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Exercise and living a healthy lifestyle is so important for mental and physical health. If you have struggled to maintain a fitness routine,  have taken some time off due to illness, or injury, you may feel like you have no idea where to start. Below are some simple tips which you can follow so your workouts don’t seem too daunting!

• Let go of the guilt – remember that losing motivation is normal! There is absolutely no point of holding your past against you – let’s learn from the past in order to move forward with determination and a positive mind set.
• Make healthy habits that are going to last. You will not stick to a routine that you hate. Find an exercise that you LOVE to do, that doesn’t feel like a chore… then subconsciously it will develop into a habit.
• Commit to training with a friend, join a gym, or go to a fitness class. Have somebody that will keep you accountable…cut the excuses and start believing in yourself that you can make a change!
• Plan your workouts and schedule them into your diary, if they’re scheduled in you are less likely to skip them!
• Try a challenge…… Find something that will keep your engaged and interested. Signing up to a challenge will fulfil that sense of achievement and accomplishment.
• Don’t push yourself too hard, too soon. Stick to a progressive programme that allows you to see your improvements and celebrate them, without setting yourself up for failure.

Progressive training means that you keep gradually increasing the intensity of your workout, so you always experience a high degree of challenge in your training. If you keep lifting the same weights week after week, you aren’t going to get much stronger. Progressive training helps ensure that you remain in the sweet spot of challenge, so you grow stronger in less time than you would otherwise.

We all know we should be doing more, but how do we keep moving when our motivation slips, the weather takes a turn for the worse or life gets in the way?

1 Work out why, don’t just work out

Our reasons for beginning to exercise are fundamental to whether we will keep it up. The only way we are going to prioritise time to exercise is if it is going to deliver some kind of benefit that is truly compelling and valuable to our daily life

2 Get off to a slow start

The danger of the typical New Year resolutions approach to fitness, is that people jump in and do everything – change their diet, start exercising, stop drinking and smoking – and within a couple of weeks they have lost motivation, or got too tired. If you haven’t been in shape, it’s going to take time. Start slow and include rest days.

3 You don’t have to love it

It is helpful not to try to make yourself do things you actively dislike, but don’t feel you have to really enjoy exercise. A lot of people who stick with exercise say: ‘I feel better when I do it.’” There are elements that probably will be enjoyable, though, such as the physical response of your body and the feeling of getting stronger, and the pleasure that comes with mastering a sport.

4 Be kind to yourself

Individual motivation – or the lack of it – is only part of the bigger picture. Money, parenting demands or even where you live can all be stumbling blocks. Tiredness, depression, work stress or ill family members can all have an impact on physical activity. If there is a lot of support around you, you will find it easier to maintain physical activity. Don’t set yourself up with goals that are too big, you may fail and then feel like a failure.. Be sensible and ask your coach for advice on goal setting.

5 Don’t rely on willpower

If you need willpower to do something, you don’t really want to do it Instead, think about exercise “in terms of why we’re doing it and what we want to get from physical activity. How can I benefit today? How do I feel when I move? How do I feel after I move?