How To Build A Fitness Habit

How many times have you told yourself that you were going to start a fitness habit, but never fully followed through? The reality is relying on willpower and discipline for most of us is not going to solely get us there. Check out these simple tips to help you start building your own fitness habit today.

1. CREATE ACCOUNTABILITY:

This is HUGE. Creating accountability for yourself allows you to make sure you will exercise even when you feel you do not have the willpower or discipline. Accountability could mean something individual, such as telling multiple people your goal to be more physically active, or it can be done in a group, such as having a workout buddy. The more accountability you create the more likely you will stick to your new fitness routine. Here are some other suggestions on how to add accountability:

• Publicly announce your physical activity goal on social media or to friends
• Join a fitness class where attendance is expected (I have a free one on Mondays at 6:00PM in Lancaster, PA.)
• Schedule times within your week to workout with a friend
• Hire a personal trainer (such as me!)
• Set reminders on your phone to prompt you to work out

2. START WITH SOMETHING YOU ENJOY:

I have had clients who struggled with creating a fitness routine because they chose physical activity they did not enjoy. When building your habit, choose physical activity that you ACTUALLY ENJOY in order to cause less resilience when you go to workout. Once you feel you have built a solid fitness habit, you can start to add in some workouts you may not enjoy as much as others but feel you need to do in order to improve your overall fitness/health.

3. SCHEDULE YOUR WORKOUTS IN ADVANCE:

When building a fitness habit, the reality is that if you do not schedule it in advance you are not going to complete it. You will always find an excuse or start to push your workouts off for later in the week. At the start of your week, schedule all of your workouts in your calendar and treat them like appointments you cannot miss. I recommend putting exactly what workout you will be doing each day (ex: total body strength training on Wednesday; walking on Thursday; etc.). Ideally, your workouts should be similar times each week to help with habit development.

4. USE PREMADE FITNESS PROGRAMS:

Having a personal trainer or using a premade fitness program allows you to take a majority of the planning out of your fitness habit. By using these methods, the only thing that needs to be planned is what time of day you are going to exercise. I will always recommend a personal trainer due to the increase accountability that this training provides, however if you are interested in a premade fitness program with low impact modifications provided check out my Text To Transform: 30 Day Workout Program here.

You need to remember that building a fitness habit is difficult. I recommend avoiding striving for perfection and instead focusing on consistency in order to give yourself some flexibility as you build this new habit. Using a calendar to write what workouts you completed for the month will allow you to see how consistent you have been. Remember to take time to reflect on how your consistency has improved (or hasn’t), what is working and what might need to be changed in order to continue to build your fitness habit.