Motivation to be Active

As I have mentioned before, health is 80% diet and 20% exercise. Though exercise may be "less important" than the foods that we put into our bodies, it does still play a major role in forming muscle and lowering comorbidities such as heart disease.

Finding motivation to be active or work out can be hard. Some tips I have given in the past have been to make lifestyle changes that allow you to become more active everyday by taking the stairs or parking further away in the parking lot so you have to walk a little bit more. Another piece of advice I have given is to find something active that you enjoy doing that doesn't feel like strict exercise.

For me in the summer I do not have a lot of structured activity in my life; I'm not at school so I am not dancing and I most certainly am not walking the long distances that I used to walk to class. To be active without such structured activities, I need a little motivation. Did you know that running only 1 mile burns about 100 calories? If you can motivate yourself to get into the routine of running a mile every day or every other day you can burn extra calories, tone up your legs and core, and get your heart rate up making your heart healthier.

How do we become motivated? Here are a few things that you can consider:

• Listen to music (buy yourself an arm band for a phone or ipod)
• Run right when you get up in the morning-no second thoughts!
• Find a running buddy- you can motivate each other
• Buy yourself some new running sneakers! Especially if yours are old and don't have good support.

I have friends who run marathons (and enjoy it!) every few months, just because that is something they like to do. I am no marathon runner, but I will always feel better after a run-no matter how short-because I've increased my heart rate and I feel much better about myself.
(Also I just got some new kicks!)
xoxo, Keely