BUILDING DISCIPLINE IN FITNESS: Challenging Myself to Workout Everyday (Full Week of Workouts)

I've sucked at staying consistent at the gym, but starting this week, that's about to change. I hope.

We're both stuck under covers, under lovers' paradox, and we don't stop till Aphrodite sings.

I've been on and off with my workout routine for some time now. Some weeks I work out every day, but others I just forget. This has not surprisingly really been affecting the progress I've been seeing, both in the physical and mental sense, and I hate it. There's absolutely no excuse I can give to myself as to why I haven't been consistent. And in this video, I'll be talking about and showing you guys how I'm building back consistency and discipline in fitness. I'll be challenging myself to work out every day, and I'll also be stepping outside of my comfort zone and filming at the gym with a big-ass camera. But before I get into the tips and advice, I want to give a huge thanks to Gymshark for sponsoring this video. Can someone pinch me please? I'm so pumped to say that I partnered up with them to promote the brand new pieces from their Apex collection that I'm absolutely in love with. A big motivator when it comes to fitness for me is finding the activewear, and Gymshark is that right activewear that manages to bring me so much excitement. Whenever I look at myself in the mirror at the gym, I always love what I see. It makes me feel so freaking confident, badass, and feeling that way throughout a workout makes training so much better. It's crazy how what you wear can be such a big factor to how you feel, which is why I believe investing in good quality workout clothes like Gymshark is so, so worth it. For today's training session, I'm wearing the Apex Seamless Crop Top in the color Obsidian Green. What I love about this top is it's made out of lightweight, high-stretch material, super breathable fabric, and I also pair the top with the Seamless high-rise leggings in the same color. These leggings have a nice high supported waistband as well as flattering contouring lines, which not gonna lie, really enhances my booty. Honestly, this whole outfit is just a vibe. I actually got complimented on it twice, which is so cool because I usually never get compliments on anything I wear, so it just made my day. Now let's get into my routine. So I have a total of 5 workout sessions every week. 3 of the sessions are at the gym and the 2 other sessions are at home. Ideally, it would have been awesome to have all my workout sessions at the gym, but I do live pretty far away from it, so it's just more convenient to go 3 times. This week I'm starting off with lower body resistance training targeting specifically the glutes. And actually, I've been following an 8-week glute guide from my friend Kate. In fact, she's one of the people who drove me to want to actually fully commit to my fitness journey, so I give her a big shout out. Definitely recommend you guys check her out on Instagram and YouTube. She underwent such an amazing transformation in a sustainable way. So yes, I've been doing the same glute workouts every week as I've been focusing on progressive overload, meaning I've been continuously increasing the weight. So I'm doing the same exercises, but I'm challenging myself to use heavier weights each time, and it's been going great so far. Okay, so the reason why I haven't been staying consistent with my workouts, the reason why I find it so hard to work out every day, is because I've been too reliant on motivation. Motivation and not discipline. I like to see it like this: Discipline is when your habits create your mood. Motivation is when your mood creates your habits. We need to strive for discipline because it's stable. While your habits stay, moods don't. They come and go. This means that your motivation will also come and go. Motivation can only get you very far. At some point it'll die off and only discipline will be there to help you. But how do you build that discipline? How can you beat procrastination and laziness once and for all in fitness? Let me give you some tips and advice that I've been following for a more stable, stress-free workout routine. Coming into this fitness journey, I didn't really establish any specific goals for myself, which is probably why I've been forgetting to work out. Nothing was really pushing me to, and as much as I enjoy it, it seems like enjoyment is not enough. We are goal-driven creatures. We thrive on creating and reaching goals, so it does make sense and it is beneficial to have a goal in everything you do. But while having goals is great, having too many goals is like having no goals. And I feel like if you create lots of goals, it is going to be harder to stay consistent because you might start feeling lost and confused and stressed. So to make it simple for you, to make the process feel so much more doable, start with one goal. And for me, it's just to lose a bit of fat. I'm proud of the amount of muscle I've been building, but the thing is, you can't really see it, and I'd really love to lean out slightly. So that's my goal, and once I accomplish it, I'll then be able to create a new goal, which is probably going to be building more muscle. I recently watched Natasha Ocean's video, How to Create the Perfect Workout Plan, and she mentioned a lot of great points. The first one being fitness should be adding to your life. It should make you feel happier, healthier, more confident, and should allow you to live your life fully. Fitness shouldn't be taking away joy. If it is, then you're not making it sustainable for you. The beauty of fitness is it's different for everyone. It's not one size fits all, but that's what makes it challenging sometimes. You need to experiment. You need to find what works best for you. You should be excited and should fall in love with the journey of becoming a healthier you. As much as we all want to reach the end goal, I've always believed it's the journey, not the destination, that will make life fulfilling. She also said that you don't need to work out every day to see results. Just 3 sessions a week is where you can start to see significant changes. This honestly surprised me. Here I am challenging myself to work out every day, but even just 3 sessions a week is something you should strive for. For, especially if you're just starting out and want to get the ball rolling. I feel that 3 days of training is also manageable, especially if you're a busy full-time student trying to commit and balance other areas of your life. Now, as much as you shouldn't make fitness something that takes away from your life, you're still going to have to be ready to make some sacrifices. For example, instead of scrolling an hour on social media or watching an hour of your favorite TV show one day, you choose to go to the gym instead. That's a sacrifice you're making. There's a quote I recently stumbled upon, and it goes like this: "We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us." Every choice you make, big or small, will shape you in some way or another. You may not see how this choice is impacting you right now, but it will play some sort of part in your life eventually. Okay guys, finished with the gym. That was such a good training session. I'm really happy that they let me record. I was a little I was a little bit skeptical at first, but yeah, it went really well. This was a little bit longer than I was expecting. I was gonna train for an hour, but this was an hour and 30 minutes, probably because I had to record multiple clips back and forth, so that took a little longer, but oh well. Anyways, let's change. Okay, a little break from all the advice and tips. Let me show you guys what I've been eating recently. I've switched around my diet just a bit, really trying to focus on upping that protein intake because of course protein is essential for progress. It's been kind of a challenge, but protein powder is what has been saving the day. As you saw at the start of the video, I made a pre-workout protein smoothie, and now for my first meal I'm having protein oats. I'm not even joking when I'm saying I've been having this same exact breakfast for for over a month now, and I'm not getting tired of it. If anything, I'm actually falling in love with it more and more every day. This breakfast totals to about 40 grams of protein when you add the protein powder, which is quite a lot. It's filling, and it also hits the sweet tooth. Oats with chocolate and peanut butter is the best combo ever. For my next meal, I'm eating these single-serve snacks that I got from Costco. I love these because they're really great on the go and they're just so tiny and cute. Along with that, I either have fruits or veggies, and today I decided to eat some grapes. Up next is a gigantic chickpea pasta bowl with pesto sauce and stir-fry veggies. This meal is just spectacular. I crave it just as much as protein oats, which says a lot. And of course, you gotta treat yourself, so I had a slice of chocolate cake and some crunchy protein cereal and a protein bar, which really isn't a protein bar since it only has 9 grams of protein, but it's delicious nonetheless. For today's upper body workout, I am wearing this beautiful set. I am wearing the Seamless Apex sports bra and the high-rise leggings in the color lavender blue. This is my first time wearing a sports bra to the gym, so I was a bit nervous, but throughout the workout I found that I did keep me very secure, and so I'd say it's almost like a crop top, if anything, which I love. One thing that's really been helping me stay consistent with fitness is making it a priority of mine every single day. I now think of working out like brushing my teeth. I don't think about whether I want to brush my teeth or not, I just do it because I know I should. I want to apply the same mindset to fitness. I want to make working out second nature, something I don't think twice about and just do. As much as it's important not to make exercise a chore, this Discipline is doing it when you don't want to. That's what makes it different from motivation. It's about doing it regardless of what may be in your way. You need to push yourself, look at laziness straight in the eye and say screw off because you're bigger than that. You're bigger than your procrastination and unwillingness. Another tip I have that can help you turn fitness into a priority is to time block your workouts every day. Add your workouts into your calendar just as you would for a doctor's appointment, lecture, or exam. This will help you get into the mindset that working out is essential, just as essential as school. I mean, your body and mind are connected. You need to treat both with love. I'm not too sure doing school all day is effective. And while it's easy to think just focusing on school will help you achieve good grades, I don't think that's true. I think by balancing out school with other things like exercise, that's when you'll see better performance.

Just get, just get, just get your love.

Many of us turn to fitness in in hopes that we could transform our bodies to glow up, become more attractive to the opposite sex, etc. We tend to focus a lot more on the superficial, but there's more to exercise than just to look good. Fitness gives you just as much of a mental glow up as it does a physical one. And actually, I've noticed that you do start seeing mental internal progress a lot quicker than you do external progress. For one, I've seen a major shift in my productivity levels after incorporating daily workouts. I've I say this in a lot of my videos, but I'm only realizing now just how much power exercise holds for your day. If you start your day with a workout, I promise you will feel so much more energized and alive. In my previous videos, I've mentioned how I've been enjoying evening workouts, but after switching between the two, morning workouts are more of my vibe. Third day is leg day, and I'm training in this very orange set. I don't usually go for bright sets as I prefer neutral and dark colors, but I wanted to try something new. And wow, I was coming into this thinking this color would not suit me, but it actually looks really good. I may need to start purchasing some more bright sets in the future to spice up my closet. Give fitness more than one meaning. While I am working out because I want to look more defined and toned, it goes deeper than just that. Lifting heavy, increasing my reps and sets each time makes me feel accomplished. It makes me feel strong. Ask yourself, how does fitness make you feel? How do you want it to make you feel? Pause this video and just think about that question. Another big thing that could help create discipline in fitness is surrounding yourself with people who have similar interests, passions, and ambitions towards it. The quote, "You become who you spend your time with," is so true. If fitness means a lot to you, why not find others who also share the same passion? Not only is it going to make your journey so much more enjoyable, but you also be more likely to stay consistent when you have others staying consistent as well. I want to give another shout out, this time to my friend Evelina. She has been a very big inspo when it comes to starting lifting and going to the gym again. Talking with her and seeing how disciplined she is made me so inspired. If she could do it, then I could too. Thank you so much, Evelina, for being there. Hopefully I'll be able to train with you one day. You guys should definitely follow her. She has a YouTube channel where she posts what I eat in a week, lifestyle, motivational, and fitness content. If you guys enjoy my videos, you will definitely enjoy hers. One of the mistakes I've made is not allocating time for my muscles to recover. I actually made that exact mistake last week. My legs were very sore, but I still pushed myself to go to the gym because I was tempted to work out daily, and I thought that's what discipline meant— working out no matter what. But the thing is, your muscles absolutely need time to recover. It's a must. If you want to see progress, you have to give your muscle tissues time to repair. Don't worry, you can take unplanned rest days, especially if you're just starting out. Don't just assume jumping into training 5 days a week will be good for you. It's about gradually easing into your workout split. Start by working out for 3 days, then go into 4 and 5 if you want to. It's all about taking baby steps. I strive to take 1 to 2 rest days a week. My rest days fall on either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. If I end up taking 2 rest days, which is what I ended up doing this week, I take 1 complete rest day and 1 active active rest day, meaning one day I don't force myself to move at all, and then on the other day I make sure to get some sort of light movement in, whether it's low-impact cardio workout, yoga, or just a walk outside. Rest should not be seen as a reward. It's essential. No rest, no gains. If you want to see progress, you have to incorporate rest days. Let's use a phone analogy. Just like a phone needs to be charged before it can work effectively again, our bodies also require a recharge if we want our performance to increase. At the gym, you should be giving 100% effort, but if your body doesn't recharge, then you might not have the strength to give it your all, and this will hinder how fast you see results. By the way, for today's full body workout, I have on yet again the Apex Seamless Sports Bra, this time in the color Obsidian Green, with these very flattering high-rise shorts in the same color. Many of us can sometimes fall into the assumption that the faster something comes to us, the better. But by now you probably know that's not the case. It takes months and months to achieve results. Your fitness journey will test your patience. Unfortunately, much too often people stop being consistent at the gym because they don't see progress. And I think that's one of the reasons why I was always on and off with the gym and working out. I didn't see the results I wanted to see. After years of training, it still feels like I'm just starting out, like I'm on day one, and it's frustrating. Discouraging that all my hard work isn't giving me what I want. But from now on, I won't take quitting as an option. I won't take my lack of progress as a reason to quit. Remember, you're not failing unless you stop. If you want your fitness journey to become a lifestyle, to become a never-ending journey, you can't rush the process. If you want to make your journey sustainable, as non-restrictive as possible, and if you want your results results to stay, then slow is the best way to go. I've said it before and I'll say it again, your journey should not be a quick fix. It should be a lifestyle to make you healthier and stronger while also making you happy. If my fitness journey would have entailed obsessively counting calories, restricting all my favorite foods, only opting for salad and chicken for every meal, working out for 2 or more hours every day, then I wouldn't want to do it. It'll make me even more stressed and I don't want my journey to look like that. I believe that the longer something takes, the more rewarding it is, and that's with everything in life, not just fitness. So before you get discouraged, remember that everything you are doing will be worth it in the end. All your hard work will pay off eventually, and you'll look back and be proud that you didn't quit. Previously, whenever I wanted to lose fat or build muscle, I found myself setting these unrealistic unrealistic goals. I told myself, let's lose fat in 3 weeks. I thought by giving my goals a tighter deadline, I'd be a lot more motivated to keep going and achieve what I wanted to achieve, but it actually did quite the opposite. It made me less motivated because I knew that unless I followed a strict diet and intense workout plan, losing weight in 3 weeks was going to be hard. So I think if you want to build consistency, you have to take away those high expectations. The pressure and unreasonable deadlines to your fitness goals. Heck, don't even go through the trouble of coming up with a date to when you want to achieve your ideal physique because you're most likely not going to achieve it at the exact time that you want. You shouldn't view your fitness journey as a project because unlike a project, the changes our bodies go through are unpredictable because we are unpredictable. Our lives are unpredictable. Heck, I don't know what I'm gonna do or how my body is going feel in a week, let alone in a year. I'm hoping I'm going to look and feel better, but what is better? My dream body right now might be completely different to my dream body in a year. Preferences change, and by creating tight deadlines, I'm only setting myself up for disappointment. So from this point on, I'm coming into this with no expectations. I'm just going to enjoy the process. And so far it's been going great. I've genuinely been looking forward to my morning workouts and going to the gym.

Pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up the phone. I'll try, I know, I know, I know, I know how to make you so happy. Yeah, I try, don't try, don't try.

By building discipline, you're practicing self-love. By choosing to work out regularly, you're taking care of your body and mind. And with discipline, you do it even when you don't feel like it. Remember not to rush the process. Be patient. Big things are not achieved all at once. And lastly, just enjoy the journey because the journey is the best part. The journey is where the magic happens. It's where lessons are learned, mistakes are made, tears are cried, smiles are formed, and connections are created. If you can fall in love with the journey, then the results just show up effortlessly because you treat the journey not as a daunting task but as an adventurous chapter to your life, a chapter that you will hopefully want to keep on reading and reading.