How to Stick to Your Exercise Plan

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By D Snider
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Stick to Your Exercise Plan

Starting an exercise plan is simple; following through on an exercise plan is incredibly difficult for some people. This how-to is designed to help people effectively stick to their exercise programs by gaining the confidence and incentive of completing your goals.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Home computer or scrap paper and pen
Initiative
Healthy attitude

Step 1

If you are computer literate and own a home PC, tracking and recording your goals and accomplishments can be easy and organized. Using a program such as Microsoft Excel can seperate your information in individual cells. If you don't like Excel just use Microsoft Word or even Notepad. If you don't own a home computer or track your progress at the gym, use good old fashioned notebook paper and pencil.
Step 2

The first thing you want to do is set your goals. If your goal is to lose weight, write it down on a seperate sheet in your track book. "I want to lose *lbs* by this date by losing *lbs* per week." This will help you focus on your plan and remind you why you are on your special diet or exercise program in the first place.
Step 3

Next you will want to track your weight loss (or weight gain) plan. Your weigh-ins and the date of your weigh-ins. Write down the initial date you started and what your weight is on that day. The best and most accurate time to weigh yourself is as soon as you use the restroom when you get out of bed. Try not to weigh yourself daily seeing as water levels change, especially in women. Instead, weigh yourself weekly and record accordingly on your information sheet.
Step 4

Next you will want take your weigh-ins and score them, in a sense. Next to the date and your weigh in, write the amount of weight you lost that week and then find the difference between that and your goal weight for the week. This will let you know how well your doing on a week by week basis. If you need to cut your calories, or tune up your exercise routine.
Step 5

On a third sheet of paper or seperate section of your computer program, you'll want to record your exercise progress. If you are doing cardiovascular exercise, write down everything from heart rate, time you spent, how far you went, etc. Just like the weight loss goal sheet, try to beat your goals for exercise as well. If you weight lift, write down your repetitions, weight, and time spent exercising, then try to beat your goal.