If you know you should exercise, but resist the idea, it is rarely because you are not convinced of its enormous benefits. Besides the plethora of researched literature on the benefits of exercise, all you have to do to convince yourself is to compare the vitality and health of friends who exercise with those who find excuses not to exercise.

So, if you are not enthusiastic about exercise, then it is only because you have not found a type of exercise that appeals to you. The simple reason why it is not in your best interest to not exercise is that what you do not use, you lose. If you do not work on increasing your strength, you will lose muscle mass over the years. If you do not stretch, you willl become increasingly rigid. And if you do not do any endurance exercises, you will end up wheezing when you climb a flight of steps.

Where do you start? Here are three suggestions:

Find An Enriched Environment

While you can always exercise at home or out in the park, chances are you will soon be bored. This is because these are the wrong environments for someone trying to get motivated; they are relaxing places, not stimulating places. A much more stimulating environment is a gym. There, you are surrounded by equipment, personal trainers, and exercise classes. By joining an extremely affordable, family-friendly facility like Fitness19, you will be able to use cardio equipment, strength building machines, free weight equipment, and join a variety of exercise classes. It is much easier to get into the exercise habit when you are surrounded by people who enjoy it.

Adopt The Right Exercise Mindset

Unfortunately, joining a gym is not enough to stay motivated about exercising. Many people stop going about three weeks after they join a gym. It is not because the gym has stopped benefiting them; it is because they do not have the intrinsic motivation to continue once the novelty has worn off.

Here are some ways to keep your motivation high:

• Be less sedentary when you are not working out. Instead of sitting at your desk for hours at a time, get up every 20-30 minutes and walk around a bit.
• Be regular about exercising, working out for a fixed number of hours on set days. Make exercising a habit by becoming regular about it. It takes a little time to experience all the benefits of exercise. Initially, your mind and body prefer sedentary, relaxing things.
• Choose exercise activities that you think are fun.
• Avoid overdoing it, resulting in unnecessary exhaustion and injury. Exercise sensibly and safely.
• Chart your progress, so that you can become aware of all your gains.
• Make exercise a priority. Do not put exercise time at the bottom of your to-do list. Yes, you have a busy life, but one of the most important things you can do is to make health improvement important.

Choose The Right Exercises

The nice thing about exercise is that you have a huge variety of exercises you can try. The purpose of exercise is to develop strength, endurance, flexibility, and balance. Most forms of exercise provide benefits in all four categories. They only differ in terms of intensity.

For example:

• Weight lifting, either using exercise machines or free weight will primarily increase your strength, but it will also help your endurance.
• Running or swimming will increase your endurance, with a little bit of strength building.
• Yoga or stretching will help you with flexibility and balance, with some strength and endurance benefits.

If you do not know how to exercise, then you can work with a personal trainer, and if you find exercise boring and would like some company, then a class will provide you with an instructor, plenty of companionship, and a structured routine to follow.

You Will Feel Increasingly Better Over Time

Learning to love exercising is rarely an instantaneous thing for most people. It is something you learn to love the more you do it and it is something you learn to appreciate when the benefits become noticeable. If you have been exercising and then discontinued, because of some life changes, like getting pregnant, then getting back in shape may be challenging, but it is not impossible.

Andi Perullo de Ledesma

I am Andi Perullo de Ledesma, a Chinese Medicine Doctor and Travel Photojournalist in Charlotte, NC. I am also wife to Lucas and mother to Joaquín. Follow us as we explore life and the world one beautiful adventure at a time.

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