How do I keep motivated ?
It's really hard to get motivated to train during these uncertain times, I completely understand that struggles that people are facing at the moment as I'm going through them too. I've struggled a lot since the gyms closed, I wasn't motivated to train at all and I started eating the wrong foods to make myself feel better. I was lethargic, unmotivated and turning in to a couch potato in a matter of days!
I'm a Personal Trainer but I'm human too, and I hate to say but it wasn't easy to to just flip a switch and jump back on with everything overnight. We've gone through a massive routine change and humans don't deal well with change! I had to start trying to incorporate a new routine, the first step was work, if I don't work and do everything I can for my clients I have no income, so I started getting up at 7am every morning, having breakfast and then getting in to my office and sorting clients needs out through the laptop. I focused on this for a couple of days and gave myself breaks to walk the dog and eat, after a couple of days I still wasn't feeling great, still lethargic so I knew I had to start training again. I usually train twice a day but with the massive lifestyle change this had gone out of the window, so I thought I'd add a 40min workout back in to my day to get myself moving again and gradually increased the time up to an hour. This was not easy, I'm not going to lie I really had to force myself to train but I'm glad I did as after a few days my energy levels started getting better and I was looking forward to my training sessions each day.
My eating during the first week of isolation was poor, again I'm not going to lie I ate pizza, chocolate etc, but that was all I ate, I actually lost weight as I wasn't eating anything between breakfast and dinner as I was so lethargic I just couldn't be bothered eating. Coming in to the second week I had to do something with food as my mood was so low I had to break the vicious circle I had created and start eating my normal healthy diet but a little less of it to compensate for the fact that I'm not as active as I'm working from home.
I am now in a good routine and it has taken 2 and half weeks for me to adjust to being in this 'lockdown', it isn't easy but it is achievable. You need to break the cycle that you've created. Start with one thing first, either add a 30min workout to your day or start eating healthier meals, if you try and do it all in one go you may be setting yourself up to fail so don't try and do everything at once. Write down your ideal daily routine and implement one thing at a time over a few days you have chance to adjust.
It will get better and you will get through it, don't use the current situation as an excuse to just give up on your weight loss goal, give up on your diet. It's more important know to stay as healthy and fit as we can and maintain the hard work we've all doing to reach our health and fitness goals.
