How to Fall Back in Love With Training

Train for performance. Not for weight loss.

Did you used to love training? Do you miss that feeling of being excited to workout again? 

At my peak enjoyment of exercise, I’ll find myself literally thinking about tomorrow’s workout while lying in bed trying to sleep. I used to do this with sport, where I would replay previous games in my career or envison the next. So it’s no surprise that when I’m really into my training, I engage in a similar behaviour. 

I get that might sound weird, but I’ve been athletic all my life. I find sport/physical exertion to be soothing to me. But, if that aint you, thats totally fine. This article isn’t just for historically athletic people. 

This is on how to fall back in love with training. Or simply just, how to fall in love with training. 

You see, over the last several years, my flame for exercise has been volatile to put it lightly. I’ve had short lived highs and paralyzing lows. Lows so engulfing that I wanted to quit a career I’ve invested 8 years and well over 10,000 hours into. Over the last year, that flame has become more consistent. Less hot, but far more present and manageable. 

So I want to discuss the route I took to get where I am now and how it may help you. Especially if this cycle resonates with you. 

Here are my suggestions for getting back that love you once had or have always wanted for training.


1. TRAIN FOR PERFORMANCE, NOT FAT LOSS:

This is probably the biggest mistake I made and that I see clients make all of the time. If you train solely for an outcome, it makes your relationship to training dependant on that outcome. So if you don’t lose weight, you’re probably going to bail on training. Which doesn’t get anyone anywhere. This line of thinking is progress focused, rather than process focused. Your results will be a reflection of your consistency, your structure, your habits and your effort. Otherwise known as, your process. Honing in on the process will get you progress. But being myopic for your progress may alter your process in a way that just isn’t sustainable. 

This line of thinking is progress focused, rather than process focused. Your results will be a reflection of your consistency, your structure, your habits and your effort. Otherwise known as, your process. Honing in on the process will get you progress. But being myopic for your progress may alter your process in a way that just isn’t sustainable. 

So train for performance. Train to achieve physical fitness goals that you’ve always been motivated by. Train specifically for them. Ignore the calorie burn of the worokut. It’s pretty irrelevant for most of us. How irrelevant you may ask? Well for non-athletes, physical exercise seems to take up about 5–10% of total daily energy expenditure. You can even think about this logically. If you train for 3–5 hours per week, that leaves 163–168 hours left in the week where your body still needs energy to move and continue all of its bodily functions for survival. So of course those 3–5 hours aren’t going to contribute an overwhelming amount of energy expenditure into your week. Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t exercise, you definitley should. I just advise against training for specific calorie burn. Its a great way to ruin your relationship with exercise. Making the consistency of said exercise highly unstable. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5388457/ “Traditional” model of total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) in humans. In this model, non-exercise energy expenditure is associated with the energy expended in non-exercise physical activity.

2. STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO HOW FIT YOU USED TO BE:

You need to stop being such a dick to yourself. This will only stunt your current progress. Comparing your current self to your peak fitness levels is a great way to minimize all of your current progress and make it seem futile. 

Did you just squat 135lbs for the first time since training again? That’s amazing! But, if you want to squander all sense of accomplishment, you can just say “well I used to squat 225 so this just shows how weak I am now.” This self talk helps nobody and just hurts your confidence in the gym. 

Celebrate all of your small wins. Stack them. Recognize them for what they are to you NOW. Don’t compare them to your previous bests. Unless you want to hit new benchmarks just to feel worse about them. 

This mindset change can be powerful in regards to rebuilding your love for training. I don’t care what anyone says, your fitness journey is heavily psychological. So you do need to feel good about what you’re doing. One way to feel good is to see tangible improvements and actually celebrate them, rather than pass them off as “pathetic by comparsion” — which they aren’t. Progress is progress. You wouldn't accept a loved one minimizing all of their improvements, so don’t accept you doing it yourself. 

3. BUY INTO THE LONG GAME:

This might be the hardest one to adopt. Especially if you’re someone who has a high level of recency. Meaning you’re more willing to sacrifice long term progress for short term desires. This might look like crash dieting to lose all the weight quickly — even though this historically ends in a full rebound for you. Playing the long game is a requisite for developing a long lasting and successful fitness journey. 

Building muscle/strength or losing body fat are adaptations. It’s your body adapting to the energy balance it’s in and the training stressors imposed on it. Adaptations — especially ones that stick, take time to achieve. So operating with a sense of urgency with your results doesn’t make much sense. Any noticeable change you want to make will take time. If you try to shortcut it, you’re probably just sacrificing your long term adherence. Which is a great way to lose any result you achieve. 

So not only is the long game a mentally healthier approach, it also makes more practical sense. Physiological adaptations take time. So you need to buy into a process that will keep you consistent indefinitely. Or you may just be left pissed off by all the hard work you put in just to not meet your expectations. 

In summary, anyone can find a love for training. You just need to train in a way that you enjoy (or hate the least) to achieve performance goals that excite you. You also need to to be kind to yourself along the way. And finally, you do need to ditch the shortcut mindset in favour for the long game. A combination of these three behaviours can be very effective in getting you awesome results that you can maintain. I am aware, there is nothing special about this advice. It’s just hammering the basics. But thats what most of us need. To master the basics in a way that we can sustain for life. 

Always remember: Don’t chase fast progress with a miserable process.