It can be so hard when first starting out on your fitness journey. When I first started out on my fitness journey it was so hard to beat the fatigue and apathy towards exercising. I literally hated it. I viewed it as a chore, not something I enjoyed. Also, I suffered from muscle atrophy (muscle loss due to a medication I was on), I was always short of breath, I was exhausted from walking 1 metre, which is why I first looked to exercise to help me. I hated feeling like that and I had to do something about it.

So how did I beat the apathy towards exercising?

Well, I kept thinking to myself, “If I don’t work out today, or tomorrow or a whole week goes by without me exercising where will I be in a month from now or a year from now? If I just bite the bullet and get it done where will I be? I could make significant progress if I just get it done now. Every workout brings me closer to reaching my goals”.

Yes, it’s hard especially if you don’t enjoy exercise, maybe its a matter of finding a type of exercise you like, perhaps you need to switch your style of exercise that will work towards your specific goals, this is the difference between exercising and training. When I first started exercising, my goal was to have more energy, build strength and muscular endurance, but I just did jogging, I worked out like 6 days a week and it did help a little bit but I really needed to include quality resistance training as well as boosting my nutrition instead of cutting calories, another reason why I was always exhausted was because of my lack of protein, veggies, whole grains in my diet.

My diet wasn’t necessarily poor but it was lacking a lot of nutrients which led to me feeling exhausted. I hated my workouts because I usually ended up feeling worse afterwards, and did not lead to me successfully gaining muscle mass or strength.

There could be lots of reasons why you have apathy towards exercising but you can beat it.

I look forward to my workouts now, I do it often because I enjoy them. Yes even now though I do still suffer from apathy every now and then, and that’s normal, you aren’t always going to enjoy it and you aren’t always going to feel motivated, that’s where learning self-discipline comes in knowing even though you don’t want to get it done, but you need to, so you are going to, and then you will reap the benefits.

You should be able to enjoy your workouts usually though. Maybe it’s just a matter of getting your body used to it. Try your workout out for a few weeks and see how you go, are you starting to enjoy it? If not try something else, there are loads of different training styles out there. I don’t even jog anymore, I hated it so I don’t do it anymore. I didn’t even need it for the goals I was trying to reach. Also, I found weight training and high-intensity styles like HIIT, Tabata, Plyometrics to be my personal favourite. Everyone is different so chances are you won’t like the workout your friend or colleague is doing.

Experiment and try what works for you! You may be surprised by what you find and how much you enjoy it!