Identify Why You Want to Exercise

Understanding the benefits of exercise and identifying your biggest motivating factors will help you stick to your plan to exercise regularly including over the weekend.

Being physically active and exercising is a relatively easy and inexpensive way to stay healthy, but without motivation, it can be difficult to stick to. So, it’s time to decide on your biggest motivation. What is your “why?”

Focus on the importance of making your “why” specific & personal. The more specific the “why” is, the less likely you will be to stray from your ultimate goal.

One great way to increase your activity level is to move more throughout the day and build healthy habits outside of a more structured workout routine at the gym. If you've taken your resting metabolic test, you have access to the CardioCoach app. By wearing your heartrate monitor and turning on your CardioCoach app, you can track your weekend exercise, activities and calories burned.

Here are some examples of things you can do to become more active on the weekends:

• Going for walks or runs (bonus points if you go with a friend or a pet)

• Cleaning the house

• Gardening or doing yard work

• Taking the stairs rather than the elevator

• Putting on some music and dancing alone or with a partner

• Parking in the back of parking lots while doing errands

• Stretching while watching TV

Forming new healthy habits could be the key to a lasting workout regime. On the days when you don’t want to exercise, you should come back to your personal “why” and reflect on how far you’ve come. This can give you motivation when you start to waiver. Think of exercise as a way to do something fun for yourself each day. This will help you remain consistent with your routine while enjoying the process.