How To Embrace Your Fitness Routine (And Get The Most Out Of It)

Mainstream food marketing tactics emphasize calories instead of nutrition. Fad fitness programs push exercise in a way that doesn’t always feel wholesome. Unrealistic expectations about exercise programs and results are perpetuated by these marketing techniques. Often, fad workout programs provide fast results that are taxing on the joints and aren’t suitable for longevity. Instead, adopting a holistic approach to diet and exercise can provide the results you want now with the longevity of a nourishing and beneficial fitness habit to sustain the results for the long term. We can move in a way that creates optimum health by returning to intuition. 

1. Create a Routine:

Bodies are different. Lives are different. A morning run might be unattainable for a busy parent. This might mean a brisk walk on a lunch break instead. Exercise is an antidote to depression. To counteract feelings of sluggishness, make movement a priority rather than an option, and make it a part of your regular routine so it becomes second nature.

2. Make Movement a Mind-Body Experience:

Many struggle with an idea of exercise as an intimidating time at a gym, which feels daunting. Moving intuitively and with breath can help create a sense of connection to physical activity. Many forms of exercise can be more mind-body centric when one returns to the breath. Hiking, swimming, jogging and yoga are perfect activities to explore the connection of breath and movement. Even weightlifting can be enhanced by paying attention to your breathing and how it affects your strength.

3. Move Joyfully:

Take the focus away from calorie burning and more toward moving in a way that feels good and brings joy. This might not mean that one gains six-pack abs in a month, and that is okay. Finding joy in movement is more suitable for durability and one’s sense of happiness.

4. Try New Forms of Exercise:

Vary your workout by trying new forms of movement. If you always run with headphones in, try a workout without them where the only sound is your breath and your environment. Go to a community dance class and delight in doing all the steps wrong.

5. Use Your Intuition:

Know your pain and threshold. The difference between good pain and bad pain is that bad pain moves toward injury and acts as an indicator to stop. Never push your body if bad pain is present. Ayurveda suggests that exercise should never leave one tired, only energized. Intuition will help guide when you have truly had enough or the mind is simply chattering. The body will tell you how it needs to move.