If you’re a regular reader of mine, or you follow me on Instagram, you know that the fitness lifestyle is still relatively new to me. I’ve only been exercising consistently for two years. Prior to that, I was 110 pounds heavier and had zero athletic background to speak of.
So, how did I get from a sedentary lifestyle to one where I crave exercise?
Honestly, it took a lot of hard work. But through the process of building the habits below, I taught myself to crave fitness to the point that now it’s a part of my everyday life.
It’s important to remember that there is nothing special about me. Absolutely anyone can build these habits and create a fitness lifestyle for themselves.
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Exercise When You Don’t Feel Like It.
I didn’t say any of these tips would be easy! So I’m starting with the hardest but most effective way to train your body to crave exercise. And that is to work out even when you don’t feel like it. Every single time you exercise when you would rather be doing something else you are training your body to operate in its best interest.
Doing a workout when you’re feeling tired or sluggish will help build the habit of doing a workout regardless of how you “feel”. And the foundation for building a lifestyle where you crave fitness is doing a workout whether or not you feel like it.
Exercise At The Same Time Every Day
Exercising during random points in the day on random days of the week will make it harder for your body to adopt your new lifestyle. As humans, we like predictability, and a workout routine is no different. When our body is able to predict its schedule it comes to expect certain things.
For example, my current workout routine has me exercising during the week at 5 pm. As such, my body has come to expect this to the point that it feels weird on rest days to not be doing anything during that time period. Exercising on a specific schedule will help your body begin to expect, and later crave the workout.
Have A Pre-Workout Ritual
Creating a pre-workout ritual will help your mind and body get into the right space before a workout. For me personally, I found that I first began to look forward to my pre-workout ritual before I started to truly crave my fitness routine.
My pre-workout ritual looks like this:
- pre-workout drink
- listen to a few songs that hype me up
- put on my workout clothes 30 minutes before my workout
- stretch
I absolutely love my pre-workout drink. It tastes amazing, gives me a huge boost, and puts me in a good mood! So it’s something that I really look forward to each day. And of course, listening to some music that gets me hype creates the perfect pre-workout atmosphere. I talk more about my favorite pre-workout drink in this post.
Do Fitness You Enjoy
One of the basics to get your body to crave fitness is to find something that you enjoy, even if it’s just a little bit! Having a workout routine that you find enjoyable is key because dreading your workout won’t get you very far. So try some different things! At the time of writing this, we’re in the middle of the Covid quarantine, so that does place some limits on the types of fitness we have access to. However, there are still ways to experiment with exercise.
With home fitness programs you can try everything from Barre Ballet, Shadowing Boxing, Step to HIIT and weights, and everything in between. Play around with different programs and see what works for you and your workout preferences. But trust me when I say there is something out there for everyone.
Need to get outside? Take up running! I have a ton of posts around running including this post on how how to get started as a beginner runner.
Have A Post-Workout Ritual
Having something to look forward to after your workout will help your body crave your fitness routine. Just make sure that your post-workout ritual doesn’t involve any unhealthy food. But there are lots of ways to reward yourself post-workout. Here are some of my favorite ideas:
- Epsom salt and bubble bath
- Recovery protein shake
- a warm cup of tea in a cozy space
- gentle yoga
- meditation
- an episode of my favorite show
Adopting these habits will have your body craving fitness in no time. Just remember that a routine is developed by things that you do consistently, not things that you do occasionally. So, put these habits into play every day and watch what happens!
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