UNITED STATES—I have been getting this question a lot lately: what motivates you to exercise? Now, that may seem like a simple question, but to be honest it’s not. It’s not all about eating and staying healthy, it provides a moment of solitude. Look, I’ll go much more in depth on what I mean by that later, but I want to discuss what gets the actual individual to move the body into motion.

For many Americans we want to exercise, but the biggest issue so many of us face is the inability to take action to actually get up off the couch or better yet to head to the gym or utilize the exercise equipment we spent hundreds of dollars on that is just sitting in the basement taking up space. I have a strict regimen where 4-5 days out the week I easily do about 45 minutes to 1 hour on the elliptical where I put it on the hardest workout cycle possible. Is it tough? Yes. Is my body aching afterward? Without a doubt, but the thing that matters most is that I’ve become so trained at exercising the SAME TIME each day that I work out it gets the psyche prepared for it.

No matter what I’m doing, I stop to exercise, warranted if an emergency arises I have to adjust my times slightly, but thankfully that has not transpired too much in my case. You should never exercise to impress others, even though I’m well aware plenty of people do this. If that motivates you so be it. However, I want to return to the tidbit that I teased at the beginning of this column: what motivates you to exercise? This goes to the point of rather you need some sort of additional push while exercising. For me the answer is no. I know it sounds weird, but people say you don’t listen to the music? Nope. I really don’t have to have a TV, because once I’m in workout mode, I’m in that mode and I try to keep things as consistent as I possibly can. Is it easy no, not a chance, but as they say the more you do something, the better you become at it. The brain is the same way, if you train the psyche to exercise you come to expect to exercise without hesitation.

Are there those days where I’m burnt out to the core, yeah, and if I’m just too exhausted to do it, I might slice my typical exercise time in half, but at the same time, I just reiterate to myself its 30-45 minutes tops. I can watch TV if I want while exercising. Some people don’t see this as an option, but guess what, you actually do America, you really, really do. So please don’t make that an excuse.

The biggest motivation to exercise is the individual; either it is something you’re going or not going to do. As we’ve been told time and time again a body in motion is better than a body not in motion. The ball is in your court, time to make a move America, the question is what will it be? To the couch or to the bike or treadmill or elliptical or the gym?

Written By Kelsey Thomas