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The Best Workout Motivation with Michelle Segar PhD
This podcast episode with Dr. Michelle Segar was as beneficial for me as I believe it will be for you. Listen using the player above, and find transcripts and additional resources below.
For years I’ve had a love-hate relationship with exercise. I’ve tried to build healthy habits in most of the usual ways. I used habit stacking, and all the things experts tell us to do to maintain workout motivation.
But I still struggled to meet my fitness goals. For years I went to the gym early each morning right when I woke up. My personal trainer would punish me with squats, lunges, and strength training to get me out of my comfort zone. “No pain, no gain,” she’d yell!
It didn’t last.
Why?
Because I don’t enjoy punishing workouts! It’s hard to consistently do any form of exercise you don’t enjoy.
In addition, my workout motivation was weight loss and good health. While good health is an excellent reason to work out, weight loss is not.
The evidence is now clear: Exercise is excellent for health; it’s just not that important for weight loss. So don't expect to lose a lot of weight by ramping up physical activity alone.Vox
The Best Workout
That’s why experts say the best workout is the one you love doing. If you love it, you’ll do it. Try to force yourself to do exercises you hate, and you’re more likely to resent the hard work, eventually giving it up.
If you enjoy HIIT exercise, go for it! Pilates is your thing? Do it! If you love dancing, turn up the music and get your cardio exercise in with your favorite tunes. Create a playlist to listen to while you dance or work out.
The best workout songs are those with about 120-208 beats per minute. Search for these on Spotify you’ll get the best cardio workout of your life! Hip Hop dancing includes full-body movements, developing muscle strength, stamina, and endurance while burning around 450 calories per hour.
Of course, you’re likely not going to dance for a solid hour, right? But you might dance for 10 minutes, at multiple intervals throughout your day!
Remember, your fitness journey doesn’t have to be painful, punishing, or something you dread. The fact is, it doesn't even have to be long and grueling! It just has to be something that brings you joy from true motivation, not guilt or a feeling of failure.
This is the beginning of a concept Dr. Segar develops in The Joy Choice that will help you achieve sticktoitiveness in the area of exercise and healthy eating.
Home Workout vs. Gyms
Dr. Segar explains the difference between what she calls habiters or unhabiters. Habiters, who are very disciplined and organized, stick to their plans, everything runs according to schedule, and are 100% onboard with eating healthy foods and exercising.
For some folks, going to the gym is the only fitness motivation that works. Working out at home may lead to negative self-talk and zero motivation. If that’s you, keep your gym membership and make it part of your fitness routine.
Just try not to go down the perfection rabbit hole. Shy away from rigid plans and unrealistic goals, we’ve learned to equate to success when exercising.
A key step in my coaching process involves helping clients learn to shift away from the perfectionistic exercise and eating beliefs that, while still widely believed, are now very outdated. Michelle SegarMichelle Segar, Ph.D.
If that's not you, you might be an unhabiter, like many others, including Dr. Segar! You'll find relief listening to this podcast episode and cutting yourself slack in this area of your life. And when you do, you'll discover something quite interesting. You'll achieve more success when you find the best workout motivation for you. (Hint: the book will help you find what truly motivates you!)
Everything listed below will make much more sense if you listen to the podcast episode or read Dr. Segar's book.
After reading The Joy Choice, I felt such a sense of relief and less of a failure when, day after day, I couldn't make it to the gym because of my workload. Here are some changes I've made since reading the book that might also help you!
Setting Yourself Up For Success
To get in these quick exercise sessions, set yourself up for success. Here are a few ways I get my heart rate up without wearing gym clothes. (That’s right, you don’t have to live in your leggings or yoga pants to work out on a moment’s notice!)
Keep an extra pair of sneakers in the trunk of your vehicle so you can get in a walk when you have a little extra time. (For example, I often walked during my daughter’s Taekwondo classes, better yet, join your child in their martial arts classes!)Sign up for dance lessons with your spouse instead of going out to eat on date night.Bike or walk when you can if you enjoy it - biking to the store for groceries is one of my favorite ways to get my heart rate up and get something done simultaneously. My kids often join me.Ask your mental health provider if they offer “walk and talk” therapy sessions (mine does!)Warm up each day with a few stretches when you first get out of bed if it feels good.Relax before bedtime with a simple bedtime yoga flow. I'll include a printable copy of my bedtime yoga flow on my free guides page, which you can get access to when you sign up for my weekly emails. (Or request it by contacting me via email.)
Action Steps to Find The Best Workout Motivation
What if you could easily and joyfully resolve the in-the-moment conflicts that often derail your eating and exercise goals? Dr. Segar has devoted decades to studying how to achieve lasting changes in these and other behaviors.
Take the quiz Michelle mentioned to help you find your motivation.
Dr. Segar mentions her studies with cancer survivors in her book. Read more about her research here: The effects of aerobic exercise on self-esteem and depressive and anxiety symptoms among breast cancer survivors.
Meet Michelle Segar, PhD author of The Joy Choice and No Sweat!
Michelle is an award-winning researcher at the University of Michigan with almost thirty years studying how to help people adopt self-care behaviors, like exercise and healthy eating, in ways that bring meaning and joy and can survive the complexity and unpredictability of the real world.Michelle’s translational research is widely recognized as relevant and practical. She advises the World Health Organization and was selected to be the inaugural chair of the United States National Physical Activity Plan’s Communication Committee.For almost thirty years she has been designing and evaluating methods to help people cultivate the transformations in mindset necessary for creating tangible changes in behavior that can survive the complexity and unpredictability of the real world. Her combination of academic research with real-world health coaching permits her to create practical and engaging behavior change systems that are being scaled to boost patient and population health, employee well-being, and gym membership retention.Michelle has worked with and advised a number of prominent organizations, including U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Kaiser Permanente, Walmart, Intermountain Healthcare, Anytime Fitness, Adidas, Google, and Business Group on Health.A sought-after speaker and trainer, Michelle is frequently interviewed about motivation, habits, and sustainable change in major media outlets including The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Prevention, Real Simple, and TIME.No Sweat!, her bestselling book on creating lasting exercise motivation, is used around the world as a core text in training professionals in health coaching and patient counseling. Her new book, The Joy Choice, introduces a practical, science-based system for breaking down all-or-nothing thinking and cultivating the flexible and tactical decision-making that supports sustaining exercise, healthy eating, and self-care within the complexities of daily life.Michelle’s training and experience is uniquely comprehensive, including a doctorate in Psychology (PhD), a master’s degree in Health Behavior/Health Education (MPH), a master’s degree in Kinesiology (MS) and fellowships in translational research and health care policy from the University of Michigan. She ran with the Olympic Torch at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.Michelle Segar, PhD
Book a speaking engagement with Michelle.
Transcripts and Sources
Rebecca: Michelle, I am so happy to have you here on the podcast with me today. I absolutely love talking about building habits and your book was a refreshing change. So can you tell me a little bit about how you came to write the Joy Choice?
Michelle: Yes. There's a high level reason why I decided, to write it the big picture reason is that in 1994, almost 30 years ago, I was conducting a study with cancer survivors, and we discovered that the cancer survivors who are about four and a half years outta treatment, so living normal lives, not, not.
Michelle: Feeling Ill just living their normal lives, they committed to our study for three months, but once the study was over, almost everyone stopped exercising. And I, I was like, ah, like why? Why would you stop exercising? And the participants told us in focus groups that they were busy, that they had families and they were working and they had aging parents to help and they had this, that, and the other.
Michelle: That people who had faced a life threatening illness felt comfortable prioritizing their own self care for our study, but either didn't feel comfortable or didn't have the skill set to prioritize it in their own lives meant we had a real problem in society. And I had this amazing light bulb moment where, you know, my purpose found me and it was to figure out why people don't feel comfortable prioritizing or have the skills to prioritize self care behaviors like physical activity and
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By Rebecca Huff
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This podcast episode with Dr. Michelle Segar was as beneficial for me as I believe it will be for you. Listen using the player above, and find transcripts and additional resources below.
For years I’ve had a love-hate relationship with exercise. I’ve tried to build healthy habits in most of the usual ways. I used habit stacking, and all the things experts tell us to do to maintain workout motivation.
But I still struggled to meet my fitness goals. For years I went to the gym early each morning right when I woke up. My personal trainer would punish me with squats, lunges, and strength training to get me out of my comfort zone. “No pain, no gain,” she’d yell!
It didn’t last.
Why?
Because I don’t enjoy punishing workouts! It’s hard to consistently do any form of exercise you don’t enjoy.
In addition, my workout motivation was weight loss and good health. While good health is an excellent reason to work out, weight loss is not.
The evidence is now clear: Exercise is excellent for health; it’s just not that important for weight loss. So don't expect to lose a lot of weight by ramping up physical activity alone.Vox
The Best Workout
That’s why experts say the best workout is the one you love doing. If you love it, you’ll do it. Try to force yourself to do exercises you hate, and you’re more likely to resent the hard work, eventually giving it up.
If you enjoy HIIT exercise, go for it! Pilates is your thing? Do it! If you love dancing, turn up the music and get your cardio exercise in with your favorite tunes. Create a playlist to listen to while you dance or work out.
The best workout songs are those with about 120-208 beats per minute. Search for these on Spotify you’ll get the best cardio workout of your life! Hip Hop dancing includes full-body movements, developing muscle strength, stamina, and endurance while burning around 450 calories per hour.
Of course, you’re likely not going to dance for a solid hour, right? But you might dance for 10 minutes, at multiple intervals throughout your day!
Remember, your fitness journey doesn’t have to be painful, punishing, or something you dread. The fact is, it doesn't even have to be long and grueling! It just has to be something that brings you joy from true motivation, not guilt or a feeling of failure.
This is the beginning of a concept Dr. Segar develops in The Joy Choice that will help you achieve sticktoitiveness in the area of exercise and healthy eating.
Home Workout vs. Gyms
Dr. Segar explains the difference between what she calls habiters or unhabiters. Habiters, who are very disciplined and organized, stick to their plans, everything runs according to schedule, and are 100% onboard with eating healthy foods and exercising.
For some folks, going to the gym is the only fitness motivation that works. Working out at home may lead to negative self-talk and zero motivation. If that’s you, keep your gym membership and make it part of your fitness routine.
Just try not to go down the perfection rabbit hole. Shy away from rigid plans and unrealistic goals, we’ve learned to equate to success when exercising.
A key step in my coaching process involves helping clients learn to shift away from the perfectionistic exercise and eating beliefs that, while still widely believed, are now very outdated. Michelle SegarMichelle Segar, Ph.D.
If that's not you, you might be an unhabiter, like many others, including Dr. Segar! You'll find relief listening to this podcast episode and cutting yourself slack in this area of your life. And when you do, you'll discover something quite interesting. You'll achieve more success when you find the best workout motivation for you. (Hint: the book will help you find what truly motivates you!)
Everything listed below will make much more sense if you listen to the podcast episode or read Dr. Segar's book.
After reading The Joy Choice, I felt such a sense of relief and less of a failure when, day after day, I couldn't make it to the gym because of my workload. Here are some changes I've made since reading the book that might also help you!
Setting Yourself Up For Success
To get in these quick exercise sessions, set yourself up for success. Here are a few ways I get my heart rate up without wearing gym clothes. (That’s right, you don’t have to live in your leggings or yoga pants to work out on a moment’s notice!)
Keep an extra pair of sneakers in the trunk of your vehicle so you can get in a walk when you have a little extra time. (For example, I often walked during my daughter’s Taekwondo classes, better yet, join your child in their martial arts classes!)Sign up for dance lessons with your spouse instead of going out to eat on date night.Bike or walk when you can if you enjoy it - biking to the store for groceries is one of my favorite ways to get my heart rate up and get something done simultaneously. My kids often join me.Ask your mental health provider if they offer “walk and talk” therapy sessions (mine does!)Warm up each day with a few stretches when you first get out of bed if it feels good.Relax before bedtime with a simple bedtime yoga flow. I'll include a printable copy of my bedtime yoga flow on my free guides page, which you can get access to when you sign up for my weekly emails. (Or request it by contacting me via email.)
Action Steps to Find The Best Workout Motivation
What if you could easily and joyfully resolve the in-the-moment conflicts that often derail your eating and exercise goals? Dr. Segar has devoted decades to studying how to achieve lasting changes in these and other behaviors.
Take the quiz Michelle mentioned to help you find your motivation.
Dr. Segar mentions her studies with cancer survivors in her book. Read more about her research here: The effects of aerobic exercise on self-esteem and depressive and anxiety symptoms among breast cancer survivors.
Meet Michelle Segar, PhD author of The Joy Choice and No Sweat!
Michelle is an award-winning researcher at the University of Michigan with almost thirty years studying how to help people adopt self-care behaviors, like exercise and healthy eating, in ways that bring meaning and joy and can survive the complexity and unpredictability of the real world.Michelle’s translational research is widely recognized as relevant and practical. She advises the World Health Organization and was selected to be the inaugural chair of the United States National Physical Activity Plan’s Communication Committee.For almost thirty years she has been designing and evaluating methods to help people cultivate the transformations in mindset necessary for creating tangible changes in behavior that can survive the complexity and unpredictability of the real world. Her combination of academic research with real-world health coaching permits her to create practical and engaging behavior change systems that are being scaled to boost patient and population health, employee well-being, and gym membership retention.Michelle has worked with and advised a number of prominent organizations, including U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Kaiser Permanente, Walmart, Intermountain Healthcare, Anytime Fitness, Adidas, Google, and Business Group on Health.A sought-after speaker and trainer, Michelle is frequently interviewed about motivation, habits, and sustainable change in major media outlets including The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Prevention, Real Simple, and TIME.No Sweat!, her bestselling book on creating lasting exercise motivation, is used around the world as a core text in training professionals in health coaching and patient counseling. Her new book, The Joy Choice, introduces a practical, science-based system for breaking down all-or-nothing thinking and cultivating the flexible and tactical decision-making that supports sustaining exercise, healthy eating, and self-care within the complexities of daily life.Michelle’s training and experience is uniquely comprehensive, including a doctorate in Psychology (PhD), a master’s degree in Health Behavior/Health Education (MPH), a master’s degree in Kinesiology (MS) and fellowships in translational research and health care policy from the University of Michigan. She ran with the Olympic Torch at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.Michelle Segar, PhD
Book a speaking engagement with Michelle.
Transcripts and Sources
Rebecca: Michelle, I am so happy to have you here on the podcast with me today. I absolutely love talking about building habits and your book was a refreshing change. So can you tell me a little bit about how you came to write the Joy Choice?
Michelle: Yes. There's a high level reason why I decided, to write it the big picture reason is that in 1994, almost 30 years ago, I was conducting a study with cancer survivors, and we discovered that the cancer survivors who are about four and a half years outta treatment, so living normal lives, not, not.
Michelle: Feeling Ill just living their normal lives, they committed to our study for three months, but once the study was over, almost everyone stopped exercising. And I, I was like, ah, like why? Why would you stop exercising? And the participants told us in focus groups that they were busy, that they had families and they were working and they had aging parents to help and they had this, that, and the other.
Michelle: That people who had faced a life threatening illness felt comfortable prioritizing their own self care for our study, but either didn't feel comfortable or didn't have the skill set to prioritize it in their own lives meant we had a real problem in society. And I had this amazing light bulb moment where, you know, my purpose found me and it was to figure out why people don't feel comfortable prioritizing or have the skills to prioritize self care behaviors like physical activity and