Quarantine | Motivation to Workout

It’s hard to get motivated to workout, especially during quarantine. It’s like you want to in your mind, but your body is not connecting to the feeling.

When you workout you're helping your mind connect with your body and the mind-body connection can make you feel so powerful within yourself. If you want to start, but don’t know how just start with something small. You can customize your workouts to do what you enjoy and make anything into a workout. The idea is to get your body moving. We always hear to listen to our body, but you can always think of this backwards and have your body listen to your mind (Hey! whatever pushes you).

One of my personal favorite workouts to get myself motivated is yoga, depending on where I'm at mentally. It's a great workout and a meditation session in one. If I'm feeling a little scatterbrained and just need to hear myself think and organize my thoughts, yoga is definitely my next move. It's also a great way to check in with your body while stretching and improving your flexibility. You can customize your yoga from stretches, back pain, stress, anxiety and weight loss. Also let me just add that the "MIND + BODY + SOUL" is a popular quote for a reason and yoga really helps all three reconnect and align with one another.

If yoga is not your thing and there's no way you're doing it, (even if I highly recommend it) you can start with cardio to get your body moving. Anything you feel comfortable doing and have access to. There are many resources that you have available during this time whether it’s walking around the block, walking on the treadmill, going up and down some stairs, following workout videos on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. There are plenty of workouts on YouTube to fill whatever needs you have from low intensity to high intensity, with weights, without weights, resistant bands or no bands. Your choice!

Since you're now doing home workouts don’t forget you are your coach and biggest supporter so push yourself and know that it's ok to modify. If you don't like a certain move, do something else instead of skipping it. Modify and customize it to what your body needs. If you don't want to do those burpees do jumping jacks instead. If you want to do extra squats or pulses for that booty growth do it! Do whatever movements serve you best instead of giving yourself excuses. They don't even have to be that long. I sometimes do 20 minute workouts if I'm not feeling it just to get it in and sometimes I find myself doing 2 or 3 - 20 minute videos because by the time I'm done with one I'm hyped and don't want to stop so what I thought was going to be a 20 minute workout just turned into a 60 minute workout.

Next, if you can, try to get yourself a countability partner. You can set a time with a friend or family member and FaceTime each other while the both of you workout. This has been my biggest help! I swear this is so amazing I might consider doing this post quarantine. It's cool because there are going to be days that you won't want to workout and your partner(s) might be up and ready and you don't want give any excuses to not do it because lets be real - they're all wack excuses. I've been on both ends and believe me; it feels so good to take the workout. It has became a routine at this point that we don't ask each other if we're working out anymore, we just ask if the other person is ready because we keep the same time everyday. Also taking walks outside with my son has been so nice because it allows us to get some fresh air and it's one of his highlights of the day so this really holds me accountable for that as well.

Now on to the fun! Find someone that is down to learn dances with you even if it's through FaceTime. Whether they're for fun or for TikTok. I'm not taking it that far, but learning these dance moves are so much fun. Dancing lets your mind-body connection do its thing and man oh man, is it a workout! I got myself a generation Z partner (my niece) but get anyone that's up for it at this point - we take who we can at a time like this - just get your quarantine partner) and have fun!

Something I also highly recommend is to write down the workouts you've done at the end of the day.

Hey! We all got that 2020 planner that we can't use now because the outside is closed and plans are all cancelled for obvious reasons, so use it as a journal. I like to write down my workouts but you can also write down the meals you've eaten. When you start writing your meals and workouts you become more conscious of what you're doing. If you write down your workouts you will then challenge yourself to do better the next day and when you write down everything you ate (yes, like ice cream, chips, cookies, and all the other foods you're not proud of). This will keep you on track and will force you to make better decisions when you're eating out of boredom because you will start thinking to yourself "Do I really want to write down that piece of chocolate cake I just ate and wrote down yesterday?" (Guilty! It's ok to have these days once in a while).

And if you're still not motivated, still write on your, now journal, what you did that day like what movies you watched, what face mask you used, what you learned, how you feel, what book your read (listened to in my case). This will help you keep track of what you've been doing and then maybe you can get motivated to do more than you did the previous day(s) and weeks.

Keep in mind you are doing this for yourself and you are the worse person you can let down.