Working Out to Feel Good

It’s important to understand the impact exercising naturally has on our bodies—and how it impacts our mentality as well.

Getting the motivation to work out is almost always the hardest part about starting an exercise routine. If you’re like me, you may make plenty different excuses to not get to the gym, whether it be not having the time, or that you eat healthy enough that you don’t need to, etc etc.

There’s another reason many women may not work out, too: it just doesn’t work.

I’ve seen it plenty—you work out for months on end, maintaining a routine, varying your exercises, keeping a healthy diet and so on. But instead of seeing any sign of weight loss, you see the opposite. Now, I understand (or I hope) that people know what happens when you work out, especially when you lift weights regularly—you build muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat, so ultimately, you’re going to gain weight before you lose it.

It’s not that I don’t think people know this and am here to be your expert on all things weight loss—I’m here to address the effects of this obstacle and maybe how to push past it.

The most important thing to recognize is that there will be a period of time where your body is adjusting to a workout routine. Between muscle gain, water retention, and time, results won’t be seen right away. But that’s on the outside. A regular workout routine will also make you feel better, more awake, and your clothes may even begin to feel a little looser before the scale gives the same message.

That’s what you need to focus on.

You need to focus on the way working out makes you feel on the inside. Feeling more energized, more awake, more motivated to get through the rest of your day. Being able to tell yourself that you did good work, that exercising to make you feel good is just as important as exercising to help you look good.

Women face so many obstacles in trying to obtain a positive body image, and staying home in quarantine while staring at our phones and watching the girls society has deemed as the “pretty” ones on Instagram or Tik Tok isn’t helping. This idea that working out for the sole purpose of looking like those nearly unattainable body types is harmful. It pushes women away from the gym, feeling like they’ll never get the results they want because our bodies simply aren’t built to drop weight in the blink of an eye.

If we can understand how our bodies work and why they react the way they do when starting a workout routine, it’ll be easier for us as women to be able to work out and still feel content with the work put in—

Regardless of what the scale says.

image source:

https://www.everydayhealth.com/fitness/gyms-fitness-studios-and-more-offering-online-workouts-right-now/