If there is one thing that is really challenging people at the moment it is finding a way to stay motivated to exercise. There is no doubting that the Coronavirus pandemic has created tremendous amount of stress for people and one of the first things that is often lost or pulled apart is consistent exercise and eating. It is so much easier to sleep in, stay on the couch with a bag of potato chips and watch endless episodes of your favourite TV show on Netflix. Deep down though we know this is not good and we must do what is difficult and find a way to get up early and stick the health and fitness principles we had prior to the coronavirus. To help you out we asked our trainer Nathan Fejes to put together an article to show you exactly what is helping him to continue following his exercise and nutrition principles. This is a great read for the person struggling to find motivation or a reason to exercise right now.

Why Looking After our Health is so Important During a Crisis

I remember reading Nick’s article from last year – How to stay on track when life throws you a curveball and he made some great points about our beliefs behind exercise. This part of the article really stood out to me -

“The game of life always changes and it always keeps going. There is no timeout and things never stay easy for long. You can’t escape work, personal, and family demands. Generally, when it comes to life, we know we’re not always going to be at our absolute best. For a while everything is running fine but most of the time we have to constantly adapt to the things that come up in life. If we know that change is inevitable in every part of our life why do we expect this to be any different with health and fitness?”

As much as there are many negative reasons as to why you might be losing the plot with your health and fitness program there are also some positives to take away from this situation which I hope to show you in this article. Sometimes we need to take a deep breath and step back from things and really simplify our life to make a good decision of what type of action is best to take.

Before we do this let’s refresh your memory as to WHY you used to love exercising before this crisis began. How did you used to feel after a good workout? Why did you devote time to improving your health and fitness? You know the answers but it is good to say it out loud and write it down for it helps you mind to focus on the positives and get your head out of the rut it is in.

First you need a goal.

Create a New Goal

Covid-19 may have paused your original goal and it is a waste of energy getting upset or angry about it. All you need to do is take a side-step and create a new one! Don’t let the situation make you stop completely, just change it to something else!

My goal before Covid-19 was to increase my running fitness, however, due to government regulations and also to reduce my chances of getting sick I would rather run a little less just enough to maintain my fitness. I changed my focus to increasing my strength with more weight sessions. I haven’t let the situation stop me altogether, I just found something else to replace it with!

A great article to read with ideas on this is – Goal setting, motivation and willpower secrets

Every Exercise Session is One Step Closer to your Goal

I think this is something good to keep in the back of your mind. You may have had to change your plan and feel like you are not doing exactly what you want to do but remember it is still getting you closer to your goal than doing nothing at all.

Sure the gym is shut and you do not have any equipment to do the workout you want but you could change your plan to include a series of body-weight exercises in a circuit. You could even invest in some cheap resistance bands that can deliver the intense session you would normally get at the gym. See the videos below for ideas on this.

Every session you do yourself will keep you closer to your goal than stopping all together, do not let this crisis put you back to square one! Stay strong and adapt.

I suggest to read the two articles below for tons of ideas for home workouts.

• Best Bodyweight workouts to improve health and fitness
• Using Resistance Bands to improve your home workout

Endorphins & the “Feel Good” Hormones

If you are stuck with the goals and getting started then this might snap you out of it. On the days I am feeling sluggish and bumming around bored at home getting cabin fever I remember how invigorated I am after a good workout. Sometimes a 30 minute fast walk will boost me back to feeling energised! But the best thing is an intense training session in my garage or a hard run for this releases the endorphins and feel good hormones that suppress the negative emotions in my head. Sometimes this is all I need to boost me back up to feeling productive around the house!

Lots of studies show that the more someone exercises, the less likely they are to have depression. This is covered in great detail in the article exercise effects on mental health and there is a great video shown below I suggest to watch.

A Strong Body Fights Off Infections & Illness More Easily

This is nothing you did not already know but it is great to remind yourself of how important exercise is for boosting our immune system to fight off viruses.

Without the activity from exercise the body is unable to complete many of the functions needed to sustain optimal health with our essential organs. When we exercise the effect on the heart creates a series of changes to the system that increase oxygen absorption and energy production, lower blood pressure and improve cholesterol levels, resulting in less inflammation and significant efficiency of the body as a whole. It is fair to say exercise is a powerful drug in its own right!

One of the key health benefits of exercise is that it helps normalise your glucose, insulin, and leptin levels by optimising insulin/leptin receptor sensitivity. This is perhaps the most important factor for optimising your overall health and preventing chronic disease.

Make sure you read the article – How to boost your immune system with nutrition and exercise

Exercise Helps You Maintain a Healthy Weight

Once again this is nothing you did not already know but it is amazing how our mind forgets this information when we are in a bad place. You don’t have to be crushing a workout every day of the week especially if you are focusing on building muscle. Three workouts of 30-45 minutes and a 60 minute walk everyday might be all you need to stay in peak physical shape. If you are not sure of how valuable muscle is to your health here is a few facts to check out.

• Muscle is the biggest influence on your metabolic rate. The more you have the faster your metabolism and the easier it is to lose weight.
• Muscle regulates hormones and prevents disease like diabetes and cancer often caused from insulin resistance.
• Muscle improves bone density and prevents bone fractures, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, and can even reverse arthritis.
• Muscle prevents injury and improves stability across all joints to improve how you move.

For more information on this read this article that has a cool info-graphic – Strength training changes more than just your muscles

Exercises Slows Down the Ageing Process

This is important to anyone over the age of 40. Muscle mass declines on average 30% from the age of 50 to 70 and more dramatic after the age of 80 if we do nothing to slow this down. And the worst part is we lose muscle really fast when do nothing. See this article for more on this – The dangers of muscle loss to your health from inactivity

Whether your regular activities have been banned for social distance regulations such as golf, lawn bowls, or fishing, keeping yourself in shape now is vital so when these activities are allowed to start again you can get straight back into them with no limitation or problem. Do not let this pandemic take your health & fitness away in living the way you want to live again. It may not be the exact exercise you want to do but it is better than nothing. Also it is not going to be forever.

Reasons for Stopping Exercise & Ways to turn it around

You should be very clear now as to why you need to keep exercising so let’s list the reasons as to why you may have stopped in the first place. This can help identify the trigger behind your psychological block from getting started and see things from a different perspective.

1. Financial implications

The financial stress from losing your job or a severe reduction in wage means you have to make cut backs in your lifestyle. You may not be able to afford online training or go out and buy a stack of training equipment for the home so you have to get creative and adapt.

Flip this around by training at home by yourself or with your partner! Not only can this be great fun but extremely challenging with many new ways to exercise.

If you are struggling with your food due to financial difficulty make sure you read Mel’s recent article with some awesome recipes and tips of how to overcome this  – How to eat healthy on a tight budget

Working from Home

Those who have not lost their job may be required to work from home and while this sounds great it does bring about some new challenges. For many their routine is all out the window and it feels like there is no escape from work.  There are many distractions and it is difficult to feel energised for working out.

Flip this around by adjusting and embracing the extra time you will have without travel time taking up part of your day. Use this time to dedicate to your exercise and create a specific area in the house that you only use for exercise. No junk food, phones, tablets, or laptops are permitted in this area that can possibly distract you.

If you were forced to wake up early for work keep this alarm time set and use it to train early and start the day off on the right foot. It is amazing how much better you will feel.

Mentally struggling through social isolation with the current restrictions

This is possibly one of the more complex and serious things to evolve from this crisis and could be a problem long term for some people.

Flip this by doing some sets at home scheduling time to do so! Organise a Zoom session or Face-time appointment with a friend and do a workout together through that! Go for a walk around the block and talk to someone over the phone while you are doing it!

This week Kim Logan posted a very detailed article about how she approaches this problem and it is an amazing insight into changing habits and your mind’s way of looking at this problem.

You can read that article here – Changing your mindset is the secret to improving mental health

Now we have accepted the negatives and have flipped them with some strategies for various situations we need to take a look at some of the positives to this pandemic. No I have not gone crazy there are some things that may work to your advantage! It is all how you look at things. Here is some I find an advantage.

Positives to take from the Coronavirus Lock-downs

1. More time

Normally we are time poor and complaining there is not enough time to get things done. For many people they have more time on their hands than they can remember. If you were not able to work out as much before as you never had the time now is your chance to take action! Do not take this time for granted, use it to boost your healthy eating habits and to exercise where you have time!

2. Easier to schedule exercise time

The current pandemic restrictions are allowing us to leave our home daily for exercise, and I have made certain times of the day a ritual and a good excuse to get out of the house. Sometimes it is walking my dogs around the block and others it is going out for a run. I have really enjoyed the consistent schedule and it has become a great habit.

3. The “gym” is right on my doorstep

Yes training at the gym is always the best but unfortunately we aren’t allowed to be open.  It is not all bad news though as it means I can get access to training at any time during the day as opposed to having to allow time to drive to the gym.  I am lucky I have weights in the garage as my gym, but if you do not this doesn’t matter! Bodyweight exercises or household objects can be used for home gym sessions and be very effective.

4. Can’t go out for dinner = more home cooked meals

We currently aren’t allowed to go out to restaurants or go out drinking. I must admit I thought I would miss it more than I am. Not that I would do it all the time but the fact it is no longer a possibility has made me become even better at eating at home. I thought I may have become worse with eating comfort foods but it is the other way around I am eating better than ever for there are no foods available. I think that is the secret really, only having healthy foods at home for you to eat! If it is not there you can’t eat it.

Additional Resources To Help You

If you require more help with your exercise and nutrition we have a huge array of FREE REPORTS you can download. Below you will find two of our best online reports you can instantly download with tons of information and program ideas that relate to many of the things Nathan discussed in this article.

Click the image of the report you want to download. 

Summary

I hope this article helps you either help you to stay motivated like you were before all this pandemic started, or maybe it helps you get out of a rut you are stuck in right now. Just remember this won’t last forever and eventually things will come back online and we will be able to get back to our lives. If we take the time to look after our bodies now we will bounce back quickly and strongly to do all the things that were fun and enjoyable like before. Keep it all going, and we will be back! I wish you all the best through these times, see you when we are back in business!