perseverance...

that sick of working out faithfully and not eating junk food whenever I want feeling is starting to hit. I need to stay focused, keep my eye on my goals, my progress, and not move backwards, but how?! so that bring us to this lovely post of keeping motivated! I looked over various tips and advice from fitness professionals and here's a few tidbits I liked.

1. Look back to the past- many people trying to lose weight have "tried" over and over with new plans, diets, equipment, medicine, whatever. I feel like I've been there somewhat and so by looking back at what made me fail then can help me prevent setting myself up again. For example, in the past I would stop or cut myself slack when I started seeing results. I would get comfortable with the progress I had made and decided I could afford less workouts or more yummies until I either gained weight back, or eventually weaned myself off my routine completely. So to avoid that, maybe I'll start weighing myself less to shift my mindset more to what I'm doing for my body rather than what a week of workouts is doing for my body. Does that make sense?

2. Relax- whether you're rewarding yourself for your efforts, or simply taking some extra time to do something you like to break up the stuff that's maybe not so fun, it's important! I have to make sure I'm still seeing that my needs are met and not just running myself ragged. Otherwise, I get cranky and stressed out and I'm much less likely to feel up to working out. Seeing as I always seem to bite off more than I can chew- this is a good one for me!

3. Look to the future- so I know I talked about looking back to the past but at the same time, focusing on the things you are working toward, and the reasons behind those goals can help too. I've seen a nike ad a couple of times that says to run from the pain, the problems, the fear, etc. Last night when I hit the gym I was tired, I was hungry, and I really just wanted to go home and bum around. I started thinking about that poster but then I realized I didn't want to think about running away from negative things, but rather running toward the positive things... Running toward the joy, the strength, the satisfaction of overcoming the challenges, the way I'll feel when I'm fit and healthy, all the good things that are slowly coming as I stick to my guns. I liked that better.

I don't want to make this too long so I'll leave it there for now. But what do you guys think? How do you get yourself out of a rut and push yourself to keep going when you're facing something hard?

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend (is Tuesday too late to say that?) and have an even better week!

<3 K