How to Get Your Mojo Back when You Stop Working Out

Working out is perhaps the single greatest asset we have. We can tone our bodies, get lean, build muscle and lose weight. All these targets require the adherence to a specific training regimen. When we combine good diet habits and regular gym sessions, we get to enhance the physical wellness of our bodies. There’s also the associated good feeling we get from working out. Physical fitness can also help us in getting tasks done quicker and improve our home and office relationships.

However, even with all the benefits to be gained from working out, there are a couple of associated drawbacks. Researchers have been able to pinpoint that people who work out regularly need to keep doing so in the long run since their metabolism tends to have already adopted the routine. When we gain weight after a long layout from exercise, it becomes much harder to get back to our groove. However, all it takes to really get back on that bike is a little bit of determination and sufficient motivation.

The Changes

Taking many years off usually means we’re back to where we were before we started the whole fitness journey

When we find ourselves no longer adhering to our exercise schedules, we can start seeing the signs after a while. If we take no action after realizing the deterioration in our bodies, we’re simply leading ourselves towards a slippery hole that can be quite hard to get out.

After we quit working out, our strength tends to lessen. It diminishes little by little with the passing of time. However, for all our strength to fade away, a lot of time has to pass. When we quit working out for about a month, we only lose a tiny fraction of our strength and power. After a year without working out, we lose about half the strength we initially had.

Do all the gains we made whilst working out get lost? Not really. Some traits stay with us even after we stop working out. The capillaries that supply blood to our muscles, the air capacities in our lungs and heart strength remain unchanged.

To summarize the math, taking a few weeks off our exercise schedule leaves a tiny dent in our cardio fitness and little to no loss in our strength. Assuming we were in good shape before quitting, when we take a year off, we lose about 15% of our cardio fitness and 50% of our strength.

Making a Comeback

To make a successful comeback to full body fitness, a mental shift is the first thing that needs to happen even before the work out commences. Once we have the right mindset, we can then take that next step towards our fitness goal

We all love to hear about success stories from people who beat the odds and rose from the ashes to heights of accomplishment. We can replicate such success tales once we take on board the same hard-work mantra.

However, the first step is identifying the reason we quit and then access our body changes in that time. When we gain weight, it is usually harder for us to burn the fat gained. Thus, it would be harder than ever to get back on track in such circumstances.

Quitting due to injury may need one to first consult with their physician. Another probable reason for quitting would be due to boredom. If that was the instigator of quitting, then it would be ideal to seek out ways to make our workouts much more interesting. We can improve the atmosphere around training by incorporating musical elements and availing rewards as incentives to keep us motivated.

Start Small

Losing weight is not an easy thing to do. Instead of making grandiose plans about weight loss, it is easier to start small. We can kick things off with body training at home even before we make a leap to the gym. Heading straight to the gym may frustrate our efforts to get fit. Seeing others bench press and do pull-ups with better execution that we can is not something we’d like to get used to since it can harm our psyche.

Starting small ensures that we build our endurance levels bit by bit every day. The next natural leap of progression would be daily sessions to the gym and frequent sprints to build up our cardio.

Once we gain enough momentum, we’ll feel better about our ourselves. Who knows? That extra bounce in our steps may soon make a comeback. It takes time.