As a teenager I was FULL of energy, heck I’ve always been full of energy but have had a high disregard (or low tolerance) for conformity, routine and discipline. My energy was flighty and unstable so exercise was excruciating.

Many years ago I trained to be a lifeguard which had nothing to do with the boys, being at the beach all day and the all night parties..(NOooo).. When we used to do our runs (my absolute worst!), I would be right at the back which used to work to my advantage because I could quietly slip through the bushes and come back in towards the front #disgracefulcheat#.

Fortunately for all beach goers I never followed through with actually working as a lifeguard.

I do have a point…

My point here is that one day I started going with a group of work friends and found the types of movements I loved. It was all the easy, great music ones but it removed the whole “confinement” roadblock and after a while I was hooked.

Maybe a bit too much.

Slow at first, I started to love the way I felt after a workout and of course the results…! I will admit it became crazy lady time… I recall a fierce tantrum in my local gym one Friday afternoon because my class had been cancelled.

But over the years I found my balance and whilst I started to love pushing my mind and body to do things it didn’t want to do, if I wasn’t in the mood I would always make sure I fell back on those good old favourites that left me feeling good but not coerced.

What do you love?

Did you know that even stretching is enough to get the blood pumping round your body? Yoga is amazing for overall wellbeing and there are many many types you can try from fast paced vigorous to slow gentle breathing, sheesh there’s even ropes now (if that gets you all hot and sweaty ;).

As I talked about in my earlier post How to get the life you want; moving will shift toxins out of your muscles and blood. Pumping oxygen around your body will release endorphins. These are two things that will promote the feeling of wellbeing.

And as I’ve said time and time again, feeling well means feeling happy and feeling happy keeps you on the road to even more happiness inducing choices (What IS Happiness).

Here are my top tips for finding ways to exercise that is out of the box and which you may enjoy;

YouTube: You can search for anything and for the timeframe you want. Want a 8 minute super yoga class, you’ll find it! Deep stretching, a quick funky dance routine, 38 minutes of stretch and tone, want to just focus on core or the six pack, you name it, it’s there and for the time you can commit to.

Blast that music: You will condition yourself to feel good and want to exercise when you hear motivating music. Your brain will start to associate those awesome tracks with feeling good so all you’d need to do is play the tune and you’ll want to workout.

Trick yourself: I do this ALL the time. When I don’t feel like I’m in the mood, I’ll tell myself that I’m literally going to do 10 minutes of heart pumping or just 15 minutes of stretching. From time to time that’s all I do and I’m happy with that because I’m doing it purely for happiness. But more often than not, I start to feel so good moving that I chose to go longer!

Think outside the box: You don’t need to do traditional exercise. Why not take up something you’ve always fancied doing. Ever wanted to horse ride, ballroom dance, take martial arts… There’s millions of ways to move PLUS you’d be ticking a bucket list item. A guaranteed happiness inducer 😉

Buy a membership: I love this one, in the past I’ve paid for a gym membership because not only do I love not having to think about what to do, I love the music in the class and someone motivating me. I also had the additional push to go so I’m not wasting my money.

My hairdresser on the other hand used this tactic but in a completely different way!!

She said that when she paid for a membership she would feel like she didn’t want to waste the money but would end up finding other ways to move so that she didn’t have to go to the gym. So she would often end up on the golf course doing 18 rounds just so she didn’t have to do a gym workout.

Whatever works right!!!!