How to Stay Motivated to Exercise: Six Tips

We all know that it’s important to exercise, not just to boost weight loss but for good health in general.

But many of us find excuse after excuse to avoid the gym, or to put off going for a jog or even a brisk walk. Life gets busy, and there are always competing demands on our time.

I’d be the first to admit that staying motivated to exercise is hard! Here are six tips that’ll help you keep up your enthusiasm, or which will get you over the “can’t be bothered” days:

1. Just Get Going

This works for almost anything that you feel a reluctance to get started on – especially exercise. Rather than sitting on the sofa trying to talk yourself into a workout, just get up and start moving. Pack your gym kit. Head out for a jog. Tell yourself you can stop after five minutes. Once you’ve started, the battle’s half won.

A related tip for this is to pack any exercise gear you need in advance. For example, if you exercise in the evening on the way home from work, get your kit bag ready the night before and put it in the car, so it’s already sitting there when you wake up bleary-eyed and have to hurry off to work.

2. Keep An Exercise Log

Tracking the workouts that you do has several benefits:

• It holds you accountable to yourself (you can easily see which days you’ve skipped)
• It gives you a record of success to look back on
• It shows you how you’re progressing – eg. you can see that you’re lifting heavier weights and running faster than when you started out

On days when you lack motivation, sometimes the thought of recording a workout in your log is enough to get you moving! Your record doesn’t need to be anything elaborate: a small notebook or diary is fine.

3. Work Out How Many Calories You’re Burning

If you can be a bit of a numbers geek at times, like me, you’ll find that working out the calories you’re burning can be motivating (especially as this is an encouragement to exercise faster and harder and increase the burn!) The Activity Calculator is a great tool for this.

Don’t forget, too, that you do need to eat a bit extra on the days when you’re doing a workout: your body needs fuel to burn. If you regularly find yourself struggling through workouts and lacking energy, this may be an indication that you need to eat a larger pre-workout snack.

4. Take Your Own Music

This might seem like a bit of an odd tip, but I’ve found the gym much more enjoyable when I’ve taken along my MP3 player and headphones. I’m no fan of the typical sort of “gym music”, and being subjected to it for a 40-minute cardio workout was never exactly the highlight of my day!

Find some tracks that you love to listen to – ideally upbeat, pacey ones that encourage you to move faster, or that simply put a grin on your face! Another option is to listen to audio books or podcasts – if you’re often pressed for time, this is a great way to make your workout a multi-tasking experience.

5. Find A Buddy

Do you often plan workouts, then cancel on yourself? If so, the solution is to find a gym buddy: a friend, colleague or family member who you’ll join for a workout. It’s much harder to weasel out of a commitment you’ve made to someone else: you won’t want to let them down.

If you really can’t find a suitable gym buddy, why not join an exercise class? Try to get to know a few people there – it’ll make it more fun, and you’ll have a reason to show up each week.

6. Think How Great You’ll Feel Afterwards

Lastly, when your motivation seems to have vanished entirely, it can be helpful to think how good you’ll feel after you’ve done your workout. Picture that healthy glow, that blissfully de-stressed feeling, and that sense of virtue! Trust me, you’ll be glad you did do some exercise – so what are you waiting for?