If you’re like 92 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions, you’re looking back at a failed exercise strategy by this point in the year. That said, this doesn’t make you a failure. It also doesn’t mean that you need to give up on fitness altogether. Instead, it means that you need to scrap the idea of a resolution and look at your fitness in a new way. It’s time to bring your efforts back to life in a more realistic way so that they’ll stick.
There is nothing wrong with a New Year’s resolution. Resolving to do something can be a very good step. However, using a date as your motivation instead of something else can leave you with a failed exercise effort and a lack of motivation to try again. Research has shown that there is a 46 percent difference between a person’s plan to exercise and the action they take to actually do it. More than 80 percent of American adults aren’t meeting the recommended minimum of 150 moderately-to-vigorously active minutes per week (as recommended by the World Health Organization).
Moving Beyond a Failed Exercise Resolution
So what if you have failed exercise plans behind you! You can’t control what you did in the past. However, you are in full control over what you do today. It’s time to pick things up, brush them off and turn them into a fitness plan you’ll enjoy both in terms of getting it done and what it can do for you.
Your first step shouldn’t be to get that beach body or six pack abs. That’s what likely caused your failed exercise efforts in the first place. You need to place your goal within reach. Then, once you achieve it, you can set a new goal. For now, begin with meeting the minimum recommended weekly minutes.
Setting New Fitness Goals and Sticking to Them
Don’t dwell on the failed exercise plans from the past. Now, it’s time for you to decide how you can realistically become active for 150 minutes per week. That may sound like a lot of minutes, but it’s actually quite reasonable. Think about it this way. Even if you only exercise 5 out of 7 days, you still only need to get 30 minutes on your active days. That’s it!
Even better, you don’t need to do 30 consecutive minutes. If you walk or jog up and down the stair well at work for 10 minutes during your lunch break and then go for a 20 minute very brisk walk or a run once you get home, before dinner, you’re set. That’s it!
Still not convinced? What if you think about it this way? Do five minutes of jumping jacks or running on the spot at some point during your work day. Then, when you get home, get up during every commercial break – and while the theme song is playing – when you watch TV. Every half hour show is 22 minutes long including its opening credits (if it has any). That means you get a minimum of 8 minutes of exercise time per half hour of television. Watch an hour and a half of TV and stick to this rule and you’re done! Just make sure to make your exercises vigorous like sprinting on the spot, push-ups, burpees, jumping jacks or other similar moves.