Strugglin’ to get myself up off the couch. Every day is a constant battle of wanting to exercise and having the energy or motivation to do so. It’s hard to muster up the energy at 8 p.m. When the hours have been long and the day hard, the idea of a treadmill is far from relaxing. Sweats are amazing, but doing anything other than snuggle under a blanket? No way!
I’ve tried many things unsuccessfully.
- Sweats when I walk in the door. Put on the running clothes right away and just wait for the time.
- Don’t put on sweats. Put on jeans and make myself feel productive.
- Don’t sit down. At all.
- Pick up the house immediately after Maximus goes to bed. Then, don’t sit down.
- Don’t think about the DVR or blogging or housework.
- Don’t eat anything after Maximus goes to bed.
Like I said, I’ve failed miserably more times than not. I can’t seem to find something that works. I can’t figure out when or how to start an exercise routine. One week I decided that each Monday I would run on the treadmill. That worked for two weeks. Then I was going to try to do other exercises different days of the week. That never lasted more than a couple of tries.
So far this week I’ve run twice. I’ve gotten up in the morning and decided that I will find the time to run after Maximus goes to bed. I will push myself to run through the aches and pains and concentrate on my breathing. I won’t sit down and watch tv until after I’ve had a workout. It’s actually working! For me, running is a mental battle. It’s a mental battle to get my shoes on and it’s a mental battle each step I run. I like to give myself an easy out once it starts getting difficult. The only thing that got me through the last three minutes of my run tonight was a mantra. I have a love-hate relationship with running. Love-Hate. Love-Hate. Love. Hate. It sounds funny, but it worked. It didn’t work because of the words. It worked because I was occupying my brain so I couldn’t convince myself that I couldn’t do it anymore.
How do you motivate yourself to exercise and stay healthy?
What works for me is setting a goal. Anything from, “I will run 30 minutes three times a week” or “I will run 12 miles per week” or tracking calories, because when I am tracking them, I am more motivated to get that 30 minutes of activity in so that I am not starving at 5 PM with no calories left for the day. Obviously I am far from the picture of health, but it does help. Change your goal every week if you feel like it. Maybe it’s 12 miles one week and 90 minutes the following week. Then you don’t have to look at Monday as the dreaded-treadmill day. The other thought is that even if you only do ten minutes and then go to the couch, it was still better than zero minutes… (I need to practice what I preach, as I type that)
Also, give yourself some grace and do pick one night that belongs to you and the couch!
Another thought – not sure what your work schedule is like as it coincides with picking M up from daycare, but perhaps you could sneak home, get in a quick run and then go pick M up?