One of the hardest things about fitness, I think we can all agree, is finding a routine that not only works for you and your lifestyle, but finding the motivation to stick with it long-term. It’s something that even the pros, like PT and SWEAT Trainer, ​Kelsey Wells, experience. But now, Kelsey has happily shared how she keeps up her regular training sessions, and of course, it all boils down to finding her reason ‘why’. Once you’ve cracked that, she says, it’s easier to stay consistent with training.

It wasn’t an easy process, Kelsey told her followers on Instagram in a detailed post, adding that she went through years of hitting the gym in order to fit into a certain outfit, or to look a certain way while on holiday (sounding sadly familiar?).

“I committed to exercising consistently only to quit two days later, more times than I can count in my life,” wrote Kelsey. “Well it has now been six years since my last day one, and I will never quit. I have thought a lot over the years about why I was FINALLY able to ‘stick with it’ and honestly, there are a few layers and dimensions to this answer. But this one underlines them all: my commitment to fitness never stuck, until I first committed to myself.”

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She continued on to share the previous reasons she’d tried to deploy. “Not to change my body because I resented it. Not to fit into a dress. Not for an event, vacation, or summer. Not because I ate “too much”. Not to shrink my thighs or stomach. Not to be smaller. Not from a place of negativity.

“For the first time in my life, at 24 years old, I committed to fitness because I needed to HELP MYSELF. Finally – I was on my own team, in support of my own body – not against it. I moved to heal it, not out of hate for it. Your success in life and fitness requires you to abandon the bullshit mindset that you are unworthy, broken, or not enough. You are not bad for having those thoughts, but you cannot afford to constantly and consistently feed them through negative self-talk.” Hear, hear!

Within the same post, Kelsey also shared the much welcome reminder that exercise can – and ought to be – a holistic thing, a way of appreciating your body for all it can do. “Move your body from a place of gratitude, to heal and love and empower yourself. And the more you do, the more you believe it. The more you try and treat yourself with love, the more you can see and feel it. THAT is what fitness should be for. That’s the magic, right there. There is no reason today can’t be your day one.”

That sounds a million miles better to us, than trying to fit into society’s Photoshop-laden beauty ideals.

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