The best way to develop the exercise habit is to introduce exercise into your life slowly. It is very important that you finish your workouts at a point that you still want to do more. This way you are looking forward to the next workout.
The mistake I see many people make, when they first start an exercise program, is they let their excitement and eagerness to get results, get them into a workout that is too intense. If you always, or most of the time, end your workout at a point that you say to yourself “thank God the workout is over!” it is only a matter of time before you begin dreading the workouts. Once you begin dreading the workouts, it is all over, no matter the results you achieve.
Many people, including fitness proffesionals, wrongly believe that once they see results they would be motivated to keep up with their workouts or diet. That theory, although sounds good, it’s actually very wrong. Results are never enough to keep anybody motivated if the results were achieved through a method that overwhelms them. Just think of all the people that you know who lost weight and then gained it all back. If results were enough to keep them motivated, how come they quit their efforts and gained all the weight back?
For that reason, I strongly recommend to my clients at Olympus Personal Training & Weight Management to start with a very easy workout and always make sure they finish at a point that they still want to do more. In the beginning of an exercise program don’t worry about results. Remember the first goal of an exercise program is to develop the exercise habit, once you have developed the habit of exercising then you can push to get the results you want.
As my clients keep coming in for their workouts, I slowly intensify their workouts over time but always strive to insure that they are enjoying the process or at least don’t hate it. As a side benefit, introducing exercise into your life this way, will have a much lower risk of injury.
I find most exercise programs too intense for most people who just starting to exercise and that is one of the reasons why most people can’t stick to an exercise program long term. If you need help starting and sticking to an exercise program give me a call. Starting and sticking to an exercise routine it’s a lot easier than most people think when you do it the right way!
