Who among us hasn’t stunk up the room with our self-created pity pot full of reasons why we don’t work out with regularity, or if you’re me – at all? Have you ever wondered why your best efforts at working out might as well have been spent on QVC shopping? Maybe it’s your approach or maybe it’s just your mindset.  Coaxing your workout into a workable masterpiece may be as simple as a paradigm shift. One of my favorite quotes of all time,

which can be borrowed and applied to anything that requires preparation, is “If you fail to plan, then plan to fail.” What are the 5 reasons your workout isn’t working for you?

  1. Misdirected Justification. I can justify almost anything: dust bunnies help improve my home insulation, I might need 4 crock pots to feed an actual army if the South finally secedes, and won’t I be glad I spent years hoarding sandbags when the polar ice caps finally melt and threaten to flood my home built on top of Mt. Denial? This digression is to make a point (whew, you say). You can’t scarf a supersize bag of greasy chips or spoon your way through a half-gallon of ice cream just because you worked out for an hour. This is what we refer to as unrealistic expectation.
  2. Social Hour. If you treat your hour of workout like you’re filming a dating video for Match.com, then it’s a given you’re not committed to the core of why you need to work out in the first place. Leave behind the designer matching spandex suits and hour-long makeup application. Plan to rock your ugly sweat-stained tee shirt and yoga pants. Your workout will make you feel more social once you’ve showered. Don’t confuse your gym membership with the Saturday night meat market you affectionately refer to as “Club 51.”
  3. Process of Osmosis. When I was in high school, one of my brilliant classmates swore that he was able to pass Chemistry by listening to a book on tape about the life of Albert Einstein. This will not work with exercise equipment of any kind. If you’re using the treadmill in your bedroom as a stand for dress clothes, or using your two pound weights as a doorstop for your garage door, then it’s unlikely you will extract health benefits from workout equipment simply because of your geographic proximity.
  4. My schedule is too full. You squeezed out time to watch the movie of the week. Time mysteriously materialized when friends called you to participate in a World of Warcraft tournament. And you set your alarm at 5:00 a.m. for the sole purpose of hitting the snooze button for the next hour. We make time for things that are important to us. So if you want your workout to succeed, you should schedule the exact time of day you’re going to exercise and don’t let outside distractions veer your attention away. Think how ridiculous it would be if you sacrificed your weekly grocery shopping because your schedule was just too full.
  5. Get there. A good friend of mine gave me the best advice to succeed at working out. He said 99% of the battle is just getting there. If you belong to a gym, or you have one downstairs in your rent-controlled building like me, the number one factor that contributes to workout success is getting there. Put on your workout clothes, get in your car or take the stairs to the basement, and get there. If you pull up to the outside of your gym, you now get to make the decision of working out or going back to bed. 99% of the time, you will schlepp inside, hop on the exercise equipment that chased you through a field of yoga balls in your dreams, and work out like you are Tony Little.

Keep up the good fight and don’t let these 5 reasons be the excuses that your workout isn’t working. Sign a contract with yourself and include a clause that results in 10 lashings if you breach it. If you want to know more about “Lashings,” you’re probably on the wrong website.

Remember,

Sherrie’s Always Write

Read yesterday’s Trending Tuesday 7 Lessons I Learned from Commercials

Tune in tomorrow for Thirsty Thursday Drinking Holidays – I’ll drink to that

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