Getting Started with Health & Fitness: There WILL Be Days...

There will be days that you just do not wanna...

This newly found lifestyle is exciting at first.  You may jump out of bed for the first couple of days, excited to get your workout done and lunch prepped before you run out the door.  You may find yourself feeling happy and motivated to get things accomplished.  It is a wonderful feeling!

But the newness and excitement of the lifestyle will wear off at some point.  You may be sore in the first few days.  You may have spent your energy chasing around your kids, doing homework, working overtime, or staying up too late binge-watching Netflix.  You may wake up on the wrong side of the bed with the wrong attitude one morning.  It happens.

Yes, it happens to all of us at one time or another. We all lose our motivation.  It may happen at different points in your health journey, and I will warn you, it will not happen just once.  Here is why:  motivation is simply a temporary state of mind.  It is an emotion, just as happiness, sadness, and joyfulness are emotions, so is motivation.  It does not stick around permanently.  You have to conjure up motivation every, single day.

So what can you do when you do not feel like doing anything?

You do it anyway.

Yep, you do it anyway.  Why?  Because you have to discipline yourself to make good habits.  You have to do what you know needs to be done, no matter how bad you do not want to do it!  According to Google, the word "discipline" means to:

train oneself to do something in a controlled and habitual way.

We want to train ourselves to live a healthy lifestyle.  It does not become a habit overnight.  No, the new habit needs lots of practice.  We have to discipline ourselves to create that new habit...to make it part of our lifestyle.  Discipline is going to be the thing that keeps our motivation going.

In 2015, my life fell apart and I was not focused on my health or fitness.  In 2016, I was working to make my workouts a part of my daily routine.  I knew that I needed to focus on completing a whole program all the way through.  I did not allow myself to make excuses, and I knew that I always made an excuse about not being a morning person.  So I got up everyday and worked out in the morning. I got it done day in and day out.  There were days that I did not want to workout.  There were days that I did not want to get up when my alarm went off.  But you know what?  I did it anyway.

I disciplined myself to make my fitness part of my routine.  If I knew that I would be traveling or I would not be home for a workout, I made sure to pack what I needed so that I could still get that workout in no matter where I was!  It was that important to me.

In December, as I was reflecting on the year of 2016, I had realized that since I made my workouts a priority during the year that it was easy to make sure I got my workout in during the day.  I knew that my foundation was ready to be built upon.  I knew that no matter what, I would take time to get a thirty-minute sweat session in no matter where I was.  If I had to rearrange the schedule, I would do just that.  But I knew going into 2017, I was ready for more discipline.

I was dedicated to my workouts, which in turn brought me more motivation.

Some days you will have more motivation than others.  Take advantage of that motivation when it comes!  Some days you will have to dig deep into discipline and just do it because you are trying to make it a habit in your life.  Then there are days that you do the action because you are dedicated, which in turn will bring more motivation to you.  

Getting Started with Health & Fitness: Focus on THIS

Diet.

What do you think about when you hear that word?  How does it make you feel?

Sad? Mad? Crazy?  Like you want to run away and hide?  I personally think that it has a bad connotation because of all the feelings that comes with being on a diet.  

If you have ever been on a diet, you have probably come to the conclusion of:

1. It is not going to work for you because you feel too restricted.
2. It is not going to work for you because you do not want to be on the diet the rest of your life.

I have felt both of those things in my years of dabbling in the diet world.  It is not fun.  Life is pretty miserable.  But it does not have to be that way!

As I was getting started with my own health journey, "clean eating" was a popular term that was floating around cyberspace and yet I had no clue what it meant.  I was not sure if it was just the next popular thing or if it really was something worth checking out.  Was it something that I wanted to focus on in my health journey or did I need to focus on something else?  What did I need to focus on?  Where was I supposed to focus?

I had figured out that I was going to have to change the way I ate...I think that much is always given.  But what I thought I would have to do and what I actually have to do is totally different.  I was thinking way too much about the foods that I was going to have to give up.  I was thinking that it was going to be just like a diet for the rest of my life.  But I was wrong.

If you are just getting started with your health and fitness journey or if you are wanting to make eating healthy a lifestyle instead of just another crash diet, then you are in luck.  I have a tip for you that you can implement today!

Do not think about all the foods you will have to give up.  Instead, focus on adding ONE healthy thing into you daily diet.  For example, we all know that vegetables are good for us.  You can simply start by just adding one more serving of veggies into your day.  Then tomorrow add in another healthy option.

As you focus on adding healthy options into your diet, the not-so-good-options will take a backseat and you will start craving the good things!  You do not have to think about what you should not be eating, or rather want to keep out of your diet, but you can think about all the good, nutritious things that you can eat!  Pretty soon you will be feeling good about the options you are choosing to eat, and then your body will be feeling good because of the nutritious foods you are choosing to feed it!  

Getting Started with Health & Fitness: Avoid the Overwhelm

Starting your fitness journey can be scary and sometimes it can be overwhelming.  It is something new that you are trying to implement into your routine.  You are doing things that you are not used to or maybe you have never even done.  It is okay to take it slow! In fact, I would encourage you to do so. If you try to implement too many new things, you will likely give up early.

Maybe you are completely consumed with where your lifestyle is currently and you are thinking about everything that has to change in order for you to be healthy.  I mean, if I allow myself to think about that, I get overwhelmed!  I would encourage you to take one step back, and only allow yourself to think about the moment.

What can you do in this very moment that will take you a step towards a healthy lifestyle?  Do not allow yourself to think about the big picture yet.  I know that if I allow myself to think about the amount of weight that I need to lose to get to my goal weight or how many sizes are in between my current size and my goal size, I get really discouraged.  It is an overwhelming feeling that takes over.  That makes me feel like I want to crawl in bed, pull the sheets over my head and never come out.

This is a journey.  It is a journey to making health and fitness part of your lifestyle.  When you make it part of your lifestyle, it is with you forever.  It becomes second nature to you. You do these things because that is just what you do. There will be time to add and subtract things along the way.

So if we think about it as a journey, we need to think about all the different stops we will make.  There will be stops to pick up new things.  There will be stops to dump the garbage out.  There will be stops to sightsee.  There will be road blocks.  There will be stops to re-route.  There will be all kinds of these stops along the way.  It will allow you to implement new options.  It will allow you to get rid of what you do not like or want.

So do not get overwhelmed at the thought that you have to change everything today.  Take it slow. Do not get burnt out before you even get started.  Do not get discouraged.

How do you avoid the overwhelm?  Take it slow.  Take it one step at a time.  Focus on what you can do right now.  Change one or two things at a time until you have control.  Then add in a few more things.  You can do it!

Getting Started with Health & Fitness: My #1 Tip

There are so many different voices being yelled at us these days.  We have many options when it comes to finding information.  We can look on numerous websites on the Internet.  We can go to our social media accounts and ask our friends.  Someone we know and trust can recommend something to us.  There are so many options!

But when it comes to your health, who do you trust?

I did not know either.  When I started this journey over four years ago, I had no clue what to do.  I did not know what to eat or how to workout.  So I started doing research.  I did research for months!  That was the worst thing I could have done for myself.

Why?

Because I wasted all of that time on my computer trying to come up with the perfect plan for this journey. I could have been using that time to work toward my goals, but I did not do that. I wasted so much time.  And guess what I found out?  There is NO perfect plan.

 >>>hashtag BIG BUMMER<<<

When I started my journey, I did not know who to listen to. I did not know what information to use.  I did not know what kind of food to eat. That is why I did so much research, but if I could go back and start over, I would tell myself one thing.

Just start.

Yep, that is it.  I would tell myself to get off the computer. Stop searching pinterest.  Stop asking people so many questions, and just get out there and make ONE single decision that would point me in the right direction.

If I had that mindset going in, I am sure that I would be in a different place than I am today.  So please, if you are waiting for the right time or the right program or the right day, stop waiting.  Just get out there and make one decision that will make you healthier!

Getting started may be the scariest move for you, but it is the one move that will be worth it.  I promise!

Here are a couple of ideas for you if you are stumped:

1. Take a 20 minute walk instead of watching that show on tv (just DVR the show).
2. Drink water instead of that pop you were planning on having for supper.
3. Go to bed earlier.
4. Eat veggies instead of those potato chips or french fries you were planning to eat.
5. Encourage someone.

Any of those things will help get you started.  Once you get over the fear of getting started and you make that first move, you will see how much better you feel, and you will build momentum and it will be easier to make that decision the next time.

Journey to Jesus: Freedom

Have you ever dreaded something so much that you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders? Did you feel like that burden had been lifted once you did that thing?  You tasted freedom once it was over.  Right?

Life with Jesus is like that.  The freedom part, I mean.

I know that I have felt the heaviness of sin on my shoulders. Before Granny passed away, I was not spending time with God.  I was not listening to Him.  I was not putting Him first in my life.  I wanted what God wanted for me, but in my own selfish way.  Even good things can become idols in our lives.  That is exactly what happened to me.

I knew what was happening.  I knew that I needed to ask for forgiveness in my life.  I knew that I needed God's help to get me turned around, headed in a direction with Him.  But another sin entered my life before I could ask for that forgiveness.  It was called pride. I had too much pride in my life to ask for help.  I had heard the gentle voice calling me back to Him, but I chose to ignore it.  I wanted to do this on my own.

Do you ever look back on a situation and think to yourself how silly and stupid you were?  That would be this moment right here for me.  I WAS TOO PRIDEFUL TO ASK FOR HELP. I needed that help more than anything in the world. I needed saving.  I needed grace.  I needed love.

I am so thankful that God's ways are not my ways.  His grace comes first. He is always the first to extend that grace to me.  And oh how He lavished me with it.

Grace upon grace upon grace.

I am a work in progress.  His grace covers me first and foremost.  I do not have to come to Him completely "put together."  Then the belief of His power working in my life comes and then behavior changes--we are convicted of things He wants us to change or work on.  The farther down the journey we get with Him, the more we trust and obey Him.

As we trust and obey Jesus, He enables us to speak, live, and work for Him.

We can trust and lean on His strength to empower us to do the things that He has called us to do, no matter how scary they might be.

Living a life of freedom sometimes means being vulnerable and sharing how God has worked in my life.  It means living like I am a new creation with the emotions, thoughts, and attitudes that God gives me rather than the emotions, thoughts, and attitudes that I can adapt from the world.  It means that I need to live with Him at the center of my life--making every decision based on how He wants me to live.  And lastly, one of the hardest things I have had to learn in my fitness journey is no believing in who the WORLD says that I am, but rather finding my true worth in Christ.  


Christ came so that I may find life and freedom in Him.  He died on that cross so that I could spend eternity with Him.  I no longer have to live as a slave to sin, but rather I can live in my freedom that Christ has given me.  He has set me free from all my sin and shame.

Are you living in your freedom?  Or are you suffering in your shame?  Friend, go live in the freedom that Christ has given you!  There is nothing more refreshing that Him taking our guilt and redeeming it into something more beautiful that you could ever imagine.

If you enjoyed this post, please share it or leave a comment! If you're needing some encouragement on your own spiritual journey or are looking for ideas on how to begin or continue with your own Bible study, join The Core!