How to keep those New Year Exercise Resolutions!
Create a plan that fits your current fitness and lifestyle.
When setting goals not every person or workout plan is the same.
Consider what will fit in with your work and family schedule as well – are you best training first thing in the morning or will this create more stress? Or doing it after dropping kids to school? Make your plan work for YOU.
Choose an activity you’ll enjoy. You’re more likely to succeed if you pick something you like to do or if you can find a way to make it more fun. Research shows that people have more success achieving goals if they have a connection to things they enjoy. If your goal is to get more cardio, link it with a enjoyable activity such as listening to a favourite podcast or TV show. If you’re trying to eat more healthily, take a cooking class or make a plan to prepare healthy recipes with foods you actually like. If you like music, try a Cycle or Les Mills class which is choreographed exercise routines to great beats!
Set a date.
It’s the ‘Fresh start’ effect — a date on the calendar that gives people a sense of a new beginning and motivates you to make a positive change. Making an appointment with a Personal Trainer or booking into a group class is a sure fire way to ensure your training time is prioritised.
Keep in Touch
An important method to sustainably increasing exercise is to stay accountable; by creating a sense of community around exercise! Whether it’s attending classes, seeing a Personal Trainer or training with a friend or family member at the gym.
Scheduling when you will exercise ahead of time or finding a way to get fit with friends can help you keep going.
Start small, then build momentum
Whether it’s building aerobic fitness or you are focused on resistance exercise for strength, start small. Just twenty minutes of increasing your heart rate has proven to release endorphins (important for brain stimulation and ‘feeling’ great) and develop lean muscle mass.
The benefits of doing less far outweigh doing nothing! Creating simple and short (time based) exercise habits help you maintain routines needed to see you through once motivation wanes or life gets busy. And if you miss a workout – that’s ok. By doing a little bit, consistently, is a habit that has been created and will make returning to an exercise routine much easier if things do fall off track.
When it comes to setting New Year exercise goals , resolve to focus on maintaining a healthy outlook every day a part of your plan in 2024!