6 Best Ways to Keep Your Fitness Motivation Up

With the roadmap to freedom announced, a lot of us are re-discovering the fitness motivation as we begin to consider putting on our most-loved outfits, heading out, or simply socializing once more. You’ve got the equipment (or have at the very least stockpiled with baked beans or bottles of water), and you’ve found your sports bra and been committing your mind your life to this cause. But how do you make sure you stay motivated and committed over the coming weeks and months?

Also Read: How to Lose Weight Fast

Here are a few of my favourite fitness motivation tips and hacks to help you stay motivated in an every changing landscape!

1. Get ahead

I am a big fan of prepping ahead when it comes to my health and fitness! At the start of the week I sit down and plan out my workouts for the week, putting them in my diary like any other non-negotiable appointment. Having my workouts in my diary makes me less likely to over commit and more likely to actually do them … especially if I set a reminder as well.

I also plan out my meals for the week ahead using this handy little meal planner before heading to do the weekly shop too. Having a set plan not only saves me money (our shopping bills have halved since we started using this) and prevents wastage; it means I also tend to ‘throw in’ less processed and sugary treats into the trolley too!

Although life will always throw you curve balls, having a plan and making a commitment to yourself will leave you feel more motivated to show up when the going gets tough.

2. Visualize your future self

Now before you think I’m going all ‘woo’ on you, hear me out! As humans, we’re very visual creature and so visual prompts can be highly motivational when it comes to achieving your goals.

Whether your fitness motivation is to lose weight, gain confidence or just generally improve your health and fitness, create yourself a vision board. There’s a great video guide to creating a vision board on The Manifestation Collective but in short think about your why, the reason you started to workout in the first place and search for some images relating to this on Pinterest. These could be mottos, images, graphics anything that invokes that feeling within you and collate them either digitally or physically.

Whenever you’re questioning if you should show up, use your vision board for your fitness motivation and remember why you started in the first place.

3. Find your vibe

Having a-start go-to playlist will always help fuel your fitness motivation, especially on those days where it may feel as though your cup is a little low on juice!

Taking some time to fine-tune your playlists. I have ones for running, ones for gyming and ones for stretching so I always have something on hand no matter where my workout is taking me (listening to Geri Halliwell’s Scream If You Wanna Go Faster on a trail run is a vibe)!

4. Track your progress

Remembering where you started and how far you have come so far can really help you stay on track!

Seeing progress is a great way to keep up that fitness motivation and to keep you honest. Personally, I love to use a combination of photos, measurements and base lining on the gym floor to get a good all round picture of where I’m starting and where I’m at when looking at progress.

Why?

Because whilst some measurements might not be going in the direction I’d like them to, photographs and improvements in the gym show that there is progress being made?

Don’t make yourself solely reliant on one form of progress to stay motivated.

5. Count down, not up

Who else hears the magic words ‘one more rep’ and really goes for it?

Psychologically, seeing how far you have come as opposed to how far you still have to go is much more motivating and so counting your reps down and not up is more likely to make you go after it than having counted 9 reps out of 10 and letting yourself off for work well done.

6. Take it slow

As tempting as it might be, throwing yourself in at the deep end when it comes to a new health and fitness regime is a recipe for burnout. If you want to create a long-term lifestyle that you love, you need any changes you make to be sustainable.

Start small – if you’ve not been working out at all for a while, then start by working on your mobility and then gradually start incorporating some light weights, moderate cardio and bodyweight exercises in. By starting small and working upwards, you are less likely to become de-motivated through burnout, and ultimately quitting because it’s not going your way.

Also Read: Surprising Health Benefits of Playing Cricket

Remember, something is better than nothing and those small changes will add up over time along with your motivation!

Ultimately, the first step to staying motivated is getting started – fitness motivation is an ongoing battle and not one that won overnight. The most important thing is that you keep reminding yourself of why you started, how well you’re doing, and not to give up!