Building Exercise as a Habit

What is the longest amount of time you have exercised on a regular weekly basis? 4 weeks? 3 months? 6 months? Many people can give you a number, usually corresponding to the time when they first joined the gym, or when they were on X, Y, or Z program.

The truth is that many exercisers tend to do exercise in sporadic short bursts, improving their health and physiques for short periods of time usually in response to a certain goal. Getting in shape for their wedding, vacation, or training for a race. The thing is, many people are very all or nothing.

We too often go too hard, too fast, and keep doing things for a quick fix.  Unfortunately, the results tend to end up being unsustainable. You either burn out, get sick of the gym, injure yourself, or just lose interest because you hit your goal. If you really want to keep exercise in your life consistently, you must make it a sustainable habit.

Building Exercise as a Habit

While having goals are important and can help keep you motivated, you will need to find a minimal baseline of sustainable exercise regardless of your fitness goals.

>> 11 Body Weight Exercises to Try From Home

Exercise regularly for the sake of exercising regularly.

Sexy right? No, of course, it’s not – BUT continuing with aggressive fitness programs in where you start – stop – start – stop – is not going to help you maintain your weight, provide you with longevity, or with any long-lasting health benefits.

Exercise shouldn’t not be all or nothing. It should habitual and you should do it without expectations. Think of it like, brushing your teeth or showering. They’re something that you do each day and it’s not like you’re sitting there analyzing the results of your teeth brushing every day. You just do it because you know it’s good for you. Exercise needs to be in that same boat.

Okay, this isn’t the best pitch, but we want you to see the value in regular exercise. In fact, you NEED to see the value in this as the quality of life for your future self depends on it.

While building it as a habit may not happen overnight, you can gradually start working towards it with a slow weekly progression. Think of it as walking up a flight of stairs over a long period, compared with trying to quickly scale a tall mountain.

In both examples, you’ll get to the top except with one you won’t notice the change in altitude as much. While we always recommend making strides towards being active 5 days a week, if you haven’t been exercising at all, that will likely be too aggressive for you. When you first begin you may just have to scale things down a bit and gradually increase your activity over a longer period.

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Here is a schedule to help you incrementally build exercise as a habit

Week 1: Pick two days this week and go on a 30-minute walk or do 30-minutes of any other cardio activity. (Swim, Bike, Elliptical, etc.)

Week 2: This week, add in a 3rd 30-minute cardio session. When we say cardio, plain old walking will surface, don’t think you need to run. If you can make it your commute to work, even better! 

Week 3: This week it’s finally time to hit the gym. Aim for 2 gym sessions + 2 30-minute cardio sessions. We recommend starting with the LYB MOVE workouts! If this still seems like too much, repeat week 2.

Week 4: Repeat last week’s schedule and if you can, add in a 3rd session of light cardio. They say it takes 30 days for something to become a habit. Try and schedule your walks and gym sessions for the same time of day if that’s possible.

Find an Amount That is Sustainable for You

Keep in mind, 5 days a week of exercise may still be unstainable for some. If that’s you, then find an amount that IS sustainable you. Regular exercise even if it’s only 3x a week will still have major health benefits, so don’t get frustrated if you can never do more. This is a very realistic schedule for many people and you can still reap the health benefits and achieve a most lovely physique in doing so. And again, don’t forget to use an exercise fluidity approach. Just because you can’t do a gym workout today, doesn’t mean you can’t walk home from work instead.

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Get Out Of The Gym

There are many people who maintain and even improve their physiques and health from doing many different activities. Walking or cycling to and from work each day, going kayaking on the weekend, and playing in a rec soccer league once a week could 100% help you achieve a very decent level of fitness so don’t discredit all the other ways you can become fit without ever stepping foot into a gym. There are so many things you can do from home even using just your own bodyweight! 

Don’t forget, we’re adding new workouts to Love Your Bod all the time, and our members always have unlimited access to all of them.   Join Now for less than 30 cents a day!

With Love Your Bod we have 250+ Fun & Challenging Workouts, Meal Plan Guides, 100’s of Healthy Recipes, Access to an 800+ Video Exercise Library, AND tons of ebooks and tools to help you have a better relationship with yourself AND your body!! 

Want to jump-start your fitness? Join our FREE 30-Day Workout Challenge. No Equipment Needed

By: Micaela Whitworth, Certified Master Trainer & Fitness Nutritionist