Women’s Health Article – Workout Motivation: You’re Too Legit to Quit by Tony Greco

“When you don’t exercise regularly, bursts of intense activity require your heart and lungs to work much harder than they are used to,” says Drusilla Rosales, R.D., a researcher at the Exercise and Metabolic Disease Research Laboratory at the University of California at Los Angeles. “They never have an opportunity to gradually adapt to your exercise regimen.”And the damage isn’t just physical. “Yo-yo exercising exhausts you emotionally and psychologically,” says Fletcher. It’s hard to drum up the motivation to start a workout program (yet again) when you feel like you’ll fall short of your goals (yet again), he says. But your relationship with exercise doesn’t have to be so hot and cold. Adjusting your mindset and adopting an effective, yet sustainable, routine will keep you moving all year long.

Goals are good—they’re what get people through everything from grueling strength workouts to marathons. But one that’s weight specific (“I want to lose 10 pounds”) often leads to a pattern of yo-yo exercising. Here’s why: Either you get frustrated because you haven’t met your goal, and you quit—or you meet your goal, quit, and gain the weight back.

Keeping a magic number in mind may work temporarily, but if you want to shed extra pounds and keep them off, you need a broader goal.

“Consistent exercisers who see working out as part of their lifestyle, rather than as a way to change their appearance, have the most success keeping weight off,” says J. Graham Thomas, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center at Brown Medical School.

So shift your focus from the scale and think of all the other ways you benefit from exercise. For example, it raises your energy, lifts your mood, and makes you feel stronger and healthier. If getting slimmer is still your top priority, set a goal of fitting into a smaller size instead of hitting a certain weight. Because you gain lean muscle from working out, weight loss doesn’t always register on the scale right away. But your clothes will start to feel looser, and that’s all the encouragement most women need to keep on going.

Change It Up

People tend to go on kicks—I’m going to start running! I’m all about Spinning!—and do nothing but that one activity until boredom lands them back on the sofa, where they stay until a new fitness trend piques their interest.

Instead of having an exclusive, short-term relationship with just one activity, rotate your workouts. Doing too much of one thing not only leads to boredom but can also cause you to plateau, says Ottawa-based trainer Tony Greco, who works with Carrie Underwood and her NHL hubby Mike Fisher. “Variety is the key to seeing results—using muscles in different ways burns more calories and boosts your metabolism,” he says. So mix it up early on, before you have a chance to get bored. To make your alternate activity days feel purposeful, pick something that complements your primary workout. That means if you’re on a running or biking kick, try mixing in yoga sessions to loosen and lengthen your muscles. Or hit the pool, where you’ll build endurance while giving your running or biking muscles a break.

Ease into It

When you’re pumped about a new fitness routine or you have a short amount of time to get in shape for an event, you may be tempted to work out hard seven days a week. But being too gung ho from the get-go could end up backfiring, leading to injuries and burnout (meaning you’re too mentally and physically spent to continue with your routine).

Avoid getting sidelined by taking it slow, gradually increasing exercise volume and intensity. Start with two or three days of training a week for two to four weeks, suggests Brian Schiff, a physical therapist and certified strength and conditioning specialist at the Athletic Performance Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. “After that, you can slowly add extra training days. Just be sure to alternate intense workouts with light ones and take one day off a week.” Recovery days are essential—that’s when your body rebuilds itself and makes strength gains so you can continue to push yourself to get better results.

Rest time also gives your head a much-needed breather. “We tend to underestimate the kind of mental energy that staying motivated and sticking to a routine takes,” says Casey Cooper, Ph.D., a sports psychologist in Lake Forest, California. “Just as you can run low on physical energy, you can run low on mental energy. You need to scale things back or rest to avoid burnout.”

Tony Greco was Interviewed for this article.