•Promise yourself you will add walking to your everyday routine. You will establish a habit this way. On rest days, just go for a stroll or do a little light stretching.
•Find some fitness friends and make play dates with them. Go for walks or to the gym or a fitness class.
•Get obsessed with numbers,not on the scale of course. Get a pedometer and challenge yourself to walk 10,000 steps a day. Or do 1000 steps on your stepper as fast as you can and try to beat your score the next time.
•Grab a calender and make an X on everyday you exercise. You will begin to see a streak forming and you won't want to break that streak.
•Reward yourself. I like to treat myself to a glass of chocolate milk or a hot bath at the end of a tough workout. I feel like I have to earn it, though. Thinking about my treats make me workout longer and harder.
•Think about how you will feel if you don't walk: tired, sloth-like, guilty. Know that you will always feel better if you do something.
Get up and go
Studies show that people who wake up early to walk before they start their day are more likely to stick with their program. Here are a few tips on how to get moving when you would rather just sleep in :
•Ignore the little voice in your head that says you are too tired or that the bed is too warm and cozy. Just nudge it aside and get up.
•Tell your family you will be getting up early to exercise. Once you say the words out loud and others know your plan, it makes it much harder to back out. That guilt thing again.
•Plan ahead. Know where you want to walk and have all of your equipment and workout clothes ready ahead to go the night before.
Instead of thinking about how tough it will be to commit waking up an hour earlier and starting a regular routine, why not just take five minutes and go out for a walk?
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