If you’re dreading your workouts daily, you’re not alone. Fitness can be difficult and hating every second of it, makes it even worse. In this article, I’m sharing simple ways to get yourself loving getting fit, and living a healthy lifestyle. I’m p…

How To Stop Hating Your Workouts

Are you currently exercising and hating every minute of it? Do you feel like you're hanging on by a thread and any minute, you're going to call it quits? You dread the time leading up to your workout, you cringe at the thought of exercising, and you wince in pain the entire session. Afterward, you feel as if you've been hit by a bus and you question why you're doing this in the first place.

Yep, you hate working out, but the desire to see results and feel better are the only things that are keeping you going, over and over again. You hate being on the edge of quitting and you're tired of grudging up the courage, every single day, to make yourself do it. Will it ever get easier? Will you ever learn to love fitness?

It's completely normal to not to love fitness. You see all these fitness people on social media, smiling as they post their fitness selfies every day. They live for this. They jump out of bed to hit the gym. Why? How? Well, most likely, they began their fitness journey in the same way you did.

Learning to love fitness is a process and understanding that your body needs time to strengthen, transform, build, and rest is a process. Being patient is key to falling in love with fitness and sticking with it for a lifetime, not just for a few weeks. Allowing yourself to go through the beginning stages, and knowing there are better days ahead, you'll soon be a happy, fit person, without the tears.

So how are you supposed to fall in love with fitness, when you hate every minute of it right now? Simple! Readjust how you're going about it. I will break down small tweaks you can make to your current fitness regimen, so you can take a step back and go about it in a way you're sure to have a happier experience. You don't need to struggle to get fit. The more you hate it, the more likely you'll be to throw in the towel and walk away feeling as if you failed. Let's prevent that so you can see what you're actually capable of!

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

When you decide you want to lose weight and begin a diet, you want to do everything necessary to achieve your goals. Even if it means you have to get up at the crack of dawn. You set that alarm, determined you're going to stick with it this time. However, you already know that you're not a morning person. So why do it this way?

If you absolutely hate mornings, don't set your workouts up at this time. All you're doing is setting yourself up for failure. You're just not made for mornings, and that's ok. Nothing says you have to exercise before the sun comes up to lose weight. I'm more of an evening kind of person, so my energy level is increased at night, and very low in the am.

You have to build your fitness around what your body is already telling you. If you're dragging in the afternoons, deciding to work out then simply won't work. Maybe for the short term, but not for creating a healthy lifestyle that you continue for years to come.

You must also take into consideration your daily schedule. If you have to be at work super early in the mornings, trying to cram your fitness regimen in before may add more stress to your already hectic day. Soon, you'll find ways to skip your workouts so you can get to work. Set your work out time for lunch or even before bed. You have to do what works for your daily life to stick with it, and not hate fitness.

BABY STEPS

If you're currently going to a fitness class or heading to the gym every night to exercise and you want to cry when you pull into the parking lot, you may be doing too much, for right now. Some fitness classes can be overwhelming, with trying to learn the routine to feeling awkward around others. Being on the gym floor can be intimidating at times, and sometimes makes you do more than you typically would.

Back your fitness down a little bit, for now. Follow a short and straightforward routine until you feel comfortable, and the challenge decreases. Cut back on your time working out. You may be pushing yourself too hard, and that's where your distaste for fitness is coming from. If you're currently working out for thirty minutes, change it up to twenty minutes. Build up from there. Jumping in with both feet, right away, can quickly turn anyone away from fitness.

If you're doing exercises with cardio mixed in, try splitting it up. Do your cardio first thing in the morning and your workouts later in the day or vice versa. Be willing to try different patterns to see which feels the best. There is no right or wrong way to go about workout routines. Start small. You'll feel so much better!

GET BACK TO BASICS

If you feel yourself quickly fading away from sticking with your goals of losing weight, get back to basics. Stop doing what you're currently doing and begin walking and stretching. I know what you're thinking. How are you supposed to get results if you move backward with your exercising? Well, it's better to walk then to quit altogether.

Walking and stretching will keep you true to staying on a routine and focused on your goals. It's like building a house. If you built a house, starting with the second floor, your home would not last very long. Fitness is the same way. You have to build a strong foundation and then build from there.

You may have jumped into workouts that are too taxing for your current fitness level. Walking and stretching will help build your strength and endurance, allowing you to progress easier once you start back into your exercises. The goal is to keep you from quitting and never finding the urge to get fit again. To maintain your focus on your weight loss, you need to have a strong foundation and develop a love for hitting your regimen daily.

There's no shame in sticking with the basics until you feel motivated to push yourself even further. When you stick with your walking regimen, you'll find yourself wanting to walk faster and longer. Walking is excellent for your mood and energy level, and maybe just the thing you need to feel energized enough to hit another workout.

PICK ONE OR THE OTHER

The urgency to lose weight can overwhelm anyone. You immediately jump into working out, dieting, avoiding social situations, and beating yourself up if you slip up, even minimally. You think you have to be hardcore to see results. You want it, and you want it now. I get it!

Too many take this course of action and find themselves right back to square one, before ever seeing what their bodies are capable of doing. Being super restrictive with yourself is not the way to love your workouts. If you're on a rigid diet, you may be cutting too many calories, and your body is not getting enough to perform on the gym floor.

Taking on too much at one time may backfire. I tell my new clients, pick diet or exercise, not both. Now, I'm not talking about for the long haul. I merely suggest this to those that are new to a healthy lifestyle. It's a lot to change everything in your life at once. It doesn't mean you're not capable of doing both, but if you currently hate fitness, you may be doing too much.

If you pick fitness, stay with that until you find hitting your exercises begins to feel like second nature. Once you're in rhythm with your workouts, slowly start adding nutrition in. It will most likely occur naturally because you'll feel inspired to clean up your diet due to all of the hard work you're doing on the gym floor.

If you pick nutrition, be sure to follow a plan that is best suited for your body and your lifestyle. Don't follow fad diets that recommend taking an entire food group away. Those are short term diets that most find all the weight back on once they step away from it, even the smallest bit. Day by day, clean up your diet, and you will see that it's easy to stay on track. Again, once you begin seeing your body changing, you'll be inspired to start working out. Those small victories can be a real mental boost when we want to transform our bodies.

If you’ve started working out, only finding that you hate everything about it, this post was written for you! Here you’ll find simple ways to fall in love with your new fitness lifestyle, and keep on track with all of your weight loss goals. As a pe…

TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

Progress comes in so many different ways, and if you're not paying close attention, you'll miss many indicators that you're winning at your weight loss goals. So many rely on the scale solely and find themselves frustrated and confused.

Today, yes today, I want you to take pictures of yourself, take measurements and journal how you feel. You need to see and feel your starting point. If you're going by the scale, and the scale only, you'll slowly fall off the fitness wagon. The scale will give you what you want, from time to time, but measurements and pictures will be a better indicator of what is happening with your progress.

The scale fluctuates so much and for so many different reasons. As you exercise, your body will build muscles. When this happens, the scale will tell you that you're gaining. However, if you're tracking your measurements, you'll quickly see that yes, you've gained, but you've lost inches, as muscles are longer and leaner than body fat. If you went by the scale and no measurements, you'd think you're failing.

Your neck will slim down, and the scale will never tell you this. So yes, be sure to take your neck girth measurement, because that's a real indicator that your body is slimming down. It's the small things that will help you fall in love with your workouts and keep you pushing forward. When you get rewarded for your hard work, you want to keep reaching for the next level.

FIND MOTIVATION

Many think that motivation occurs naturally with people. Either you have it, or you don't. Not true. Motivation comes only when you work for it. You have to dig deep to find and keep motivation. You don't wake up and feel motivated. There has to be something in your subconscious that triggers you to be motivated to take action.

Motivation comes and goes in waves. You are super pumped to reach your weight loss goals, then the following week you struggle to do a single workout. It's completely normal and to be expected. You need to find things that remind you of what your goals are, why you've set these goals, and how you'll reward yourself for reaching the goals.

These little motivators will be a game-changer when it comes to loving fitness and sticking with it. They will keep you focused, wanting to reach your goals. Without them, you lose sight of why you even started in the first place. I always have to have something to look forward to when I really workout hard. I need a result or else I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel, getting nowhere.

Vision boards, sticky notes, quotes, books, podcasts are various ways to find and keep motivation. Put them where you're likely to see them every single day. Be sure to write down your "why." Why did you start working out? Why do you want to change your body? What are you hoping to get from losing weight?

Having a clear vision of why and what you want from working out will help ease you into the love of a fit lifestyle. There is no magic potion or trick on how to get fit easier or quicker, but using these simple tools will help you on your path to fitness, and may help you fall in love with the entire process, one step at a time.

REWARD SYSTEM

As I said above, you need to have the motivation to keep showing up to exercise, no matter how much you hate it. If there were no light at the end of the tunnel, you would inevitably end up quitting, especially when you already dread it now. We're humans, and we like to get something in return for our efforts, just like getting paid to work. Fitness is no different. You need to be rewarded for showing up and doing the work.

The body will reward you for your efforts if you stick with it long enough. However, you need rewards along the way. They can be significant rewards or small rewards, but they must mean something to you. If they have no meaning, you'll work less and hate your exercises more.

You can do pedicures, a new book, a massage, a trip or a new outfit. You can also reward yourself with a food reward on the weekend, but I use this as a last resort. Food rewards can often lead to a weekend binge, or completely knocking you off course. However, if that's what works for you, do it.

While you're working out, envision that reward you're getting for doing it! Push yourself through the exercises knowing that you're getting rewarded at the end of the week. This may be just the key to your success. Change up your rewards often to keep yourself motivated. Recognize your hard work and appreciate the award.

I know you hate your workouts. I know what it's like to start out, struggling to get in the groove of being fit. You're definitely not alone. Actually, most begin their fitness journey the exact same way, but they made it. They found ways to keep their bodies moving and their minds in the game, changing their bodies, one day at a time. It's not easy, and hating your current exercise regimen makes it feel even more daunting.

Be sure to pin this to your Pinterest board to keep you moving forward and on track when the days off struggle appear out of nowhere!

Dreading every moment of your workout is awful! Soon you’ll lose motivation and drive to keep pushing through. Here you’ll learn how to fall in love with workouts without sacrificing your goals. Need a workout plan that’s fun and effective? Head on … — Dreading every moment of your workout is awful! Soon you’ll lose motivation and drive to keep pushing through. Here you’ll learn how to fall in love with workouts without sacrificing your goals. Need a workout plan that’s fun and effective? Head on over to my side of the internet at The Purely Fit-online workout plans, customized nutrition, and fitness coaching.

There are better days ahead, and I promise you that if you implement these tools and ideas, you too, will find a love for your workouts. There's no shame in your struggle. Readjust things, and take whatever path you need to succeed. We are all built differently, and what works for one, will not work for another. It's the determination and patience that separates the ones that accomplish their goals, and the ones that don't.

If you need some fun, simple ways to keep you on track and inspired, please sign up below to be on the inside loop of tricks and tools to fast track you to all of your goals. I'd love to be a guiding light on your path too greatness.