Stop Your Money from Ruining Your Workout

By Andrea Travillian

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Do you ever feel like you are following all the right steps and still not achieving your weight loss goal? You have been methodical about ensuring that all aspects have been covered and your frustration level is beginning to grow. You exercise 6 days a week, you eat a healthy balanced diet with the right amount of calories and make sure that there are no underlying health conditions like a thyroid problem to throw you off. Unfortunately you still cannot get down to your desired weight.

What would you say if I told you that health, diet and exercise was not the problem? Would you believe me if I said that it was actually your debt or money problems that are causing your lack of weight loss? A study done for the Associated Press and AOL showed that stress from debt can increase your health problems. This includes increased insomnia, migraines and headaches, back pain, and ulcers – just to name a few! You can work as hard as you want when trying to be healthy, but if you are allowing the negative energy from your money to sabotage your health, it will be really hard to get to your goal.

So how do you give your workout the extra kick it needs by fixing your money? The following five steps will lead you to empowering your workout, and any other area of your life that is impacted by money.

List Your Problem

The first step is to write down where you are struggling with money. This can be a list of your debts that need to get paid off, a budget that needs balanced or a savings plan that needs started. Getting the issue or issues written on paper helps in making them real. You have to admit that it is an issue. This alone can be a powerful step in eliminating the money stress.

Analyze Why

Now it is time to begin to dig into why you are doing something. Look at why you are in debt. Are you overspending, just sloppy with the money or some other reason? Knowing why you are having that problem, helps you make a plan for eliminating the problem. This may take a while to uncover the true reason behind why something is occurring but any awareness that you can bring today will help you eliminate the problem. Begin with a journal that you write in daily to help you investigate what is going on and you will continue to uncover aspects of why you are doing something that can benefit you.

Set a Goal

Once you know what the problem is and are on your way to figuring out why you are doing it you need to set a goal to solve the problem. Write it down on paper and post it where you can see it, when you write down a goal it not only makes it real, but requires you to commit to it. To make this even more powerful turn this goal into a picture of what it will feel like when you are done. So with your debt, your goal may be to pay it off in two years. Draw a picture of you shredding your last credit card statement or doing a happy dance when you mail the last check. Post the picture along side of your written goal.

Create a plan to Achieve Goal

This is a very important step. Many of us set goals but make no plans on how to actually achieve them. It is easier to achieve our goals if we know exactly what to do to get them. An easy way to do this is to grab a blank piece of paper and ask yourself the question “How do I do this”, and keep asking it until you end up with an item that you can actually put on your to do list. Keep doing this until you achieve your goal.

Give Yourself Time and Space

It is hard to make lasting change perfectly from the start. In fact some would call it impossible. So remember to give yourself permission to mess up, adjust how things are getting done and discover new things about you and your money.

Give your workout and body a break, get your money life on track. You will be amazed at how quickly it all comes together when you start heading in the right direction.