Healthy Living: Exercise Advice

You decided to finally take the plunge into being a healthier you. What is the first thing that you need to do? Well exercise is the best place to start.

Tips on How to Exercise More

• Be 100 percent true to yourself. If you don’t really want to exercise you are not going to. It will not be until the day you decide exercising is important for you that you will. So you need to decide for yourself if exercising is a priority to you and your body.
• Be 100 percent committed. Like any other relationship you have in your life you get what you put into it. If you do not put a lot into exercising the relationship between you and your body will not be a good one. On the contrary, if you work out five times a week, your body will feel good, you will look and feel good and your relationship with your body will be so great you won’t want to stop. My advice is to fully commit to your body.
• Do not worry about a plan. If you are just starting out with exercising, you do not need a plan to start. The great thing about exercise is that there are thousands of options for you to choose from. A lot of people think you need a certain plan when you start exercising so they don’t even end up starting. Get your body moving first. Once you find an exercise activity you enjoy you then can plan accordingly.
• Define your workout goals. Lose 15 pounds? Run your first big run? Get six pack abs? What is it that you want to change about your body? This reason alone will help you go to the gym or go for that run when you really don’t want to. You have to have a workout goal. And every day that you work out remind yourself of the goal. I guarantee you will see better results if you have a goal and remind yourself of it every time you exercise.
• Approach Exercise in a different way. Do not look at exercise as a negative thing. Change your attitude about it so that you learn to embrace it. You get sweaty, you get gross and if you have a good workout you must likely look like crap afterwards. So what? Progress with your body isn’t pretty.  Six pack abs don’t come from being pretty.  Running five miles doesn’t make you look pretty afterward. But once the results set in, exercising can become one of the prettiest things to you. You just have to approach it differently!

These are just a few tips that I have. I encourage everyone out there to do some form of exercise a few times a week.  You will look and feel better about yourself and it can improve your overall quality of life.

Learn other ways to get healthy and active with our GetActive toolkit.

Joseph Marshall