86Thousand400: Reasons to Exercise

1. Immediate positive feelings such as stress reduction, increased energy and making friends: ‘The only way we are going to prioritise time to exercise is if it is going to deliver some kind of benefit that is truly compelling and valuable to our daily life’. My take on this is ‘Delayed Gratification’ - Appreciate that with exercise and health people are often looking for a quick fix, but like most good things in life, health also requires patience and consistency for results to show up. Start slowly, try and make sessions as fun as possible and results, in time, will follow

2. Softly, Softly, Gently Monkey: Don’t feel the need to do everything at once. I.e There is no need to go T-Total in the first week. Be kind to yourself. Enjoy the food in your cupboards, but in the process make a note of the foods that may not be the best for your health and look to replace with healthier alternatives in the future. Doing something is better than nothing, so give yourself a pat on the back for starting (as that’s the hardest bit) and again, in time, the results will come

3. You don’t have to love it! Again this comes back to a sense of delayed gratification. Exercise may therefore be seen as purposeful as opposed to pleasurable. Both of which have been proven to lead to feelings of happiness. Often with exercise it’s not about the feeling of NOW, but the feeling one gets down the line, so do keep that in mind in those tougher moments

4. Make Time: Be realistic about what is feasible and then in every instance/opportunity go towards exercise as opposed to shying away as it is the ‘going towards’ which is the difficult part, which in turn will lead to exponential benefits down the line. This must be another paradox (my favourite word), but although exercise consumes energy, it does in turn give one energy through increased muscle, mitochondria and aerobic enzymes. Going towards exercise may seem hard but try to remember that the sofa will always be there and the delayed gratification from overall energy levels and a physical body perspective will all be worth it down the line

5. Tap into the feelings: How do I feel when I move? How do I feel after I move? More and more research has shown the huge benefits exercise has not only for the body, but also the brain. Endorphins, neurotransmitters and neurotrophic factors, which all lead to feelings of happiness are all produced when we exercise. As a result, if one can start to work backwards with exercise ie remember the feeling we get afterwards and have these in the forefront of our mind before we start, this may make it seem easier when making those steps towards it

6. Make Yourself a Priority: Egoism is altruism. How is one supposed to love others if they don’t love themselves. There are lots of ways to +lovethyself, but in dedicating 30 minutes (3600 seconds) of time, simply to you and your body, again this will lead to amazing physical and mental benefits down the line

7. High Energy States: Speak to friends, look for classes and then try to lock in the future fitness sessions in High Energy States. Being a personal trainer I’ve heard it so many times from clients saying, “oooh I really didn’t fancy it after work today, but now I feel so much better for it and I’m so glad that’s done”. These sessions would have never happened had they had to decide whether or not to do it on the day. Get them locked in, in advance and the rest will take care of itself!

8. Less is More: To a degree! It’s far better to drive a car 10 miles a day for 30 days, than doing one 300 mile round trip in one day. Look at your body in a similar sense to a car and take it for a drive regularly :)

9. Classes, Music, Silence: Not having to think when you show up to the gym is definitely a blessing. It already consumed a huge amount of thinking time and energy to show up right?! Once there, let the instructors do their thing. Enjoy the music or silence and let your subconscious mind come through.

10. Fitness Events: The thought of having a couple of challenges/events in the diary definitely helped me a lot this year as an added motivation to show up to the sessions and again, once the sessions were over it all lead to good feelings and satisfaction, which started to feed into other areas of life

11. Play the Long Game: Synovial fluid secretion at the joints, increased water in take, blood pumping around the body are all great and simple benefits to moving the body a little more vigorously than normal, even if it may not seem like it at the time. Our bodies are made up of 75 trillion cells, all with an innate ability to heal and look after ourselves. So trust the process, think about the bigger picture and all will come great in the end!

*Final point - ‘Imperfection is beauty’, so enjoy the ice cream, chocolate cake, bannoffee pie every once and a while and try not to overthink moments of ‘food happiness’ as inevitably this will kill the moment!