I would say the #1 thing I get asked by blog readers is how I stay motivated to work out as much as I do.

I guess first and foremost my answer is that I love it. I truly, truly do. To me, there is no feeling in the world like the one I get after finishing an especially sweaty hot yoga class, conquering the giant hill on my bike ride home or finishing a solid 6-mile run. I crave the way I feel after a workout; hot, sweaty and completely worn out. I love signing up for races and new, big goals and working towards them. I really do.

All that being said, there are of course times when I do not feel motivated. At all. And I’d rather spend my evening on the couch or my morning sleeping in. Here are some of my top tips for staying motivated with your fitness goals!

Find something you enjoy

If you don’t love running then why do it? Find an exercise that you truly enjoy – and look forward to – doing. I was driving to the yoga studio on my lunch yesterday and thinking about how I really do love going to yoga or for a run. I don’t go to these things full of dread, I look forward to them!

Sign up for classes

When I first lost weight and got really into working out I was a gym rat. I loved the classes offered at the gym. Step classes, weight lifting classes, spin classes. You name it. Knowing that a class was happening at a certain time so if I didn’t get there in time I would miss it was huge motivation for me. I also signed up for a 6-week, 3x/week bootcamp in January 2008 when I started counting calories. I think that helped me immensely because I had committed – and paid – for the six weeks.

Workout with friends

This is actually a tip I only recently started using in my own life. I used to be a very solo gym-goer and I trained for my first half-marathon and my marathon almost entirely on my own. Recently started doing 90% of my running/workouts with a friend or a group. Let me tell you, it is SO MUCH MORE FUN. If you’re going to be going for a run anyways, why not tag along with a friend so you can catch up? Also, I can’t even tell you how many times the prospect of meeting a friend for a run has got my butt out of bed at 5:00 AM.

Fake it till you make it

Get up. Put on your workout clothes. Drive yourself to the gym, or pool, or running trail. I don’t care if you don’t feel like it. Do it anyways. Tell yourself you’ll only workout for 30 or 20 or 15 minutes if that’s what gets you there. 9 times out of 10 you’ll feel better once you get your workout started and if you don’t? At least you put in a solid effort and got 15 minutes in. 15 minutes is better than 0 minutes.

Focus on the end goal

Did you sign up for a race that you now have no motivation to train for? Think about how you’ll feel on race day if you don’t train properly. You’ll feel crappy and defeated. Not every run or workout is going to be enjoyable – that’s just the way it is – but accomplishing your goal? Finishing that race you signed up for and feeling strong? That will be enjoyable. That will make every miserable run where you had to force yourself out of bed worth it.

More of an instant gratification person? Think about how you’re going to feel at the end of the workout. You never regret a workout you do and you always regret a workout you miss. Enough said.

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Question of the day: How do you stay motivated when it comes to fitness?

It’s Bike to Work Week in B.C. and last week I committed myself to biking to and from work three times this week.

Well, due to some unforeseen circumstances with Eric’s car we are a 1-car family for the week which is resulting in me biking TO work every day.

Yesterday I biked to and from work. It was 8 miles total, 4.5 there and 3.5 back. On the way there I take a longer route because it’s ALL downhill. Biking downhill in heavy traffic scares me so I take some back roads that have relatively no traffic.

Safety first!

Check out the elevation from yesterdays bike ride:

Biking up hill sure is hard, my quads were screamin’!

You know what else is screamin? My butt. My butt is really, really, REALLY sore today. Despite these awesome padded shorts. I remember it being like this when I used to take spin classes back in the day. I guess my butt just has to get used to it?

Overall the ‘giant hill of death’ (as I have dubbed it) was not that bad. I thought it would take me about an hour to get home and it only took about 35 minutes (about the same amount of time I could run 3.5 miles. Ha!) which isn’t too bad considering that elevation!

I think I will try to bike once a week all summer long. It makes for excellent cross-training! I am currently fueling up for another bike ride down the hill with poached eggs on toast. Yummy!

On another note, while I was cooking breakfast this morning I got to thinking about grocery shopping. Currently we go for a big shop once a month and then a little shop once a week or so. We have a budget and we stick to it.

Well this morning we happen to be really short on groceries so I couldn’t have any fruit with my breakfast (the horror!!!) While my eggs were poaching, I was pondering whether it would work better (read: more inexpensive) to grocery shop a few times a week.

So often food we buy goes bad because we buy it during our weekly shop and then just never “feel like it” during the week. I’m thinking if we shopped 2-3 times throughout the week and buy the ingredients for 1-2 meals at a time it might save us money in the long run. Or at least not result in food being wasted.

Thoughts? How do you grocery shop? And do you participate in Bike to Work Week or commute on a bike regularly?

Remember that girl who baked scones on Saturday mornings, spent all day Sunday in the kitchen and even made a creamy, gourmet risotto on a weeknight?

Ya, I’m not sure what happened to her either.

Well, I kind of do, she moved, ate takeout every single night for 10 days had her mother-in-law and mother visiting over the last month (aka doing all the cooking) and in the process lost all motivation to cook. *I will officially stop referring to myself in the third person now*

Last night I actually had time to make a meal for the first night in a long time and I made a quickie taco salad because it was easy and it would taste good (with fake meat of course!)

I just had zero motivation to make anything else. It was weird because usually I really enjoy cooking and it relaxes me. But I just haven’t felt like it lately.

I see blog posts like this and it really encourages me to get my act together and do some serious meal planning but then I just don’t do it. I really think pre-planning and making things in bulk on Sunday’s are key for me to eat well and not get in meal funks during the week. I need to get back on the meal planning and spending time in the kitchen wagon.

So here’s where you come in! What is the best recipe you’ve made lately (preferably vegetarian or something that can be made vegetarian!)?? Leave me a link to it and I will use the recipes to compile my meal plan that I AM DOING next week!

Breakfast, lunches and dinners welcome!