Sweating once a day is about far more than a calorie burn, but I haven’t always felt this way.
During my run yesterday, I thought of all of the reasons I choose to sweat. I thought back to when I first started to make a point of exercising regularly. I honestly only thought of the amount of calories I was burning. Which was anything BUT what I needed to be focused on. I didn’t need to lose weight to improve my health, but there was no way I could run 5km (maybe not even 2km) without feeling like I was going to die. But I wanted to run 5km, 10km, rather than a measly 2km so that I could burn more calories. I was misguided by the definition of health…
I read magazines that focused on how many calories you could burn doing different exercises. I focused on the highest calorie burning exercises to get the most burn in the least amount of time. Forget weights, I had no clue what to do with them. Plus I thought “weights don’t burn that many calories, what’s the point?”. I remember spending hours on nutrition trackers trying to figure out how many calories I ate in a day and how many calories I burned. Countless hours…that I now spend enjoying life.
These are the reasons that I currently choose to sweat once a day and they are far more motivational than a calorie burn:
- Skin health and detoxification
- Cardiovascular health
- Stress reduction and increased happiness
- Increased energy and endurance to make it to the top of mountains and enjoy the beautiful views.
What motivates you to sweat once a day?
