How to Establish an Exercise Routine You Can Stick To

How often have you started a new exercise plan, and given up after a week or two? Perhaps you planned to go to the gym three times a week after work, or you were going to do an hour of walking every day. You lasted for a few days – but then you were too busy, and too tired, to carry on.

To get real benefits from exercise, you want to find ways to stay consistently active – rather than exercising for brief, intense periods. (You’re also more likely to injure yourself if you exercise irregularly.) Here’s how to establish a routine which you can stick to.

Be Realistic and Don’t Over Plan

This is good advice for almost any project you tackle! Many of us have a rather optimistic view of how much we can or want to do. When you’re sitting on the sofa with a notebook, planning out your exercise for the week, you might feel confident that you really will want to head to the gym or the pool every night. Chances are, it’s not going to happen.

Be realistic. If you’ve never kept up an exercise routine for more than three days before, look at what went wrong. You probably planned to do too much, and ended up so tired, achy or bored that you just quit.

Set Minimum Standards

It’s better to underplan a little than to over plan – after all, if you aim for one session and manage two, you’ll feel good about yourself (and be encouraged to continue). If you aim for three and manage two, you’ll feel guilty (and probably give up).

So rather than telling yourself “I’ll go for an hour long walk every evening,” say “I’ll do twenty minutes of walking each day”. It’s a low enough target that you have no excuse not to meet it … and it’s still enough to see health benefits.

Find Activities You Enjoy

For most of us, the main benefits of exercise are:

• We burn calories
• We get our heart rate up (with all the attendant health benefits)

It doesn’t matter what type of exercise you do. If you hate jogging but love cycling, stick to cycling. Yes, a personal trainer or gym nut might want to set you a comprehensive all-round routine … but if you’re just aiming to shed a few pounds and be healthier, then any form of cardio activity will do it.

Try out different types of exercise until you found something which you truly enjoy. It might be hiking, trampolining, swimming, cycling, soccer, fencing, tennis … almost anything.

If you’re trying to tone up, you will need to target specific muscles – but you don’t necessarily have to do this by lifting weights, if that bores you. Just look for an exercise which uses that muscle group. Cycling, for instance, is great for your calves; swimming can tone up your arms.

Keep a Record of Your Exercise

Writing down the exercise which you do has several benefits:

• It helps you stay motivated. You can see how you’ve progressed over time.
• It lets you spot patterns and take action. Perhaps you realize you’re skipping that Thursday session more often than not – so it’s time to make some changes to your plans.
• You stay accountable: your exercise is written down in black and white

Just like keeping a food log, your exercise log can really improve your results. Ideally, you’ll want to combine your food and exercise records, so that you can see how many calories you’re taking in and how many you’re burning.

Find a Workout Buddy

If you’ve got a friend who’s looking to lose weight, shape up or get healthier, how about exercising with them? You’ll need to find an activity (or several activities) which you both enjoy, and plan one or more sessions per week.
This could be almost anything:

• A hiking or cycling weekend
• A lunchtime stroll together so you both get a break from work and some exercise
• Heading to the gym or pool together
• Taking up a new sport or exercise class together – you’ll enjoy it more if you have a friend along who’s also a beginner

The advantage to getting a friend involved is that it’s much harder to break a commitment that you’ve made to someone else – so you’ll be more likely to stick to your plans.

Have you got any tips to add about establishing a great exercise routine?