The Habit of Health

You've taken the steps to making healthier food choices when making your meal plans and now you have that brand new shiny gym membership. You might even go out and buy some new clothes to work out in while you're there. You get through your first week, you're a little sore but you work through it. Monday comes around and you really aren't feeling like going because your cat doesn't seem to be acting normal, and you really need to make sure that he's not going to jump from your first floor apartment window in attempt to take one of his 9 lives. You skip Monday's workout and say "I'll just go tomorrow." Well tomorrow never turns into today and you just stop going. Why is this?

Well I'll tell you why, you haven't established a routine and developed a habit of going. It takes approximately 28 days to develop a habit and approximately 66 days to establish a routine. No matter how bad you might feel like skipping a workout in the very beginning you need to stick it out and go. Once you have developed that habit and established that routine you increase your chances of successfully abiding by your workout schedule.

Now with saying that, I'm not saying don't take a day off to rest. You need those scheduled rest days to allow your body to recover from those intense workouts. When developing your workout routine try and schedule 1-2 rest days. The key word here is scheduled rest days, so try and stick to your schedule the best you can.

An example of a workout routine would be:

Monday: Chest/Tri's
Tuesday: Cardio/Abs
Wednesday: Back/Bi's
Thursday: Cardio/Abs
Friday: Shoulders/Legs
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Rest

Monday: Chest/Tri's
Tuesday: Back/Bi's
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Shoulders
Friday: Legs
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Cardio/Abs

No matter what the schedule that you come up with looks like, the key is to do your best to stick to it in the beginning so you can establish that routine and develop that habit. Set small achievable goals for yourself so that you have something to keep you motivated. For myself I used 5lbs increments of my weight loss. Remember that you didn't gain the weight overnight so don't expect it to fall off overnight.