Be Comfy, Be Confident

Today I’m excited to share a Guest Bender post from Mattie, who writes about her journey to find balance between food, exercise and life over at Comfy & Confident. Interested in submitting a guest post related to food, fitness, writing or publishing? Send me an email at eatingbender@gmail.com.

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Be Comfy, Be Confident

Thank you Jenn for letting me guest post on your amazing blog. For all of you Eating Bender readers, my name is Mattie and I blog over at Comfy & Confident. My blog focuses on balancing working out, eating well and enjoying life! It is not an easy thing, but every day I wake up and try my best to be comfortable and confident in my own skin.

Today, I wanted to share my fitness philosophy and the reasons I keep lacing up my sneaks and working up a good sweat. To be honest, the number one reason is it keeps me sane! On days when I am totally exhausted, completely unmotivated and extremely grumpy, all I want to do is go home and sit on the couch for the entire evening and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. But (and this is a big but) if I can dig deep down inside, put my workout clothes on and start moving, 99.9% of the time I am in a much happier place within 10 minutes of beginning to exercise.

Here are a few more reasons why I love exercise:

It boosts creativity: I swear most of my work and blog ideas are thought up while I am on a run. I wish I could bring a notepad or tape recorder with me and record all my thoughts because, in my opinion, they are truly brilliant. [I end up remembering about 1/3 of them by the time I get home!]

It lifts your mood: I mentioned this above but it truly helps. Exercise is proven to boost your mood by releasing endorphins into your body. Endorphins are the body’s natural feel good chemicals, and when they are released through exercise, your mood is boosted naturally. Exercise also releases adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine. These chemicals work together to make you feel good.

It reduces stress: I am the type of person that gets worked up about the simplest things. Running or doing yoga is a place where I can work through my thoughts, make a plan (in my head) and try to resolve what’s causing all the tension. If I go home and sit in front of the TV, I get way too distracted. Exercise creates a place where I can be alone with my thoughts and sweat through all the stress and tension in my life.

Source

Even if you only exercise for a short period of time, you can reap the benefits. When I am in a time crunch, I do a BTN (Better Than Nothing) workout. These work great because you can receive all the above benefits, which you would have missed out on if you did nothing.  I have a lot of great exercise routines and treadmill workouts over on my blog, if you want to check them out.

Cheers to feeling good, staying happy and getting in shape!

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I will definitely cheers to that! Thanks so much for sharing your fitness philosophy, Mattie.

What’s your exercise philosophy? Why do you love it (or at least tolerate it, haha)?