You’ve been exercising for years. Whether the lifting bug got you in high school for sports or found you in college, you’ve done the research and put in the time to know fitness and nutrition.
But that’s not your problem. You’re in fitness burnout right now and don’t even know where to begin anymore.
You’ve done the programs, you’ve followed the diet, you’ve taken advice from friends and the trainer at the gym, but everything seems hard now.
You’re watching motivational videos to start your day and just get you out of bed. Your gym time that you used to look forward to as “me time” has started to become a chore you HAVE to do. Food no longer tastes good and you have to force it down in order to get any calories in, and you know too much to just stop eating or stray from your diet completely.
So you’re stuck.
You’ve created a solid base in your health, so much so that you feel like a hostage stuck in another full time job just to keep things going.
It doesn’t have to stay that way though.
I’m going to break down 3 common health motivation and hustle phrases that, I know you look at often and feel guilty about, are keeping you stuck and need to change in order for you to actually adjust and create a healthy baseline you can stick with, enjoy fitness and food again, while still seeing results in the gym.
So, let’s dive in!
You Don’t Need More Discipline. You Need to Start Listening to Yourself Again.
“Stick with the plan, not your mood”
This is a good phrase when you’re just getting started and need to get in the routine of going to the gym and learning to adjust your eating habits. But this no longer works for you.
You follow the plan, you ignore your intuition, you keep going when others take a break and you look at that as proof you’re more motivated than they are.
And you might be, but your fitness burnout is also so strong that you don’t even recognize your body telling you it needs rest with what others say is a lack of motivation.
You have gotten so far from your own intuition, that you’d rather trust what someone else says than what you feel and know to be true about yourself.
In order to help you work through this, check out my Burnout Recovery Experiment when you join my newsletter. It’s some sample printouts of my experimental approach to food and movement.
But again, following a plan is not your problem, so let’s be honest here.
Do you really want to be a professional athlete? Do you want to enter competitions each year? Do you truly want to do whatever it takes to make progress year after year?
I’m not saying you aren’t motivated if the answer is no, because same! This is the same as “all or nothing” thinking which I know you feel deep in your soul. It’s ok to just want to live a healthy and active life. Actually, that’s more than ok!
But in order to do that, you’re going to need to learn to be more flexible with how you approach this healthy life.
Check out How to Stay Consistent When You Feel Like a Failure to help get you started
Stop Chasing the Next Hard Thing
“Do what’s hard because it’s hard”
You’ve been doing the hard thing most of your life, me too. Whether it was self-inflicted as “punishment” for doing something wrong or not being perfect, or simply because it was a challenge for you, hard is your normal.
I remember sitting down with my mom senior year of high school and after what seemed like hours, finally having her realize that maybe something is wrong. I’ve always struggled with school and test taking, but because of homework, extra credit and projects, my grades always balanced out.
And after a lot of back and forth with what my plans were after graduating, college became a real fear. Most grades were only from tests, and if I was going to be an Athletic Trainer (long story short, that didn’t work out) I was going to need to figure something out.
I remember going to every tutoring open hours at the library (seeing the life drain out of those poor upper classmen trying to help me understand something), spending all my free time studying and getting help, even going to get tested for dyslexia. Which of course came back “inconclusive” because I’ve “had it for so long and learned to hide it well enough”. The promise of getting help no matter the outcome came back with the same tools and suggestions I’d been doing for years.
So that whole process just showed me that life is always going to be on hard mode, an uphill battle, something I have to prove I can do and am smart enough for.
I’m still working on it, but have gotten a lot better.
So coming back to this, the gym doesn’t have to be complicated, food doesn’t have to be precise, there isn’t a secret formula that you’re missing and that’s why you can’t lose the weight.
You’ve stuck with the plan, made life too hard and any moment that it seems to be working or comes easy to you, sabotage comes in to make things hard again.
Check out What to Do If You’re Tired of Counting Calories and What Counts as Exercise? A Better Way To Think About Movement.
These are the foundation to my experimental approach that helps you create your own plan that’s flexible and intuitive, while also challenging you to see how easy and boring health actually will bring you more results right now.
So the last thing you need to work on is getting comfortable with this.
What If Comfort Isn’t the Enemy?
“Get comfortable with the discomfort of life”
This is basically the final boss of the 3 motivational phrases. Because once you start to become more in tune and flexible with your body and plan, you start to let things be easy and simple, the final thing needed is to just get comfortable with this new reality for you.
Where things actually work out, where you are smart enough, where there is a change in the scale without trying, where you trust yourself around food, where you stick with a routine or adjust without thinking twice.
Your identity no longer is connected to your “healthy lifestyle”. You live a healthy life simply because you want to. It supports the life you want to live, and you actually have time to enjoy it.
Check out How to Start Hobbies Again as an Adult.
This will be the hardest final step, because as things start to get better, you’ll feel uncomfortable. Not like before and in the way that’s normal for you, but uncomfortable with good.
And the only thing you can do about it? Don’t touch anything!
This is a new challenge, letting things be easy. You’ve put in all the hard work, the only thing left is to let the good show up.
You know what to do, you just have to relearn without outside voices coming in to stop you and make you question.
I found myself recently scrolling online again, which I deleted all my social media but no one’s perfect when it comes to breaking an addiction. And I found myself questioning myself again.
Me. Even as a certified personal trainer, health coach, basic nutrition coach and a ton of other certifications to prove I know something (see why I got these phrases to hit home?), I still questioned because someone else says differently.
And here’s the thing. There’s a million and one ways to do this thing called life. And everyone has success, testimonials, proof and endorsement for each.
Why?
Because it works for people.
But that doesn’t mean it has to work for YOU.
I know you’ve tried everything, and throughout this process you’re going to question if you do truly know anything, but I promise that you do. This is just a process that takes time to learn, put into practice and stick with when old habits come back.
However, if you’re tired of second guessing yourself and wondering if you’re doing this right,I’d love to chat!
By booking a 30 minute call with me, I’ll listen carefully, help you untangle what’s keeping you stuck, and help you leave with a plan you actually feel confident following. I’ll answer any questions you have and also help you find the few things you need to focus on rather than starting your life over again.
Because you know what to do. You actually know TOO much, and that’s what’s keeping you stuck.
So from here, I’d recommend checking out my Cutting Cravings in 3 Days Challenge to get this process started.
You’ve got this. Just one small step at a time.
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