It's summer and everybody knows that summer equals vacations (most of the time). While vacations are great for the mind, body and soul, getting back into your exercise regime after a vacation (or any prolonged absence) might not be so easy.
You're well rested, feel great, but your body doesn't seem to want to work with you as you go back to your daily (or weekly) exercising habits. Now, the question is: how do you start again? Once you have an exercise habit, it becomes automatic. You just go to the gym, there is no force involved. But after a week, one month, two months or possibly a year off, it can be hard to get started again. Here are some tips to climb back on that treadmill after you’ve fallen off.
Don’t Break the Habit - The easiest way to keep things going is simply not to stop. Avoid long breaks in exercising or rebuilding the habit will take some effort. This may be advice a little too late for some people. But if you have an exercise habit going, don’t drop it at the first sign of trouble.
Reward Showing Up - Keep track of your exercise routine and how often you do it. Reward yourself with something you've been wanting when you finally find yourself back in the exercising rhythm you were used to before you took your leave of absence.
Enjoyment Before Effort - After you finish any work out, ask yourself what parts you enjoyed and what parts you did not. As a rule, the enjoyable aspects of your workout will get done and the rest will be avoided. By focusing on how you can make workouts more enjoyable, you can make sure you want to keep going to the gym.
Start Small - Trying to over do it your first time back to working out isn’t a good way to build a habit. Work below your capacity for the first few weeks to build the habit. Otherwise you might scare yourself off after a brutal workout.
Before you know it, you'll be right on track with where you left off before you took your little (or long) break from exercising!
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