Starting Over Sucks

Starting over feels like starting over. 

People are inconsistent AF with working out. While part of me understands the reasons why someone might neglect their fitness, I have a really hard time accepting it.

I don’t understand why you would neglect yourself like that for so many reasons but mostly because I know how hard it is to start over.

How hard it is to re-establish your routine once it’s lost and to keep your motivation high once you re-start.

But it happens to the best of us…

Now that it’s passed though, you have to let go however you handled it. You have to accept it as you doing the best you could do under the circumstances you were given, and do your best now with the circumstances you currently have.

We can’t focus on what could have been or on how you could’ve handled it differently, or feel badly about it.

You have to stop beating yourself up for whatever did or didn’t happen. To stop talking about the workouts that were lost, the weight that was potentially gained, and to start again.

There’s no sense in being critical towards your actions when you can’t change it. But you can change how you handle things now. You can put those healthy habits back into place so you can move forward.

With realistic expectations of where you’re at, as well as what you need.

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Here’s my Top 3 Tips for Starting Over After Time Off from Your Workouts:

1. Be realistic with your schedule. I don’t care why you took a break, but I do care that your life potentially looks different now than it did before. Don’t bite off more than you can chew by creating a workout 🏋️‍♂️ schedule that is unrealistic for you to maintain.

2. Take it back a notch. When you take a hiatus from working out, you’re going to lose strength. There’s no way around it. Muscle memory will kick in fast and your strength will come back quickly, but don’t think you’ll be starting where you left off. It’s ok to take it back a notch to make sure you don’t injure yourself going forward.

3. Cut yourself some slack. It’s not the time to feel discouraged about all the time that was lost or to kick your own a$$ with some negative self talk about the “bad decisions” you made. Focus on what you can give yourself now.

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How's that Fancy At Home Gym?

Did you buy a treadmill only for it to become a clothes hanger?

I heard my friend talking the other day about how she bought a Peloton. She was loving it, in a total honeymoon period with it, and then…

School started, sports for the kids started, the family moved, and the Peloton became where she put her jacket. 

Grab Your Dumbbells!

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I know you’re like “all that money though”.

You’re also probably thinking “why is she saying that in front of someone who’s a fitness instructor?”

But we’ve all done it. We’ve all had the gym membership that we pay for and don’t use, the equipment sitting in our garage that’s getting dusty, or the treadmill that becomes a clothes hanger. 

I hear the debates all the time. Debating whether or not to invest the money in the gym equipment because you’re not really sure if it’ll get used. 

It’s a valid debate and as an instructor, it’s a debate I’ll entertain. I’ll also entertain the debate about joining certain gyms, or even increasing your memberships at certain.

I understand it has to be worth the financial investment. 

I know you’re worth the financial investment, but I also know that sometimes you have to run through the practicality of your decisions prior to pulling the proverbial trigger.

Pulling that proverbial trigger is hard because you know it would be discouraging AF if you pull said trigger, only to have to sell the equipment or cancel the membership because they weren’t being used. 

It makes you feel small, it makes you feel worthless, and it makes you feel like the goals you’ve set for yourself are completely unrealistic because you can’t make the things you have access to work for you.

Be realistic with your schedule but realize that you’re worth the investment. You’re worth the hard work.