When you get into a diet and exercise routine it's easy to lose sight of the whole reason that you may have started your regimen in the first place. Many of us get into a fitness routine for litany of reasons: lose weight, gain muscle, extend your life, improve the quality of life, train for an event, etc. However, its easy to get caught up in the moment and forget the real purpose of exercise. It should be fun and it should make you feel good.
At some point or another, all of us will have days where we suffer from a lack of motivation. Days where our desire to hit the track, pick up the weights or do whatever, is near absolute nil. This is a danger zone. Once the motivation begins to wane, your desire to exercise goes down and once your desire begins to fade you'll find it easier and easier to make excuses not to do it. It's easy to say, "Oh I ran twice this week, I can take a day off" or "I lifted Monday and Tuesday, do I really need to lift today?" This is the point where its easy to fall out of your routine, especially in the beginning. This is where it's up to you to be creative. You need to find a way to make it fun or better yet, figure out ways to keep it fun so you don't get to this point in the first place.
For example, I'm not a huge fan of running and it's often difficult to find the motivation to get out there and do my roadwork. So, I have to find things that make me want to go out and hit the pavement. I have a ton of little tricks to spike my motivation. I'll download a new song that I want to add to my playlist. I'll watch a movie that inspires me (almost anything with Stallone does it for me). I'll change my route. I'll change the way I train. I watch videos on youtube of people that inspire me (all I have to do is watch one video of Miguel Cotto training and I'm out the door).
If I get out there and I find I'm still lacking, I do things to make it fun. I'll shadow box and throw some punches while I'm running. I'll put on my music from "The Crow" soundtrack and I'll pretend I'm Brandon Lee jumping across rooftops and I'll leap from side to side (this is also good for conditioning anyway). I've run up the stairs at the Lincoln Memorial and acted out the stair scene from Rocky. I'll put on music from the Avengers and pretend I'm Iron Man shooting aliens with my repulsors. I'll have a good laugh at how stupid I probably look to the average observer, but I've accomplished my mission. I'm smiling, I'm having fun and before I know it, I'm through my miles.
If none of that works, do something different. The farther it is from what you normally do, the better. If you're a runner, do some body weight exercises like burpies, squats, planks, and push-ups. If you're a lifter, go for a run or do a high intensity interval training class. Go jump rope, take a yoga class, ride a bike, take a walk in the forest preserve, just do something. Get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself, but have fun. Exercise should be fun, whether it's getting up that hill you never made it up before or knocking out that extra rep on your bench that you failed to get last time.
Which brings me to the other half of the equation: Diet. First and foremost, a diet is not something you go on or go off. Your diet is what you consume everyday. It's the lifestyle you lead. If you're going to go lowfat, that's what you're diet is. It doesn't mean in six weeks you get to start eating shit again. If you're going low carb, guess what? In two months you don't get to start eating pasta and rice every day. Now, don't get me wrong, it's ok to cheat. I cheat all the time. In fact, I cheat almost daily. Hell, I just got done eating a bowl of Doritos and I had half a piece of German chocolate cake earlier. And you know what? They were fucking delicious. I ate the shit out of those motherfuckers and I'm not even sorry about it.
Do you know why I'm cool with that? It's because I'm not going to eat that stuff everyday and when I do, I know I have to compensate for it some place else. A slice of German chocolate cake means an extra mile tomorrow and it means no peanut butter in my protein shakes. It's ok to cheat. It really is. The idea you have to remember is to monitor your calorie consumption and what you're eating in general. The basic formula to remember is that you get 10 calories for every lb of your ideal body weight. If you want to weigh 150 lbs, you get 1500 calories. However, don't get pissed at yourself for drinking that Mocha Cookie Crumble from Starbucks (especially when you consider that they're fucking incredible), drink that shit up and love it, but make it a tall or go for skim milk and compensate for it some place else. It's not too difficult. I'm won't push a particular diet because everybody has their own beliefs, but if you're going to choose a diet make sure it's healthy, it's realistic and that it's something you can see yourself doing, well, forever.
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