Sustainable Exercise Habits | 8 Tips To Create an Exercise Routine That Lasts
How often have you started a new exercise routine, only to stop and re-start a few months later? In this blog post, I’ll share tips and strategies to help you form sustainable exercise habits.
Creating a workout routine that lasts is challenging. Motivation will come and go, so it’s important to build sustainable exercise habits into your life. As tempting as it can be to take drastic action to see “quick change”, I promise you that if you focus on small, sustainable exercise habits, you will be so much more likely to maintain your lifestyle long-term rather than short-term. Today, I’m sharing with you how to make exercise sustainable.
This post is all about sustainable exercise habits!
1. Define your “why”
Before you jump into an exercise routine, take a minute to think about why you want to live a more active lifestyle. What benefits do you get out of movement? This is what will get you up in the morning and keep you motivated on days you’re feeling low energy. For me, my “why” is all about mental benefits. The endorphins from getting active make me feel awake, energized, and ready to take on the day!
2. Start small and achievable
If you want to become more active, reflect on where you currently are and build from there. Jumping from no exercise at all to running 5x per week is probably not going to be sustainable. Start with adding 1 or 2 days with more movement into your routine, and give yourself time to adjust! Try to avoid going from 0 to 100 overnight.
3. Find a type of exercise you love
Loving the exercise you do is one of the best ways to ensure you’ll keep up with your fitness routine.
I grew up as a competitive runner and it truly brings me joy. For me, running 5-6 days a week is enjoyable. But if you hate running and it’s miserable every time you do it….my advice is, don’t do it! That’s not to say that you should avoid all things outside of your comfort zone. But, if you hate running, you will dread it daily and I can almost guarantee you won’t stick to it. Find a type of movement that you love!
4. Include variety in your workout routine
It’s also important to include variety in your types of movement so that you don’t get bored of your routine! You don’t have to do the same thing every day. There’s so many different types of exercise out there to choose from… yoga, pilates, HIIT, running, swimming, walking. I always feel most balanced when I’m doing a blend of running, weights-based exercise, and yoga
5. Schedule in time for yourself
Our days can get filled up really quickly with meetings, appointments, and to-dos. That’s why I love to schedule in my workouts in my calendar. Personally, I know that if it’s in my calendar, I’m much more likely to actually do it. If you go through your entire day saying “I’ll exercise later”, it’s easy to let other things take priority. But when you prioritize yourself, you consider your exercise a non-negotiable to-do. It can be as simple as scheduling 15 minutes to go for a walk during your lunch break!
6. Life happens…be kind to yourself
This may sound contradictory to my previous tip, but I think it’s important to give ourselves grace. Sometimes life gets in the way, and we don’t follow through with our plans. That’s okay! If you’re too hard on yourself and take an all-or-nothing approach to exercise, you’re setting yourself up to be frustrated.
7. Listen to your body
To create a sustainable fitness routine, you have to listen to your body. If you ignore your body’s cues, you could end up over working your body and ending up burnt out. Some days you may be really eager to push yourself in a workout and that’s great – but maybe the next day you need to do yoga and allow your body to recover before jumping into another hard workout.
8. All exercise fits!
For some reason, I think in the fitness world there’s this idea that you have to do a 1 hour full body workout and be dripping in sweat to get in a “good workout”. This is simply not true!! Focus on moving your body. There’s so many ways to move your body that don’t require a strict exercise program. Walking to work or cleaning your home are great ways to move your body on a daily basis.
This post was all about sustainable exercise habits!
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