How to easily make exercise part of your daily routine

12 Aug How to easily make exercise part of your daily routine

Get yourself moving!

Exercise is a lot like a healthy diet. We know it is good for us, we know we should be doing it often…but many of us do not make enough time for it.

There are plenty of articles on the web and in books and magazines that talk about the benefits of exercise, so we won’t go into that here.

In this blog post, we will take you through some steps that will hopefully make it easier for you to fit more exercise into your weekly schedule.

So, firstly let’s look at what is currently stopping you exercise. Is it:

• Lack of space
• Not enough time
• Not enough energy
• No support network
• Simple, pure laziness 😉

1. Be honest with yourself

Be honest with yourself, and of course you can do this with a trusted friend or loved one. And, there may be more than one reason that you are not currently exercising as much as you should be.

This step is important because, like with any problem, you need to find the cause before you can find a solution.

2. Figure out a way to overcome your excuse

Once you have identified your reason or reasons for not exercising, we need to figure out a way to overcome them. This could be:

– Lack of space. How about a friend or relative’s place? The park? Let’s be honest, there is always space to walk to your local newsagent or round your block.

– Not enough time. Really? Did you know you can exercise in about 10 – 20 mins per day. If you really can’t fit that in, wake up earlier, take a shorter lunch break or go to bed a little later.

– Not enough energy. Get yourself checked, your iron levels, your vitamin D, B Thyroid etc. make sure you are getting enough sleep and eating the right kind of foods. Remember exercise actually gives you energy and the right type of exercises can often help recovery from certain illnesses and injuries.

– No support network. Things are always harder on your own. Find people that are doing the things you want to do. You are responsible for your network and the people that you spend most time with.

-Laziness. Well, what is your purpose? What kind of person do you want to be? How do you want to look and feel every day?

Hopefully you can see that these common excuses that lots of us use, are simply that. ‘‘Excuses”. They are easy to overcome and get around, if you really want to change.

So really, the only thing stopping you exercise, is you. You and your current mindset.

How do we overcome that?

In a previous article we spoke about how your brain does it best to keep you safe. When you want to do something new, your brain perceives this as a type of danger.

You need to trick your brain into understanding that what you are about to do is not dangerous at all. Our brain also resists when we try to do too much, too quickly.

3. Do not think of it as exercise

So, to start a new exercise routine, first of all, don’t think of it as exercise and do something that is non threatening.

For example, a 5 minute walk, at a time that is easy and convenient for you.

At this stage, don’t worry about how intense or easy it is. Don’t concern yourself with your heart rate or any of the other fancy stuff that fitness experts love to push at you.

Choose a day and time, this week, that you will do the walk and commit to it. 100%.

That’s it, that’s all you need to do to start.

Then make sure you do the same next week and the week after.

Do this for 4 weeks.

What you will notice is that soon, it will become a habit, rather than a chore. Your brain will release happy chemicals every time you complete that walk.

Then – and this is the beautiful bit – when you feel ready, simply increase the number of walks you do per week. Over time, you can change it to a run, or a bike ride, or pilates class – whichever you enjoy the most.

Give it a try and let us know how you get on.

We will talk about why that works in another blog post.