Motivational Monday

Hi! I hope that you had a fun weekend! Blake had both Saturday and Sunday off, so we slept in, took Layla for lots of walks and practiced our shotgun skills. Well, Blake practiced and I tried it out for the first time.

Today I wanted to talk a little bit about what motivates us to lead a healthy lifestyle. We all know that we should try to be healthy, but it’s much easier to ignore the advice and indulge in more of our guilty pleasures than we’re willing to admit. There are some healthy activities that I love to do and naturally fit into my daily routine, while there are other practices that require constant reminders and motivation to accomplish.

Healthy traits that come naturally to me:

1. Working out about five times a week. I enjoy going for runs, lifting weights, taking group exercise classes and going on long walks with Layla.
2. Cooking healthy meals. It’s no secret that I love to cook and I feel so much better when I use healthy, gluten-free foods in my recipes.
3. Getting enough sleep. I was the girl who always fell asleep first at slumber parties. My body cannot function properly without 7-8 hours of sleep a night, so I’m pretty consistent with going to bed to get enough zzz’s.

Healthy traits that require more motivation:

1. Not reaching for dark chocolate, gluten-free cookies or coconut milk ice-cream after dinner. I have a major sweet tooth. Over the past year, I have calmed it down, but I still have to resist the nightly urge to eat a sweet treat after dinner.
2. Keeping my negative self-talk and anxiety under control. I have worked through 90% of my negative self-talk and anxious thought patterns by practicing positive thinking and focusing on the present moment.
3. Letting go of an “All or Nothing” approach. I get pretty fired up about ideas that I have, but sometimes when something isn’t going as planned, I give up on it entirely instead of accepting the set back and continuing in the positive direction.

None of us is perfect and has 100% control over every aspect of his or her life. I accept my positive and negative attributes because they are all part of what makes me, me. I continually strive to be the most positive, healthy version of myself and on some days, this takes a little more motivation than others.

What Helps Motivate Me to Live a Healthy Lifestyle:

Writing post-it notes to myself to workout first thing in the morning and sticking them on the bathroom mirror.

Rewarding myself with small treats when I achieve a mini goal. For example: a new fitness or cooking magazine when I stick to eating healthy meals all week or a relaxing epson salt bath after a grueling workout.

Creating fitness-goals for particular events. For example, I wanted to look my best in Laura’s wedding this summer, so about eights weeks before the wedding, I stepped up my workouts and was a little more strict with my healthy eating.

Lots of workouts and healthy meals

went into getting ready for this!

Writing down why I want to be healthy. It’s great to have a page in your journal or a piece of paper on your inspiration board stating the reasons why you want to be healthy. This way, if you’re feeling down or unmotivated, you can reference your list. Some of my reasons include: feeling my best, being a positive example to others, keeping my body healthy incase we choose to have children in the future and staying active to be able to do activities that I enjoy – like hiking and SUP.

Readers, what methods do you use to motivate yourself to lead a healthy lifestyle?

I’ll leave you with some photos of the snow that we woke up with this morning. I went for a beautiful run around the lake, but ended up slipping on some ice and falling on my hip. I also managed to drop my ipod in the snow and couldn’t find it for a few minutes. Maybe I’m not meant to run outdoors when it’s this snowy?