Why your motivation for exercise needs to extend beyond weight loss

To reap the full benefits of exercise it is important to find motivation for exercise beyond the simple (yet often difficult to attain) goal of weight loss. This is because weight loss is a long term benefit of exercise and therefore when you don’t feel the instant gratification of weight loss, it can result in feelings of frustration, apathy and ultimately defeat. Instead, it is important that we’re aware of and focus on motivators that reflect the instant benefits of exercise, as well as the future health benefits, so that no matter how you perceive yourself or your weight loss journey – you’ll always have a motivator to keep you active. Let’s consider some additional motivators you could use to keep you active, even on the days you don’t feel like it! Why not personalise it by printing our FREE exercise motivation template too! 

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Motivators for exercise

Exercise is so important for our health and to best utilise it we need to understand those benefits and let a number of them be motivators to keep us active.

Long term benefits of exercise

It reduces the risk of:

• cardio vascular disease;
• cancer;
• blood pressure issues;
• diabetes; and
• many other diseases.

It also helps improve your memory.

Short term benefits of exercise

It will:

• increase your confidence;
• reduce stress/tension;
• better the quality of your sleep;
• give you more energy;
• reduce anxiety and depression; and
• help you live a generally healthier and happier life.

You can also participate in exercise with other people making it a fun social event that you look forward to each week/day. Alternatively, it can be wonderful ‘you time’! For me, I love using the time to listen to music and zone out from everything else in my day. You can also use it as a chance to enjoy time walking your dog or admiring the city you live in.

Different days, different motivators

It’s likely that the motivation to exercise will change depending on the day. Some days you might be motivated by a long term goal like increasing your health, whilst other days, you might need to focus on an immediate benefit like the endorphin rush (that’s the happy hormone) that you’ll have after releasing all that energy. Although other days, you might even be motivated by both long and short term health benefits – eg. to destress (short term) and to lose weight (long term).

Keeping your motivators at the forefront of your mind

You might like to use this printable I’ve made to list some of your motivators. This can be a great reference point to remind you of why you want/need to exercise on those days you just can’t be bothered.   You can find the printable PDF here. It also has a space for you to write a list of different ways you can keep active, think both low impact activities (like these ideas) and high impact activities (like this workout (with free workout printable via here) or this running plan).

This post has been presented by the Queensland Government, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.