It is extremely common that you decide your workout goal, start following it, and then one day suddenly flake out. Yes, this happens with many of us – usually beginners. But it’s bad! Because quitting exercise and then resuming it after some time makes it even harder to achieve fitness goals. New research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory revealed that weight gained during the workout interval is tough to lose when a person returns to a workout at a later stage.
When you are being irregular with your workout routine, you are certainly putting your body and mind into trouble. There are a number of risk factors related to health when you don’t make exercise a daily habit.
First of all, let us explore the side effects of being inconsistent with workouts and then learn some strategies that will help you make exercise an integral part of your everyday life.
What Happens When You Are Not Doing Exercise Regularly?
1. You crave for junk food
When you stop doing exercise for some time, your body starts craving junk/unhealthy food. Because it doesn’t need nutrients for the extra sustenance required when you are exercising.
2. Your sleep pattern gets irregular
It is known that performing a workout regularly improves sleep. On the contrary, when you become inconsistent with exercise, it affects your sleeping pattern adversely.
3. You experience breathing problems
When you stop doing exercise, it may happen that you get out of breath after climbing a flight of stairs. If you are not regular with exercise, the body becomes inefficient at absorbing oxygen while it is under stress. Hence, this is when it feels that you are not taking enough air.
4. Your metabolism decreases
Irregular exercise habits lead to a reduction in muscle mass and an increase in fat percentage. Eventually, this slows down your body’s metabolism.
5. You lose physical strength
Take some time off your workout schedule and you will stop feeling active and strong (relatively).
6. Your muscles get deconditioned
Irregular workout routines decondition your muscles. This means that when you try lifting a heavy object you might experience neck strain, ache, or pain. Deconditioning has even been linked with chronic low back pain.
7. You get depressed
Regular exercise has a pronounced effect on neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine levels which make us feel happy. So when you refrain from exercising, it can just feel like going through withdrawal from a drug.
8. Your blood pressure increases
Being inconsistent with workout leads to stress that in turn increases heart rate and muscle tension – factors associated with higher blood pressure.
Strategies To Make Exercise A Daily Habit
If you are finding it hard to stick to a daily exercise habit, here are some surefire tips from trainers that will help you stay on the right track.
1. Pick the exercises you enjoy
Heavyweight lifting can help you put on 30 pounds of muscles quickly. This idea must have attracted you, though you don’t like lifting weights. But you need to pick exercises that suit your interests and inspire you. Because if you do what you are hating, you are sure to go out of the routine.
2. Decide a time
Be observant and find out which time of the day is most suitable for you to workout. For example, if it is evening, then stick to the time and you are more likely to turn it into a habit.
3. Set a reminder
Send an email or text reminder to yourself to remind you that it is time to go to the gym or sweat off. But when you keep a reminder, remember not to suffer delays.
4. Start with low-intensity exercise
Most of us start exercising with lots of energy and enthusiasm that urges us to perform more. But beginning with too much leads to burnout that ultimately results in quitting of your routine. Hence, start with as less as 15 to 20 minutes and keep following it until about 2 weeks. This will allow your body to get used to the new healthy behaviour.
5. Progress gently
Once your body gets used to daily exercise, increase the amount and intensity of your workout. But the percentage of increase should not be too drastic. If you are doing exercise for 20 minutes for two weeks, increase it to 30 minutes then 40 minutes and gradually up to an hour.
6. Rest for a day
Recovery is one of the most important factors of successful exercise habits. Here rest means that if you are doing exercise for six days, choose the seventh day to do something different and interesting. You could choose to walk for a few minutes or engage yourself in a meditation session, for example.
7. Don’t miss a day
If you skip even one day from exercising you will find it harder to stick to the routine. Habit formation is an art that requires practice. According to a study, on average, it takes 66 repetitions to turn a healthy behaviour (like eating nutritious food or exercising) into a habit.
Learn The Art Of Habit Formation From Sedentary Lifestyle Solutions
If you make your mind to achieve a specific fitness goal, Sedentary Lifestyle Solutions can become your accountability partner. We can help you change healthy behaviour into a habit without any hard-and-fast rules. When you find it hard to exercise daily, we nudge you with a little bit of encouragement that can help prevent your will from fading out.
Whether it is a diet plan or a fitness program, we can ensure that you are following the plan daily while we customise the training as per your requirements. With us, you get the flexibility, freedom, and motivation that is greatly desired.
So, even if you have failed to achieve fitness goals in the past, we can help you return on track with a fresh you!
