The Exercise Start Point: By Weight Loss & Fitness Advocate, Paula Chapman
CREATING A GOOD FOUNDATION TO WORK FROM.
- Do you have a desire to exercise? Most people don’t, it’s ok.
- Do you think you should exercise but don’t want to? Lets explore that.
- Do you want to exercise but think you can’t? Lets explore this too.
Why should we as individuals engage in exercise?
I am just going to jump straight in and list some reasons why exercise is a good idea for everybody.
- Strength to do daily tasks or strength to achieve a goal you may have.
- Good posture. Your muscles hold your skeleton in place, if you keep them toned and strong your posture is improved.
- Strong bones. Beat osteoporosis
- Weight loss. Probably the biggest reason people exercise, although in my opinion it shouldn’t be the only and as you get to know me you will discover why.
- Look good in clothes (or out of them).
- So you can eat more of the food you love without it making your jeans to small. Strange how food can effect the washing?
- Help keep your body and mind in balance. Exercising can help to keep your hormones in balance, which for some women is a excellent reason to start exercising.
- Keep your body pain free. Yes I have discovered that the more you move well the more you want to move and the more your body wants to keep you moving and in turn it keeps our bodies like a well oiled machine. This is something I think you need to experience to believe.
What is stopping you from exercising?
Lets identify those things. What are the reasons you don’t engage in regular exercise. It is important to get those things out. The point of this is to see if they are valid or if they are just excuses The definition of an excuse is a reason to fail at something. Who wants to fail? No one. Write them down. What are they? Go grab a piece of paper and a pen, I will wait till you get back…
Here are some ideas that might trigger some thoughts for you, but it is important to use your own words. These are your reasons, not mine.
- Injury
- time poor
- too tired
- just don’t want to
- don’t know where to start
I can’t answer each of your individual reasons stopping you from exercising, because I don’t know what they are. First if you go through Step 1 and 2 following and see if those reasons are still valid. If they are, then you can message me or add a comment and I will be happy to help you see past what is holding you back. Sometimes what is holding us back is our own attitude or preconceived ideas and often if we can look at it from a different perspective we can see a path through.
STEP 1 – WHY
Establish why you want to include exercise in your life. So why do you want to exercise? You have gotten this far reading what I have to say so you will have a WHY.
Write it down.
This WHY is your foundation. You will build your exercise and movement into your days based on what you want to achieve so that you are able to move forward and progress. This WHY can change over time and most likely will change.
My WHY when I first started has been life changing without me realising at the time that it would have that much impact on my life, and because of that my life has taken a path I never would have dreamed of. I have achieved things I always thought were impossible for me. Nothing is impossible if your WHY is important enough.
STEP 2 – MOVE
Move your body everyday in someway. If an injury is what was stopping you and you think you can’t move, I ask you, Did you get out of bed this morning? Chances are high the answer to that is yes. Then you can move. It doesn’t have to be fancy or hard, just have fun with it. There is no point in doing exercise that you don’t enjoy or causes you pain. Your attitude towards your movement time will have a big impact on your results, and we will talk about this in more detail in the coming weeks. So explore and have fun.
What are you going to add to your day that is going to get your body moving? walk, dance, climb the stairs more, go for a
run, the possibilities are endless. Use that piece of paper that you took the effort to get and write it down.
Done. You are on your way. It is that simple.
Next week we will look at how to keep going because there will be challenges.
Right now: Remember your WHY and MOVE.
Keep in touch. If you would like to share with me your WHY or what type of movement you are adding to your day I would love to hear from you. Use accountability as a tool to keep you focused on your WHY. Message me, or find a friend, or use a group to help you stay accountable to your WHY.
I believe in living life the fun way, so most importantly above all else…HAVE FUN. It might not be easy, doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.
Paula 🙂
Hi I'm Monique Bradley.