How to get yourself to exercise regularly and eat healthier

If you opened this blog I’m guessing at least some part of you wishes you exercised more regularly and/or ate healthier.

That’s always such an interesting place to be, having the desire or intention, but struggling to make it your reality (but hey, welcome to being human).

SO many individuals WANT to exercise more regularly or have healthier eating habits but don’t… why is that?

Well, the answer isn’t so straightforward (it rarely is).

Human psychology and behavior is quite complex and the answer will vary from person to person. 

I don't have a magic formula that will miraculously transform your habits overnight (because anyone promising such quick fixes is usually not acting in your best interest). However, I'm here to share some valuable tools that can help you change your behaviors in the direction you want.

As we dive into these tools, keep in mind that our mindsets have a MASSIVE influence on our behaviors. So while you may think you need to look to find the right program or diet, it’s really our MINDS that we need to look at. There are a variety of factors at play for why we may be struggling to get ourselves to do something, but the most significant factor is what’s going on in between our ears. 

why we’re doing something absolutely matters

Why do you want to exercise more? Why do you want to eat healthier?

If your answer is anywhere in the realm of because you dislike your body, because you don’t feel good, or anything in the vein of not liking your current situation, I’m going to encourage you to reframe that “why.” 

I suggest reframing your “why” as the above examples are based on guilt, shame, or wanting to move away from where/who you currently are (or what’s considered to be avoidance-based goals). While guilt and shame can feel motivating in the moment, it doesn’t tend to lead to long-term motivation or progress. Approach-based goals, where you’re focused on moving TOWARD something, tend to yield better results than avoidance-based goals (moving AWAY from something). 

“But Brianna, I do want to change my habits because I’m fed up with myself.” I get it. That can be a great SPARK for change, but I want to make sure you get the outcomes you desire, so let’s find something you want to move TOWARD. 

For example: 

“I want to exercise and eat healthy because I don’t like my body” can become “I want to exercise and eat healthy because I want to feel in shape, vibrant, and support my body so I can live my best life.” 

“I want to exercise because I hate feeling flabby” can become “I want to exercise because I enjoy feeling strong and fit.”

“I want to eat healthy because I feel gross” can become “ I want to eat healthy because I want to have energy, have better hormonal health, and feel amazing.”

Feels different, doesn’t it?

How you view yourself, eating healthy, and exercise matters, too. 

If you’ve deemed yourself a lazy person… that may not help with changing your behaviors. 

If you think eating healthy is boring and is intimately tied to restriction, deprivation, and discipline… the odds of you becoming a healthy eater aren’t really high. 

If you think exercise is a chore and is only about changing your body… there’s a good chance you’ll struggle to become someone who exercises consistently. 

Because of how they’ve been marketed and regarded in the media and our culture, it’s highly likely that you have at least one perspective around exercise and healthy eating that isn’t supporting the habits and behaviors you want to have.

Your current beliefs and perspectives are valid, AND you get to choose if you want to reframe your perspectives and beliefs.

Maybe you’ve viewed exercise as a chore your whole life, but while that may be the case for your past, you can start to shift your frame of mind for current and future you. 

What if you started to focus on a new perspective of exercise? Maybe you can view it as something you do for your “you time”, a way to help you de-stress, a way to feel like a badass, or a way to feel better mentally.

It may feel really uncomfortable and unfamiliar to have a new perspective initially, but allow yourself to start to change your mind despite the discomfort. Think about how you want to feel, the type of person you want to be, and the outcomes you desire. With these in mind, acknowledge what perspectives you may have that aren’t beneficial for you or in alignment with those answers. 

For much of our lives, many of us have likely approached exercise and healthy eating with a negative perspective, often focusing on what we dislike about them. Shifting our focus to what we DO like about it can make such a difference.

“But Brianna, there isn’t anything I like about it.” I challenge you to challenge that. There’s a really good chance that’s not true, and again, allow yourself to be open-minded and change your mind. 

Bring awareness to how rigid your thinking might be.

Rigid thinking is associated in general with less success in goal pursuits and giving up. A correlation has also been found between rigid thinking and individuals regaining weight or continuing to fluctuate in weight rather than keeping it off.

When you think about exercising or eating healthy, what do you envision? Many people will envision a pretty rigid structure of both or what the most “ideal” scenario might be.

There’s ideal and there’s reality. Feeling like you have to live up to the ideal scenario when you actually live in reality is a recipe for disaster.

Can you broaden how you define healthy eating and exercise? Can you allow yourself to change your mind on what’s considered doing enough? Can you change your relationship with consistency?

Eating healthy and exercising does NOT have to look like what the fitspo’s and wellness influencers make it look like online or how magazines and media make it look. It does NOT have to be done “perfectly” and having those expectations isn’t far from setting you up for failure.

While we’re on the topic of thinking less rigidly, I want you to take the notion of being perfectly consistent and throw it out the window. Consistency IS what’s going to help you reach whatever outcomes you desire, but the way most people think about consistency isn’t helping them stick with things long-term (which is the point, right?).  

Instead of thinking about keeping up with consistency, I want you to think about your actions in terms of frequency. Envision a monthly calendar where I’m putting a dot down on each day I stick to my goal. For many people, thinking about consistency would look like trying to get as many days in a row as I can with a dot in it. This isn’t inherently problematic. The problem comes when this gets discouraging after missing a few days or after a few weeks you see that you still miss a day (or multiple) here and there and think “what’s the point?” 

It matters far more that you continue with your goal than sticking with it nearly perfectly. Go back to envisioning the calendar. Instead of focusing on how many times you can stick with it consecutively or how you think you should, think about your frequency. It matters so much more how many dots are on the calendar than how many dots are next to each other. If you miss a few days or a few weeks you can still go back to doing it. If you zoom out to a yearly calendar, the person who was super consistent and then dropped off after falling off track for a weekend or two will have made much less progress than the person who has dots all over the place but is still doing the thing a year later. 

To provide another reframe if it’s helpful for you, doing something 60% (or any other %) is going to get you SO MUCH FURTHER than 0%. I encourage you to get rid of your notions of “falling off track,” being “on” or “off,” or getting on a short-term “kick” of any kind. 

So if you skip a few workouts or if you revert back to some eating habits that don’t make you feel great, still keep aiming to exercise and eat healthy. Every single time you do so adds up. Doing something one time may not feel like much, but each time you take action adds up and the adding up of every single time creates the big impact. A year from now, if you're still on the path of healthier eating and regular exercise, instead of giving up when you felt off track or thought you weren't doing enough, you will have made significant progress. Your future self will thank you. 

Thinking dichotomously is a form of rigid thinking that again, doesn’t support being successful in your endeavors. Missing a workout isn’t bad and eating a donut isn’t messing up. They just are. Notice when you’re labeling things in black-and-white terms such as "bad," "good," "healthy,' and "unhealthy," and reframe to view things through a neutral lens.

Notice when your brain is going to a place of lack

Again, it all comes back to what’s going on in between the ears… your perspective of the situation as a whole (i.e. the journey of the goal pursuit) as well as the specific things themselves (i.e. eating healthy and exercise) influence your behaviors. A perspective I see making success harder for people is one of lack or scarcity.

This is so common, but I’ve seen over and over that keeping a few reframes top of mind can be so impactful.

Look, eating healthier and exercising doesn’t have to come from a place of restriction or trying to change oneself because we don’t like ourselves. Again, orient your goals to be moving toward something rather than away from something (e.g. exercising and eating healthier because you want to become your most vibrant and best self rather than because you don’t like who you are). 

Often, people will start trying to eat healthier but have the frame of mind that by doing so they’re depriving and restricting themselves. Ever heard someone say “we want what we can’t have?” Welcome to human psychology. If you tell someone (or yourself) you can’t or shouldn’t have something, you’re more likely to want it. Eating healthy is not about deprivation. Read it again, just in case your brain didn’t quite process that ;).

When you’re operating from that frame of mind, it often leads to overindulging when dining out or attending social events, especially when you allow yourself to have something you've labeled as off-limits. Which, as I’m sure you can see, starts putting you in the opposite direction of where you want to go. This behavior can steer you away from your intended path and, even more significantly, leave you feeling quite lousy. And, more importantly, tends to make you feel like sh*t, when eating healthier is all about feeling better in the first place. 

You are allowed to eat any and all foods, eating healthy doesn’t mean certain foods are off limits. You can have any food you want at any time and you will have numerous opportunities to have those foods when you really want them. When you’re out at a restaurant or social function, orient your frame of mind around how you want to feel. You can always ask yourself if this is something you really want today or if you want to save consuming that food for a day when it sounds particularly good (which is when it’ll taste the best, anyway). 

To wrap this all up, understand how impactful your thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives are. Allow yourself to open and change your mind in ways that support who you want to be and how you want to feel.

If you want more help with changing how you think and getting yourself to follow through with your goals, come work with me 1:1. You can inquire about coaching here.