Lunchtime
My mid-day meal included an Italian sausage sandwich with mustard, spinach and tomato slices, paired with carrots and green pepper strips and string cheese.
Eat Those Carrots!
F-o-o-d
Lots of flavahs!
And now for the part of this post that I am super excited to share with all of you!
Exercise Mantras
Call me corny, but I love a good mantra. Whenever I’m feeling stressed, unmotivated, sad or angry, I often look to quotes and motivational phrases to change my state of mind.
When it comes to working out every morning, truthfully I don’t struggle getting to the gym most days. I think it’s because it’s a pattern for me and something I do daily. I know I would feel like I was missing something if I skipped my morning workout.
However, there are obviously days when I’d much rather sleep in. There are mornings when I think I’ll just walk on a treadmill for 30 minutes and call it a day. That’s when I look to my favorite exercise mantras:
- Do it for those who can’t.
- There are 168 hours in a week. I’m only asking for 7 of them.
- I’ve never regretted a workout.
- Every day is a new opportunity to make new decisions.
- If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’re going to keep looking how you’ve been looking.
- Every day you decide to workout, you make a decision to benefit your health.
After asking you guys for input on your favorite motivational quotes, I received a slew of responses that were funny, uplifting, energizing and inspiring.
Here are some of my favorites (with the name of the person who submitted the quote noted in parenthesis):
- You know your limit and this is NOT it. (Meaghan)
- A body at rest wants to stay at rest. A body in motion wants to stay in motion. (Heidi)
- No hurt, no mini skirt. (Kelly)
- When your legs are tired, run with your heart. (Gabriela)
- You don’t HAVE to exercise. You GET to exercise. (Kimberly)
- Everyone has 24 hours in one day. What you do with those hours is up to you. Make the most of them! (Jessica)
- You are just one workout away from a good mood. (Cynthia)
And here’s a list of other wonderful mantras you guys submitted in the comments section of yesterday’s post and on PBF’s Facebook page:
- There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. (Stephanie, a la Beverly Sills)
- You’re stronger than you think you are! (Annette and Kristen)
- Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. (Amber K and Meredith, a la Dory from Finding Nemo)
- What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. (Jess)
- If it were easy, everyone would do it. (Ang)
- This is not the hardest thing I’ve ever done. (Kaella)
- Don’t try. Just do. (Helen)
- If you can, you must! (Clare and Jen)
- It won’t kill ya! (Elisa)
- Just get out the door. If I’m hating it, I can quit in five minutes. (Averie)
- You can do anything for one minute (or 30 minutes, etc.). (Allison and Eliza)
- I need to work some things out, leave some things behind, get over some long-held fears. I need to know that I’m strong in some ways that I’ve never really believed. (Mindy)
- Pain is weakness leaving the body. (Margaret)
- Your limits might not be where you think they are. (Margaret via IronMan Chrissie Wellington)
- Obsessed is the word the lazy use to describe the dedicated. (Alicia)
- You must expect things of yourself before you can do them. (Jen)
- If you look good, you feel good, then you’ll do good. (Taryn)
- Never let the body tell the mind what to do. (Sarah K.)
- Don’t stop when you’re getting tired. That’s when you’re getting stronger! (Maryann)
- Rule your mind or it will rule you. (Kelly)
- The body is stronger than the mind. (Elysie)
- If my 82-year-old grandma goes to the gym every day, I’ve got no excuses. (Kristin)
- Time never stops moving. This challenge will come, and this challenge will go because time never stops moving. This will eventually be over and look at what I will have achieved. (Katy)
- All I need to do is show up. (Arielle)
Healthy Eating Mantras:
- The food you eat today is the body you wear tomorrow. (Katie)
- Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you’ve got a kingdom. (Katie)
- An hour a day keeps obesity away. (Danielle)
Running Mantras:
- You can’t judge a run by the first mile. (Michelle)
- For marathon runners: Run the first 10 miles with your head, run the second 10 miles with your legs, and the last 6 miles with your heart. (Sarah K.)
- If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, but you’ll be hard to beat. (Alicia)
- You’re blessed to have legs that allow you to run. (Kristen)
Amazing, huh?
Since I’m sure this long list of exercise mantras is a bit intimidating, I’m going to conclude each morning post for the rest of the month with one quote randomly selected from this post to give it some extra attention. Hopefully each daily quote will resonate with you and help motivate all of us to continue to make healthy decisions in our day-to-day lives.
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ahh i love these.. i am going to save them and print them out! i love how you will put one a day in your posts- that will be great!
love this list!
These are totally awesome–thanks so much for sharing! I will definitely be repeating some of these to myself this afternoon as I’m chugging away on the treadmill. Thanks for these great, positive mantras!
I might print out this list, so I can look at it when I’m feeling unmotivated. Thanks, Julie!!
I LOVE this list!
Here are a couple of my favorites….
From my favorite yoga teacher: “You are stronger than you know”
and when I’m really not feeling like cardio —
“I have to run, I do not have to run fast”
…almost always once I start running, I’m back on track 🙂
My cross country coach in high school used to always tell us to “Get out of your comfort zone!” when we were racing. It helps with many aspects of life though – situations when I’m nervous, workouts, you name it…
Yikes! That’s a lot of mantras, but all so good! I should post these somewhere!
GREAT list! I love that you’re going to post one a day- great idea! 😀
I’m glad you liked mine, thanks for reposting! I love “what you eat today is the body you’ll wear tomorrow.” Genetics play a role, but the way we treat our bodies accounts for so much of what we look like!
Love these! Thanks for posting mine.
I love: You don’t have to exercise, you get to exercise. That one is a great one.
I dont think so lol. unless its a fruit or healthy dish.
does, “Life is short – eat dessert first!” count as an exercise mantra?? haha
I love the one about exercise & nutrition as king & queen.
The food you eat today is the body you wear tomorrow
THAT ONES SO POWERFUL and MOTIVATING!
This was probably one of my favorite posts you’ve done! LOVE THEM ALL! I will definitely be using some of these to get my lazy but running!
Thanks for using what I wrote 🙂 I love reading all of these…thanks for taking the time to compile them all and link everyone back (a time suck! ) so thanks for doing it julie 🙂
I LOVE this Julie!!! Thanks to everyone for their VERY inspiring words 🙂
These are all great!
“Just get out the door. If I’m hating it, I can quit in five minutes. (Averie)”
Averie, I love this one! This sums up how I often feel, and it works!
Girl, I think this one ALL the time whenever I’m not feeling a run. Always changes my mood around!
I love the very last one! It is really similar to my montra…when I am running and I feel like my legs are toast and Im out of breath, I think to myself–“Run for everyone who cant, you are blessed.”
Love these! Here’s one I repeat: Being uncomfortable won’t kill me (comes in clutch during those long, difficult runs…)
i say this too. “it’s okay to be uncomfortable!”
“Obsessed is the word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.”
As a college student, I cannot tell you how much I needed to read this mantra. It’s hard enough to make healthy living a priority, but amongst college students with diets of beer and chips, it’s extra difficult. I hear all too often “just have one cookie” or “you’re so obsessed with working out/yoga etc” and it really gets to me! I’m so glad that I now have a snappy response to those people who don’t even try to understand my healthy ways. Because, it’s true–“The food you eat today is the body you’ll wear tomorrow”–and I’d like my body to look good!
college is definitely one of the hardest places to make healthy decisions. good for you for making your health a priority!
Such great mantras!
OH my goodness I am LOVING this compiliation of quotes!!! Thank you so much (and everyone who contributed!) for providing all of these wonderful quotes. I am now going to print them off so I can have them handy to read when I need them most. Love it!
I’ve been listening to zac brown a lot and getting those songs stuck in my head has helped me run a lot
“Quiet Your Mind” makes me feel so at peace- which is why I run in the first place.
Love them all!
Totally bookmarking this post! I love everyone’s mantras!
Oh my gosh. I love “I’ve never regretted a workout.”
I’m in college, too, and sometimes all of the homework and lack of sleep makes me want to just push it to another day. I think this will help remind me that every time I work out, I feel a little bit better after I finish!
Love your blog, by the way :0)
I love all these quotes!
my favorite: The food I eat today is the body I wear tomorrow..
this one is going to help me tremendously!!!
Oh I loved all of those. Thanks for posting. The “There are 168 hours in a week, I am only asking for 7 of them” really hit home with me.
My husband’s favorite saying recently is, “Every excuse is ten pounds. When you lose the excuses, you lose the weight.”
this is just what I needed to read today! I usually just bring a beat-up Shape magazine and call THAT my motivation!
Currently I am training for a half=marathon (my first) and when I am training and want to stop I tthink about this:
NewYork Firefighters of September 11 ran 50 flights of stairs to save lives and still continued before the towers fell down. If they kept going so can I 🙂
Great post!
Those are some seriously awesome mantras!
I always say “PAIN IS TEMPORARY, PRIDE IS FOREVER!”
That got me through 4 mini marathons!
These are amazing! Thanks! 🙂
I like most of these but a few sound disturbingly similar to the “thinspire” quotes that many pro-eating disorder websites frequently use (I suggest googling ProAna and ProMia if you don’t know what I am referring to).
“No hurt, no mini skirt.”
“If you look good, you feel good, then you’ll do good.”
“The food you eat today is the body you wear tomorrow.”
These all seem extremely similar to ProAna phrases like:
“Hunger hurts but starving works.”
“A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.”
“Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.”
That being said, I want to reiterate that I really do love some of these (especially “When your legs are tired, run with your heart.”)
I get where you’re coming from, and I’ve seen a few of these quotes in Fitness Magazines, such as the “Moment on the lips, forever on the hips” one. I’m just wondering whether these are filtering into general consciousness. I do love 99% of these mantras though, and will definitely be using
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going”!
Great list!
I’m training for my first half-marathon so whenever I think I’m tired, I just remind myself that these few miles are a piece of cake.
I love all the mantras, but I especially love the marathon running mantra because it’s oh-so-true!
These are awesome and positive, thank you!
It’s hard to choose a favourite but “No hurt, no mini skirt” rings true for me! I have to work hard on my bottom half – curse those pear-shape tendancies!!
Those mantras are great! Very inspirational! 🙂
I find myself using mantras on occasion, but my usual one is just a statement of the obvious to myself. I go to the gym extra early in the morning, and when I get the urge to lazy it up and leave before I finish my workout, I just tell myself I’ll have nothing to fill the remaining time up with, so why not just keep going? I could’ve slept in that extra hour rather than laze around!
Ohh nooo. I was just going to skip my run and then you had to post this! Now I have to go!
Ah I love them. I wish I was just motivated to actually work out considering I have been paying for a gym I do not attend since April. Such a waste of money.
Great mantras. I honestly crave working out. It feels so good, gets a lot of energy out of me and I always see my friends at the gym, so it truly is a lot of fun.
I love this list! And I love the idea of having a quote to conclude every morning post. It will really set a good attitude for the day!
Thanks for including mine Julie! That was a lot of fun. Please have more audience participation posts! I loved the vizsla post too 🙂
This is so helpful! Especially since I begged and convinced my husband to skip our workouts this morning. Eek! These are powerful mantras!
I love these!! And that one about the 168 hours/wk and exercise is only asking for 7 is really cool. It’s a nice way to put it. 🙂
I love reading those! I’m going to remember the no hurt, no mini skirt! That’s clever