If you're like me, you go through seasons of intentional exercise, waking up early to hit the gym before your day begins and mindfully eating to fuel your body. You also have weeks where school or your job are just too overwhelming to make time for the gym. Everyone knows the feeling of that first workout after time off, it sucks, at least for me. Everything hurts and I'm sore for days following. My job has me always on my feet and being super sore is no fun at all. Something I learned is how to ease myself back into the groove of hard workouts and I thought of a few tips and tricks.

First off, bring a friend. Someone to hold you accountable and someone to call you out if you skip reps. Giving workouts a social aspect makes it less... sucky.

When it comes to cardio, I usually run more in the warmer months, outside. Nothing is more boring to me than running on a treadmill. What do I look at? How do people read books on the treadmill? Or watch TV? I just get motion sickness? Most often I just think about how much I hate it. Anyways, something that helped me ease into running indoors during the winter months is picking a certain distance and every time I go to the gym I'd always clock that far on the treadmill. If you haven't run for exercise recently or want to get better at it, start with a mile. You can walk it, too. Eventually, you'll get bored and start running. Each week your time will go down and you'll notice the results you're working toward. It doesn't matter how fast, how much you walk or don't walk, just reach that number and get it done. This helped me because I'd want to go faster just to get off that damn machine.

When it comes to weights and equipment, it's most important that you're knowledgable about the right form before adding weight on. You can seriously injure yourself if you lift too much weight using the wrong muscles to do so. Nothing is worse than watching that guy at the gym lift way more than he should, one bad lift away from throwing his back out. Don't be that guy.

Lastly, have realistic expectations. Workout to feel good, to have more energy and to be more confident. If you're working out to desperately lose weight fast, it probably won't happen. Do it to feel good. Do it for you.