Motivation to Exercise

So my kids have been out of the nest for a year and I have a couple of spare bedrooms now. I cleared everything out of the smaller one last week and put my stationary bike in there. My son lived upstairs next door to me before he moved to CO and I had let him borrow my eliptical machine. So I asked a couple relatives if they could get it and bring it over. I have a yoga mat, hand weights, my old fat TV with youtube access, yoga, walking and exercise DVDs.

I am motivated for the moment. My sister came over last night and we alternated on the equipment and it was fun. How do I keep motivated? I really want to exercise daily and I have been doing just OK with it, but some days I am very unmotivated. Now with the mini gym in the house, I really have no excuses, but I am not sure that will keep my momentum going.

I go to yoga classes because I just feel so good and stretched out and emotionally calm afterward.  You may find the same motivation for yoga. 

With regard to the other activities, I stepped up my treadmill use the past two weeks and have been thrilled with what the scale says as well as how many pieces of clothing I put on and had to take off because my family told me I looked sloppy as they no longer fit right.  That is a HUGE motivation for me and might be for you too.  It is funny because I stepped up the treadmill use by getting a shelf that holds my computer on it.  Now, in such a short time my body seems to associate computer use with walking so if I'm sitting at a laptop and not walking I feel restless.

I was never big on exercise, but when I decided to do WLS, I decided I better make a commitment to follow the program if I was going to cut out more than half my stomach!  So exercise was part of it. I did two things that really helped me sustain, and its 18 months later and I'm still on plan.

1. I found an exercise I could tolerate - for me it was the recumbent bike which I set up in the family room in front of the TV. 

2. I wanted to exercise at home because going somewhere would be just one more obstacle to getting it done.

3. I decided I would exercise every day - no excuses.  "Days off" would come to dominate if I didn't make a commitment to every day.

4. If I don't want to exercise, I tell myself, "Just do three minutes, then you can stop if you want."  I find that starting is the hardest part, and once I've started, I'll almost always continue. 

I'm glad you are making the commitment to exercise.  I wish you every success.

Carol

It didn't matter how much weight I lost, organized exercise bores me.  I found I needed to do things with purpose, or that entertained me.  Exercise equipment just becomes stuff to put stuff on.

A few things have helped me:

Sticking through the pre-habit time and just plugging along.  That's a big thing.  Making exercise a part of my day until it became a habit and something I started looking forward to.  Now, it is.  

Classes helped me - getting out of the house and going to exercise with purpose.  It's easy for me to put it off and delay if I'm exercising at home.  Going to class is great.  

When I cardio, I love the Zombies Run app.  It's a great story and I really look forward to getting to hear the next segment!  

I am also a very recent (still painful!) empty-nester so I suspect we are in the same general age group.  The motivation for me is long-term health and mobility. After watching some elderly relatives suffer and decline sharply in health, I saw first-hand the effects of never exercising and having very poor muscle strength and tone. It was awful, and I want to do everything I can to keep my body as strong as possible. Hard to describe in a brief way, but fitness, strength, and balance can help avoid injury and may allow for quicker recovery in the case of some health problems. I want to be healthy enough to play with my future grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and not be that person who can't do anything active  ...Not to mention that it helps you look and feel better. 

If that doesn't help motivate, I can also add that seeing some fairly nicely defined shoulders and arms emerging from the previously pudgy and hide-under-sleeves arms is pretty darn inspiring! :)  I'm going to try to work in some yoga as well at some point.

I still don't really "enjoy" exercising, but I do it M-F every morning after my protein shake. I watch tv/netflix/dvd's etc to alleviate the boredom while I'm on my treadmill, and then I do some varied exercises using free weights, body weight, and a bosu.  Just make it a habit and you'll be fine. "Keep your eyes on the prize."

Good luck!!

I don't like exercising.  But I also don't like limiting myself to 3 meals a day and no snacks.  I also don't like spending money on vitamins and chews.  I don't like going to the doctor.

BUT, I do love the results so I do these things.