So you have decided on a course of exercise and you are ready to begin. Here are some more thoughts on making your new venture a success.
Make a plan and put it down on paper. This gives you something tangible to fall back to and it helps to define your goal. With a clearly defined goal, you can track your progress easily. Are you doing this for weight loss or is there another motivating factor, it helps to know the reason you are doing this. Later on it may mean the difference between continuing or giving up.
Begin slowly, go at your own pace and build up gradually. Be creative with your exercise, you may want to include different exercises instead of sticking to just one. Cross training is a good way to stay enthused about exercise. The different sports will reduce the monotony of doing just one if you are a person that likes variety or gets bored with the same thing over and over. Cross training also helps to reduce your chance of injury from over use of the same muscle group. Maybe you are challenged for time, how about exercising for 15 minutes two or three times throughout the day? No one said you had to do it all at once.
With any type of exercise that we do, we need to warm up the muscles before going full pace. This can be achieved with gentle stretching or walking for about five minutes before starting. Listen to your body, if you are not feeling well or something hurts, give yourself permission to take the day off and let it heal. It will be more beneficial to your overall progress. Come back, ready to start again, and don’t give yourself a reason to quit.
Be consistent. This is a big factor in having a successful exercise program. Make a commitment to yourself that you are going to see this through to the end which is to become physically fit. Sometimes it will have to be mind over matter to see you through but the end will justify the mean. A physically fit body brings so many other benefits that it is something to strive for. We have clearer minds, less illness, better sleep, better dispositions, better self-esteem and so much more. Above all, we are keeping in line with what our creator intended for our bodies.
Make it fun. Get a partner, join a team, buy a new exercise outfit or get a dog,
you will have to take him for a walk and that could be the start of your exercise program thanks to Fido.
On your mark, get set, go!!!!!