Michelle Obama shares revolutionary self-care and fitness routine: "Take care of yourself"

If you take a look at the hashtag #fitnessgoals (or something similar) on any social media platform, you may find yourself discouraged or feeling negative about your own workout routine or body. However, former First Lady Michelle Obama shows us how it's done by combining fitness with self-care, taking an approach that's more friendly when it comes to your mental health. Instead of drilling weight loss or calorie counting, Obama is more focused on how fitness affects your overall well-being. Therefore, when she took to social media platform Instagram to post her own #fitnessgoals post, she took us all by storm.

Uploading a photo of her completing what looks like a tough workout at the gym, she stated, "It doesn’t always feel good in the moment. But after the fact, I’m always glad I hit the gym." I'm sure we can all relate to that - how many times have we delayed a run a workout or even a walk but felt great when we finally got to it? She also asked, "How did you all take care of yourself on this #SelfCareSunday?" Obama has always been a proponent of self-care and ensuring that a workout is a part of her self-care routine is an extension of her perspective on exercise and wellness.

This is particularly important to her as a woman, which she noted at the Essence Festival in New Orleans earlier this year. She said, "We [as women] have to own our health. It’s one of these things that no one can take from you... When it comes to our health as women, we are so busy giving and doing for others that we almost feel guilty to take that time out for ourselves." Then, she got up close and personal about her own experiences as a mom - which probably wasn't easy because she was simultaneously First Lady.

"A lot of mothers will understand this because I found myself looking around after I had my kids, and I didn’t have time for me, but my husband was at the gym every day," Obama explained. "And I was like, well, how are you going to the gym? He was like, ‘I make time for the gym.’ I was like, what? This was right when we started going to counseling, y’all, so this was one of our issues, you know? But I found myself getting mad at him because he was doing what he needed to do for him. And I think for us as women, many of us, we have a hard time putting ourselves on our own priority list, let alone at the top of it. If we don’t have our act together as women, as mothers, as grandmothers, we aren’t going to be able to get our kids on track."

This probably explains why she was so passionate about diet and fitness for kids as First Lady. As for her own health, she always makes sure that she's up to date on her check-ups and stays on top of her workouts. She told PEOPLE Magazine, "I make sure that I am up on my checkups. I have never missed a mammogram or a pap smear. I’ve had a colonoscopy. I don’t obsess about what I eat, but I do make sure that I’m eating vegetables and fruit... [I do] things like yoga that will keep me flexible. I want to feel good, and I want to be as healthy as I can be because I want to be able to enjoy my 70s and 80s." Now that is definitely role model material. Forever First Lady, please come back to the White House? Pretty please? We promise to eat all our fruits and veggies.