrote this little piece on Motivation to help inspire others;
- Unlocking your Motivation
- Health reasons,
- You want a 6 pack,
- A firm butt, you want to lose weight etc
IMPORTANCE OF FITNESS MOTIVATION!
But even if this is the case, the reason WHY you want those things are different.
So the focus to get and stay motivated needs to be on what YOU desire
and what YOU want to do and most importantly, WHY.
To achieve this, you need to first be brutally honest with yourself and you need to accept things that might not be pleasant to deal with. You might have gone up a few dress or clothes sizes, you might be struggling to do day to day tasks or things you never used to struggle to do. But let’s start with one of the most common reasons to try and get motivated, losing weight.
Thinking ”I’ll go to the gym and lose weight” is easy, doing it, not so much.
If you don’t plan, plan on failing. You may have a day when you wake up and feel great and you think ”This is the day!” So you go into the gym all keen and feeling motivated and sign up. A week later you have been to a few classes or have done a few workouts and you wake up sore and tired and it’s just to hard to go to the gym today.
So the easy choice is to not go, the same thing happens again the next day and before you know it, you haven’t been to the gym for months.
This is where having a strong motivating reason and a plan is crucial, because when it gets hard, and it will, you need that strength to keep you going and if you have a plan in place that takes into account days you don’t want to go and you have prepared for it, it’s a lot easier to get through the hard patch and get back on track. It’s like building a house, if you have a weak foundation, eventually it will crumble.
So you’ve read this and now what? This blog isn’t going to tell you the magical secret to staying motivated, only you know that because it’s coming from you. What it can hopefully tell you are some steps to take to find YOUR reason to stay motivated! And once you find it, have a way to remember it daily.
You can wake up and ask yourself Why am I going to the gym?
Does going to the gym get me something I want?
You can write it down and stick it on the fridge… there are a thousand ways to remind yourself but if you don’t find that motivating reason in the first place, you’ll have nothing to remind yourself of!
Cam Smith
You do not have to be part of that 50 percent who quit.
You can stay committed and finish strong. It is all about finding what motivates you personally.
Here are some possible motivators for you.
- Do it for your health. Consistent exercise and healthy eating are the two very best things you can do for your health. You will develop a strong, healthy heart, reduce your chances of many cancers, prevent diabetes, keep a sharp mind and resist dementia and avoid many of the common ailments that come with aging. It is possible to age without decay, and the key to this is exercise and eating well.
- Do it to look better. Appearance isn’t everything, but most of us care how we look. A strong and healthy person just looks good. And it isn’t all physical. Your demeanour will change as you develop the confidence that comes from the discipline of fitness. You will appear more energetic and confident because you will be more energetic and confident!
- Do it to relieve stress. Really! It isn’t a cliché. Exercising really does cause physical changes in your brain and nervous system that results in feelings of calmness and well-being. In fact, you may get so hooked on the mental benefits of exercise that you will crave it!
- Do it to be strong. If you have never done focused on weight training, then you literally have no idea of the total transformation that you will feel after just a few weeks. There is nothing like bending over to pick something up that normally results in discomfort, strain and even pain, only to find out that it is a piece of cake! And by getting strong now, you reduce your risk of age-related falls and fractures because you have the core strength and balance to keep yourself stable.
It is worth taking the time to discover the powerful motivators in your life.
Don’t worry about ‘bribing’ yourself: do what it takes to get yourself moving.
Find out what makes sweating worth it.
Find out what you want more than that brownie.
Your health is at stake; in fact, your very life is at stake. It’s time to transform yourself.
At Strand Fitness, motivation and inspiration are our forte.
We specialise in bringing out the best in every single person.
Actually, motivation and inspiration is part and parcel of EVERY we offer.
Join us for our next 8-Week Challenge and you will see!
For more info, contact Nikki at [email protected]!
We would love to have you.
To your success,
Coach Fred
Importance of Fitness Motivation: 5 Ways To Guarantee Results
Having close to 500 members gives you great experience into the thinking of most when it comes to their fitness journeys.
When I hear of the challenges people face, I love to give great tips that I know will ensure results.
So here are 5 ways you can do this.
Don’t think, just do.
“If it’s your time, and you’re sitting on the fence — you want to do it, you’re thinking of doing it, you’re not sure if you should do it — jump off that fence!
Remember, tomorrow never comes.
Appreciate your body for what it can do.
Unfortunately, I hear so much more from people about what they can’t do or what someone else can do.
“Take pleasure in movement. Take pride in what you can do.”
This deep appreciation for physical health is what allows you to maintain your fitness over time!
Forget the “lose 30lbs in a week” mainstream narrative. Just discover what your body can do. Enjoy it.
Importance of Fitness Motivation: Imagine your future self.
We all have a specific motivation for wanting to lose fat and get fit. Keep that in mind. Whether it’s getting strong enough to play sports with your kids or looking great on your wedding day.
That last one is what helped 32-year-old Melissa lose 55 pounds.
“The whole time, I had this image of myself on my wedding day in my head,” Melissa says. “Walking tall, feeling amazing — feeling statuesque instead of soft around the edges.”
Don’t just think about how you want to look; think about how you want to feel.
“It’s not just about what you see in the mirror, it’s what you feel inside!”
How do you want to feel? Confident? Capable of handling anything that life throws at you? Free to try new things? Comfortable in your own skin?
Imagine what it will be like to live as your future self. How does that guy or girl look, how do they feel, and what do they do? How could you start living a little more like that person today?
Enjoy your food.
Most LEAN Performance Academy clients come to realize that they’ve been eating mindlessly — packing in calories without really tasting the food — for a long time.
What happens when we really take the time to enjoy our food? We usually slow down. We become more conscious of our choices, and we choose better foods for our bodies.
Pay attention to your Surroundings.
When clients recognize how their surroundings might be creating unhealthy habits they usually have an “ah-ha” moment. They start seeing the relationship between what’s around them and who they think they are. This helps them change their self stories and start seeing real results.
“What do I really care about? What gives me joy? How can I get more of that?”
What could you remove from your environment or add to your environment to create a healthier life for yourself?
Maybe you need a challenge??
Give yourself a challenge and RISE to it!
You can do this.
To your success,
Coach Fred
Importance of Fitness Motivation: Do you Diet?
At least once per day, someone asks us to write him or her a diet. The interesting thing is that there is much more to the question then you think. Just FYI, we all struggle with eating. Every single one of us wants to eat yummy food that is probably not good for us daily.
The struggle is real as we often say as a joke but it is.
So what’s the difference? Some of us actually do and some of us don’t.
We all know when some food is good for you and bad for you, it’s obvious. Maybe you don’t know all the nutrient ratios and calories contained in food but we are not that ignorant.
Sugar-bad
Fast food-bad
Trans fats-bad
Alcohol-bad
Processed food-bad
Chicken breast-good
Broccoli-good
Grilled fish-good
Nuts-good
Yams-good
Brown rice-good
Importance of Fitness Motivation: You see my point. So, what is the difference? HABITS!
Developed good habits with eating
Gained knowledge of food choices
Obtained self-control
Gained discipline and some of us want what we want when we want it.
How do the successful lean, strong, fit, healthy people do it? They learn through experience. This is the goal of our food journaling system.
It teaches:
- Principles of healthy eating
- Portion control
- Food selection
- Frequency of eating
- Accountability
- How much to indulge properly
- Good habits
Diets teach you:
- How to deprive yourself
- To go hungry
- The lack of nutrition
- On how to fail
- Ways to trick yourself and your body
- BAD Habits
This is why we do not write diets on a regular basis. You have to learn this information for yourself to succeed long term. It is non-negotiable. We give you the tools and support.
The question you should always ask yourself: Am I feeding my mind or my body?
Want a challenge?
Want to become better? Reach your goals?
To Your Success,
Coach Fred
The Cave
“The cave you are afraid to go in is the cave the treasure you’re looking for is in.”
People have said that if you want to become brave, take your two biggest fears and put them together at once and conquer them. We often see in the fitness arena that we all have many caves we are afraid to go in. The cave where clean eating is, the cave where exercise is, the cave where your lifestyle change is and so on. The only problem…that is where your goal is.
Get rid of that fear. Do not lie to yourself about the changes you need to make in your life. We spend so much time doing the things we think bring us happiness and in reality, those things are making us more miserable and leading us farther away from our goals.
- Eating makes everyone happy until you are overweight.
- Drinking makes everyone happy until it leads you to make bad choices.
- Everyone likes to unwind at night when they should be sleeping because then you sabotage your goals.
You do not have to give up your life to get healthy and fit. You have to learn to live within the guidelines that your goals and your body dictate. As you well know, you cannot have both at the same time. At some point, you must learn to say no to yourself and enter into the cave to get your treasure.
“Your warrior is within and only you can bring it out.”
If you are looking to go into your “cave”, we can help you find your treasure!
To your success,
Coach Fred
You can learn more about Strand Fitness here. Furthermore, you can also contact us here!
