How do you get and keep motivated?

[SunsetRunner]

Hi everyone I just wanted to know how you all get and keep motivated?What are some things that you do to get you motivated to exercise and work out every day?

[USAF-Larry]

Fortunately, @SunsetRunner, I am a self-motivated person.  Actually, I was a military-motivated person who never lost the motivation.  I always consider the alternatives to not exercising or not keeping fit, and I go exercise...

[A_Lurker]

I think the motivation needs to come from within.  I basically deal with it a single day at a time.  Today I'm going to do x number of steps, so I just start working on them.  Some people find motivation from family (ie to be healthier for them).

[WendyB]

I agree it need to come from within. But you really need to like what you do for exercise. If you dont you wont stick with it.

So keep trying to find what you enjoy. So many things to try.

[Frankie11]

First thing I do is pick a song. A song that gets you like, "Yeah! I wanna move!" Play that song whenever you need movitivation. I currently like "Don't Wanna Know" by Maroon 5.

The second thing that helps me get motivated is looking at your dashboard. The dashboard can show your stats with friends or yourself and I just feel like I want to crush my goal when I look at it.

Hope this helps!

[emili]

Hey @SunsetRunner and welcome to the forum. As most have said it all comes from within. I genuinly enjoy working up a good sweat so I don't need motivation per se. But, having been a big girl and now being a smaller girl- that is my number one motivator. I really like being a smaller girl.

[SunsetRunner]

I agree with what the others have been saying. It needs to come from within you, you need to find your own reasons for wanting to exercise. It like the old adage "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink".

That being said I have my days too where it is hard to get motivated to do anything, however once you find something that you really enjoy doing it gets easier. I also found that as my fitness improved my motivation to exercise increased too. Even on the days were I finally forced myself to do something I found that 99.9% of the time I felt better and more motivated after about 5-10 minutes. Even when I didn't necessarily end up enjoying the workout I still ended up feeling good about myself and having a sense of accomlishment for having endured the workout.

[Bobeoxxl]

I motivated myself to run or work out everytime i feel alone or stress. In my opinion, it is not a positive way to get fit or be healthier. However, it does help!

Other recommendations: 

- Set acceptable targets and follow it with your tracker.

- Try not to quit or give up too early.

- Thinking about your body at the age of 60.

I think those are enough.

[bcalvanese]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

Hi everyone I just wanted to know how you all get and keep motivated?What are some things that you do to get you motivated to exercise and work out every day?

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Life style change must become a habit. If you don't make it become part of you day, you more than likely won't stick to it.

What I did was gradually replace my bad habbits (sitting on my butt) to gradually increasing exercise.

The thing that motivated me the most was getting a fitness tracker. It gave me the ability to record my vitals during workouts and track my progress over time.

The thing that keeps me motivated is knowing that my fitness level had gone from "extremely poor" to "good" over the past 20 months, and how much better I feel (weighing over 50 lbs. less than I used to).

I logged my food and learned how to eat healthier over that 20 months and for the past 6 months I have not even been logging my food at all, and have been maintaining my weight.

I exercise every day for the most part, and it has become such a habit that I can't "not" do it.

[Sarahjjones]

I'm a Facebook addict so like to use groups on there, I love Fitbit challenges, so to combine the two I've started a Fitbit challenge group - 2017 miles in 2017, feel free to join us 👍

https://www.facebook.com/groups/106535693184435/