What is your Motivation?

Motivation for working out…how do you get it?  Many of you have asked me this and it’s tough to answer because it comes down to your why for working out.  There are a ton of reasons:  lose weight, look good, get healthy, or  train for a physical event like a marathon, etc.

How do you get the motivation?  You need to want it so bad that you wake up every morning and you know you are going to workout and eat as clean as you can.   It’s not easy when you have been used to a sedentary lifestyle or to eating junk, but if you want it bad enough you’ll do it.  Because successful people do what unsuccessful people don’t want to do!

So, to answer this question, I’ll tell you what motivates me.  There are a few reasons:  1.  I love the feeling I get after doing an amazing workout, 2.  to be healthy, and 3.  to look good of course!  I work out 6 days a week, 5 of those days I wake up at 4:30am to get the workout in(I know you think I’m crazy!).  It’s become a habit and it’s like my cup of coffee in the morning.  Some days it’s tough to get out of bed but I say to myself, “You’ll feel better once you get the workout in.”  And sure enough after the first 5 or 10 mins of my workout, I feel great!

So, if you find that you just don’t want to go to the gym or do a video, go for 10 mins and most likely you’ll keep going.  If it’s not working for you after 10 mins then stop and take that as a rest day but get there tomorrow.   And if you don’t get the workout in as much as you want in a week, that is 100% okay, just get back out there next week.  Too often people just stop because they messed up one week.  So what, that was last week, this week is new!  (FYI…I have messed up and slacked off or eaten things I definitely shouldn’t for a whole week.  But I just make it better the next week).

Working out for me is easy…I love it!  It’s the clean eating that continues to get to me.  I love going out to eat and food in general.  Ice cream and candy are my weakness for sure but I know if I eat them everyday, I’m going to feel gross, look gross and it’s going to slow me down.  So, I have incorporated a clean eating lifestyle.  Is it perfect?  NO….I’m still working on it daily but by the end of this year my goal (another one) is to eat clean so that I get to the point where that is all my body craves.  Why?  Because I love living healthy and I want to live a very long time!

Here’s what helps me with clean eating.  I try not to eat anything with more than 10 grams of sugar if I can help it.  I have 1 cheat meal a week.  If I want something not clean, I drink a glass of water or green tea to stop the craving and if that doesn’t work, I eat it (only a small piece of whatever it is) and I workout harder the next day.  Balance is key (and a work in progress)!

So, what is your motivation?

Ruby Status…onward and upward

As you’ll get to know me, you know I have goals all the time and 2011 is the biggest goal year yet for me.  One of my goals this year is to advance in ranks with Beachbody Coaching.  I had a goal of reaching Diamond status by yesterday and it didn’t happen.  But I did advance to Ruby, which is a huge accomplishment and now I’m so much closer to Diamond.  So, because I didn’t reach this goal, did I fail?  NO WAY!

This week has been amazing!  I recruited 2 new coaches on my team who I know are going to be amazing.  I also got asked to be a health & fitness contributor for a website being launched shortly (I will let you know when it’s up and running) to write weekly articles!  Never in a million years did I think my passion for health and fitness and helping others would lead me to be a journalist.  How did this happen?  It happened because I never gave up, I never lost sight of my ultimate goal, and I believed in myself. (BTW…I am just getting started.)

One of the books I recently read is Go for No.  It’s a short book that has a valuable lesson in the story.  The lesson is you have to get through the nos to get to the yeses!  You can’t just stop because someone or something stands in your way…you have to keep going.

A couple of weeks ago on the Biggest Loser, one of the contestants wrote on his arm his goal weight for that week.  He put it there to remind him of why he was working out so hard, eating healthy, etc.  So, when he got on that scale he wanted to see that number, but he didn’t…he missed it by one pound!  He didn’t get upset or say he was disappointed, instead he was truly happy!  He was happy because he accomplished his goal even though it was short the one pound.  He showed himself he can do anything as long as he puts his mind to it and he knows he’ll lose that pound next week.

I know it’s hard to look back and embrace all you’ve accomplished when you haven’t met a goal.  But you have to!  Because all those little goals get you to your big goal…without them you can’t get there.  So, what if you didn’t lose any weight this week…you now know what to do for the next week.  So, what you ate a piece of cake…go to the gym and workout for an extra 30 minutes and eat super clean the rest of the week.  The key is to get back out there and not stop because you got a NO!

So Diamond get ready because here I come!

Embracing Social Media

Yeah!  My first blog post….crazy to think I cringed at the mention of social media  just  6 months ago and now I can’t get enough of it.  I finally got with it and joined Facebook, but not only did I create a personal page, I also created a fan page.  Then I got on Twitter…still figuring that one out and  now I have my very first blog!

I’m embracing social media to the fullest one step at a time of course.  I was going to wait and launch my blog later this week; I wanted it to be perfect! But nothing is perfect and no matter how perfect I get it, this blog will be a work in progress.  So, here it is in all it’s glory.  I hope you enjoy it and please let me know if you’d like me to discuss specific topics on health and fitness as you know I love helping you guys out!

This blog will take over my “Notes” section on Facebook and will eventually take over my weekly newsletters.  I do love my weekly newsletter so I’m not ready to give those up yet, but I might reduce them to monthly…we’ll see how it goes. My commitment to this blog is to post at least 3 times a week so that is a lot of info for you guys!

So, what else can you find in this blog?  OMG…so happy you asked!  You can find out about the workouts I do (all Beachbody of course), about my Shakeology recipes and how it helps me stay on track, and tons of clean eating tips!

This is my journey of fitness and helping others meet their fitness goals!  Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a post.  Here’s to a fitter us!

Stacy