How to Stay Motivated and Achieve Your Health Goals

Quarantine killing your buzz? You are not alone. Even without shelter-in-place restrictions in effect, fitness goals can be hard to keep up with. Between a busy schedule at work and at home, it sometimes feels impossible to find time to work out—let alone the motivation you need to get the job done. If you’re struggling to find the drive you need to achieve the results that you’re after, these tips can help.

1. Download an app

There’s nothing like a personal trainer in your pocket to push you to where you want to be! You can find so many free or affordable fitness apps that can give you a little buzz and remind you to get moving. We love the Nike Training App because it offers over 180 different coaching plans with exercises that range from 15-45 minutes, including options for newbies, intermediate, and advanced athletes. This allows you to ramp up the intensity as you progress, and squeeze in a quick sweat whenever you’re short on time.

1. Monitor your progress

Speaking of progress, monitoring your improvements can keep motivation high because it shows you the real results of all your hard work. Many workout apps, like the one by Nike, can sync up with the heart rate monitor on your fitness tracker or smart watch to record your heart rate, log the number of calories burned, time your runs, and track your pace. Even if you can’t yet see the results you want, you’ll know you’re on the right track with faster speeds over longer distances.

If you don’t have a fitness tracker, you can also pick up a smart scale that measures body fat percentage at home. Stepping onto a weight scale alone can be misleading (and disheartening) if the number you see hovers around the same range, making your hardest efforts feel done in vain. But a smart scale takes your percentage of body fat into account, so you’ll know you’re burning fat even while gaining muscle.

1. Find fitness you enjoy

At the end of the day, motivation will be hard to come by if working out feels miserable. You can have the best running shoes for women, packed with all the bells and whistles, but no matter how comfortable your feet may be, if you hate this form of cardio, you’ll rarely answer when it calls your name.

But there are other ways you can get your heart rate up that you’ll find fun and enjoyable! A few activities you might try include:

• Tennis
• Basketball
• Beach volleyball
• Swimming
• Rock climbing
• Zumba
• Barre

Tag a fitness friend and try one (or all of them!) out.

1. Choose the right exercises

It’s also important to take your body into account whenever you work out, because you don’t want to perform bad exercises that lead to pain or injury. Your age and fitness level are two of the most critical considerations to keep in mind. For example, someone who’s young and in perfect shape may be the right candidate for intense HIIT circuits, but if you’re older or a little out of shape, it might be better to stick to low-impact exercises that allow you to ease into things—and prevent you from quitting before achieving your goals!

Here are a few different workouts that you can help you find the perfect fit:

• Yoga
• Pilates
• Bodyweight training
• Weightlifting
• High-intensity interval training

You can also signup for a ClassPass membership that allows you to explore all these different studios and gyms in your city. That way, you can figure out what feels best, switch things up to stave off boredom, take it easy when you need to, and turn up the intensity when the motivation is pumping.

1. Remember to recover

When you’re feeling those next-day aches and pains following a tough workout, you’re way less likely to gear up and crush another class. That’s why it’s important that you always remember to recover, so your muscles can heal faster, and you feel less sore as a result.

CBD gummies for exercise recovery are a great way to reduce your body’s inflammation response to the micro-fissures in your muscles, and a foam roller will enable you to release deep tension that inhibits mobility.

Add stretching and hydration to the mix, and there’ll be nothing standing in the way of you and your goals!