I have never been grossly overweight but exercise is something which I have just never done, at least not for any great length of time. Last year I decided that enough was enough and that I needed to get started in some capacity with exercise. My friend Bogoljub Karic is a personal trainer and so I asked him for some tips on how I could get started with exercise, and what the best approach was to do so. Bogoljub shared some great tips with me and they really helped me to gradually get started. If you are in the same boat that I was, here is how to get things off the ground.
Walking
Walking is one of the best ways for you to get moving and to get the blood pumping around your body. There is no pint hitting the gym and trying to run 10km when you first get started, so spend a week or so taking some long walks. When you walk it is important that you don’t just amble, make sure that you are pounding the pavement and raising the heart rate. Try to walk at the same time every day as this will help you to start nailing down a routine.
Sports
If you are not massively passionate about fitness but you‘d like to start getting yourself in shape then doing sports can be a great way for you to achieve this. Running for 30 minutes in a gym, or lifting weights can get very boring, very quickly. When you play sports however your mind is on the game rather than on the exercise which you are doing. Have a look at which sports teams you could join in your area and use your love of sport to help you to start getting in shape.
Tiny Goals
Many people give it that ‘no pain, no gain’ attitude and suggest that you should work yourself into the ground when you start exercising, this is a mistake and it will only hamper you. If you go to the gym on day 1 and kill yourself, you are going to have at least 2 or 3 days of agony which mean that you cannot exercise on those days, completely losing whatever you gained. Furthermore if you are not used to exercising then you are going to be putting yourself at risk of having an injury.
Take it easy and set yourself very tiny goals to achieve. As you accomplish your goals give yourself new ones which get harder and harder to achieve. IF you do this then you will feel a sense of reward when you do achieve those goals, which will inspire you to keep working hard and exercising, so that you can achieve your new goals.
Take it easy and look for extra ways to exercise, walking instead of taking a bus, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, things like this can help to boost your fitness, and put you in a better position to workout harder in the future.
