Happy Monday! I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve done my weekly workout posts on here, but I’m back to my regularly scheduled posts. This week was my first week back to lifting since my trip to Puerto Rico, so I took my workouts a little easy. I was still very sore afterwards because I took almost a full week off from lifting. In Puerto Rico we walked a lot, almost 10 miles one day, but I didn’t do any lifting type work. It’s good to be back into my routine now and I’m excited to focus on my workouts and get stronger.
I thought it would be a good idea to share my top three ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle now that the motivation of the new year may be dwindling. I was once a person that would make the new year’s resolution to workout more, but now that’s just a habit for me, and it can be for you with these three tips:
- Find a workout that you enjoy –This is key, if you don’t love running, then you should try lifting, swimming, or kickboxing, etc.so that you find something you love and don’t hate the exercise you’re doing. I used to think that running was the only way to get fit, but I never loved running, so I started dreading workout out, and eventually stopped working out because I didn’t enjoy it. Once I found my love for lifting, it was hard to get me to take a day off from the gym 💪🏻 So find what you enjoy doing and you’ll stick with it
- Set a goal –I find that if I don’t have goals, I lack motivation down the road. I love the feeling of accomplishing a goal and that motivates me to achieve more. Right now my goals are mostly adding weight to my lift, but your goals could be to workout 3x a week, drink 64oz of water a week, try a new workout class, anything that will motivate you to keep living a healthy lifestyle
- Find someone to hold you accountable – there are times when you have no motivation to workout or eat healthy (this happens to me too) so It’s really helpful to have a support person to hold you accountable or inspire you. When I first started lifting, I watched a lot of Youtube videos to learn different exercises and I was so inspired by their lifting and healthy lifestyle. Nowadays I have Jon to push me and tell me to go to the gym when I wake up early during the week and ask if we can sleep in 😂 we also have some really strong friends that we workout with that motivate us and make us look forward to our workouts together. As you can see, there’s many different types of people that can motivate and hold you accountable, so you can find what’s best for you
- Track your progress –this was Jon’s idea and I agree 100%. When I first started lifting, I never really tracked my progress or workouts, so I usually did the same thing when I went to the gym. When Jon and I started dating, I was only squatting about 115#, benching 85#, and deadlifting 155# on a weekly basis. He put me on a program that changes the weights every week so now I’m squatting 200#, benching 110#, and deadlifting 225#. Thinking about how far I’ve come in a relatively short time is inspiring and motivating and I’d highly recommend keeping track of your progress whether it’s weight lost, extra miles ran, or even keeping a food diary and slowly seeing yourself log healthier meals. Day by day it may not seem like you’re doing much, but when you look back it all adds up 😀
- Living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t mean perfection – I used to think that being healthy meant never missing a workout and eating clean 100% of the time, so I’d get stressed if I wasn’t perfect, but that’s so silly. All that you can do is your best and it’s ok to live a little, that’s why it’s called a lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle to me is a balance between working out, eating well, but also enjoying life and not missing out on life events because you’re trying to eat perfectly and hit all your workouts. As you can see from my weekly workouts below, I definitely missed some workouts last week and that’s ok!
I hope these tips help you maintain a healthy lifestyle this year! Do you all have any other tips?
Weekly Workouts:
- Monday
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- Complete off day
- Tuesday
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- Complete off day
- Wednesday
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- Squat: 155# 3×7
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- Treadmill walk
- Thursday
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- Bench: 100# 3×7
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- DB chest fly: 15# 4×8
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- Tricep extensions
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- Bicep curl
- Friday
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- Complete off day
- Saturday
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- Deadlift: 195# 3×5
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- Sumo Deadlift: 145# 4×8
- Sunday
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- Bench: 105# 4×5
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- Shoulder press: 20# 5×8
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- Lateral raise: 10# 4×8
