8 practical tips to stay motivated and consistent with training
When you start working out, you feel excited and motivated to achieve your goals. But after a while, you start getting bored and you lose the motivation to workout consistently.
This problem faces almost every beginner who wants to get in shape. But this doesn’t mean you have to be one of them. Here are some practical tips that I tried personally to keep me consistent with working out and dieting:
1-track your progress
The best motivation for anyone is seeing your body changing and getting closer to your goal. But you if you look at the mirror everyday to see if there any changes, you won’t notice any.
The reason behind this is in your mind as it only notices the big changes, so if you are making baby steps toward your goal, your mind won’t notice it as you check out your body every day.
Therefore, the best way to track your progress is by taking pictures of yourself every week or month, and compare each picture with the previous one. This way you will remember how you was looking and how far did you go from the beginning.
2-have a gym partner
A lazy gym buddy can make you lazy and skip workouts if he didn’t feel like working out today.
On the other hand, a committed gym partner can motivate you and help you path through the days in which you feel tired and bored.
Just remember to pick a gym buddy that already has been training consistently for more than a year and has some experience with working out and dieting to help you with building your own workout and diet plan.
3-Hire a personal trainer
Having a personal trainer is an alternative option if you can’t find a good gym partner, and I know that you have to pay extra money for a personal trainer but it’s totally worth it.
A personal trainer will make the hardest part of your workout journey (which is building the workout and nutrition plan) the easiest part.
He will build a personalized workout plan and nutrition plan for you, and all you have to do is workout and eat as he tells you.
He will also motivate you to push hard at the gym, and keep you on track with your diet to achieve your goal as soon as possible.
4-Workout in the morning
At the end of the day, our energy levels drop and we get tired. That’s why most of us feel lazy to workout at night.
Also, this drop in energy will miss up with your performance at the gym, so even if you could make it to the gym, you won’t be at your best to get the most of your workout session.
Therefore, working out at morning might be a good idea to get done with your training before getting into your long busy day.
5-choose a close by fitness center
Going to close by fitness center can make it easier for you to stay consistent with working out even if this gym isn’t that good.
Let’s say you want to buy something and you are too lazy to move. Will you go to the nearest grocery store or a too far away one?
Even though this near store could be more expensive or selling less quality stuff, you will always choose the nearest store especially if you are too lazy to move.
The same idea goes for working out. When you are tired or just too busy, you might feel it’s too hard for you to drive for an hour to workout for another 2 hours.
Related: 5 Rules to follow if you are looking for a new fitness center
6-cut down the workout duration
I know you always see people workout for two or three hours every day, but this isn’t the best way to workout especially for a beginner.
If you are a beginner, you don’t have to workout that long as you are just getting started and your muscles will respond to any type of new physical activity.
Also, a long workout session every day will make it so hard to stick to your training. Therefore, keep your workout session duration under 1 hour per session and only perform 3-4 sessions per week.
This way you will be making a good progress toward your results and also not wasting a lot of time at the gym.
7-make small changes
If you are someone who never trained or dieted before, and you start training and eating too little every day, trust me you will quit soon.
Humans are adaptive creatures which means we like to do the same things every day. Therefore, if you spend most of your day sleeping and eating unhealthy foods, it will be too hard for you to change all that at once.
So, instead of turning your life upside down, take baby steps toward your goal.
You can easily do that by making small changes to your diet and start working out only for 2 or 3 times a week. And you keep replacing your bad old habits with new good ones a bit by bit until you reach your goal.
8-watch motivational videos
This tip I personally do it every day before working out.
What I like to do is as I am eating my pre-workout meal, I watch some workout motivation videos for my favorite fitness celebrities and remember why I started working out and what I want to achieve.
This could work for you too.
Just try the next time you have a workout session to watch a motivational video of your favorite fitness models working out or listening to a motivational speech. And trust me it will give you a great pump to workout and to change not just your body but your whole life.
The final and the most important tip I can give you is to stay patient and don’t rush the results. Most of us lose motivation because we expect too much too soon. And building muscle doesn’t work that way. You have to give your body enough time to grow and deliver the physique you always wanted.
