Respawned with no energy or motivation

[burgerpalace]

Greetings! I used to be fairly motivated to workout. A few years ago I would go to the gym 5-6 nights a week, then I decided to buy some weight equipment for home workouts and added strength training to my routine. I was gaining muscle and burning fat and hated missing a night at the gym. At one point I was doing the 100 pushups a day challenge for a month which turned into two months. I would slay my pushups in 4 sets of 25 then reward myself with a Guinness. I wasn't the peak of physical fitness, but I was happy with myself and proud of my accomplishments. Then about a year & a half ago I got into a relationship, moved cities, and my workouts stopped. My diet slipped and I replaced my muscle with fat, resulting in a typical 35 year old dad bod. My weight is the same, but all of those accomplishments are gone. My relationship became very abusive to where I could barely breathe, but now that's behind me and I'm back in the same living situation I was in before without that stress, and my weight equipment is readily available. My workout area hasn't changed and it feels like only last week that I was slaying HIIT workouts followed by heavy deadlifts and kettlebell swings. The problem is, I'm completely unmotivated to workout. I really really want to work out, but I also really really don't. I've since cancelled my gym membership and won't set foot in another gym until Covid is under control, but that's no excuse for not working out at home. When I was trapped in my relationship I would tell myself, "When this is all over you're going to get back in the groove, get your gains back," but the lack of motivation has taken over.

 

I could keep rambling on but you get the idea. Have any of you found yourselves in a similar situation? How did you overcome it? How do I find my 'mojo' again, or reignite that fire under me?

[ladymorella]

I have found myself in a similar situation. In my case instead of a relationship it might have been an unhealthy relationship with my job or health issues. The details don't really matter, but I find in my case there is usually 1 or 2 things happening.

 

1. Just case the unhealthy element is gone doesn't mean the stress is. Sometimes we still carry all that with us. I have found times where it was actually worse once out. My brain fixates on what could I have done differently in case something like this happens again. Or just not moving through the emotions to get over it. In which case I would just need to spend time working through it.

 

2. I think I read it that there are enzymes or hormones that your body produces to keep the status quo. So if you are active your body is more likely to be willing to be active or even need it. If you are more sedentary your body is more willing to do that. I don't know the science and so I don't know if true, but even if not true on the mental part of it seems to be. I try to think of this any time I have to start back up again. It has helped me a lot. I literally started out one time just going for a walk for 1 mile or so 3-4 times a week. It seems like nothing, but it seems to help a lot. After a while I was able to start thinking about running again and I was more eager to go to the gym (this was in a pre-covid-19 world).

 

Now I am sort of in a similar boat again. Work has me stressed out and without the gym to go to that forces me to workout I find it harder to work it in. I had to go back to a schedule mindset. I went to a class based gym so if I didn't go on certain days I couldn't make it up later. This has helped me a lot.

 

It sort of sounds like you might still have some lingering "stress" from the relationship and maybe are being hard on yourself for not keeping up and not picking it back up so easily. A bit of time has passed you will have to build up to that again. This COVID thing can make it hard enough to be motivated to do much anyway.