“I am in no shape to exercise!”

From Fitness Trainer Lori Forrester.

Has anyone ever felt this way? “I need to ease into a workout routine.” I hear this every day and believe it or not, I understand.

It can be overwhelming in the beginning. When it comes to getting healthy, most people know what a difficult change it’s going to be and they think somehow they need to “prepare” to workout. I have done this myself so I am speaking from experience.

So what do they do? They order a DVD series off an infomercial and wait for it to come in. Then when it comes in (usually 7-10 business days), they let it sit in the corner unopened for the first week. The second week they open the box and read through the manual and nutrition plan, get overwhelmed and put it down for another couple of weeks. They have another talk with their inner demons and dig it out to actually watch one of the DVDs and think ‘Oh, I can’t do that,’ and put it away for another two weeks. Do you see where I’m going with this? Count it up…how many weeks just went by just “preparing” to get in shape?  Let’s avoid this game we play.

It’s going to be hard. Anything you do in your life that is worth a flip (trying to be clean here) will be difficult; otherwise it’s meaningless. Our lives are filled with things that are painful but necessary. This is life. Exercise is necessary so just START DOING instead of planning.

If you need motivation and accountability, get a workout partner or a trainer to keep you going, but it’s not necessary.

Here are things you DON’T need if you really want this:

  • Money
  • Equipment
  • More time
  • Nice workout clothes
  • Gym membership

The web is loaded with quick (under 20 min.), body weight (no equipment), at home workouts (no gym) for FREE! This is where you start! If you can’t do a certain exercise (yet), then you modify it any way you can.

You can also dig out that old DVD series you bought (or even cheaper, check YouTube) and do a portion of it instead of committing to the whole thing. Work your way up to finishing it. Don’t write it off as too hard or old fashioned. I have a client who came to me in good shape already from doing Cindy Crawford videos. Boom Baby! She didn’t even realize she was as fit as she is. Just DO WORK! I don’t care what it is. When that becomes easy, DO MORE WORK. This is where the magic starts to happen and you are ready to take on new challenges.

Don’t fall victim to the “paralysis by analysis” syndrome. Before you know it, that journey to health will seem longer than you care to travel.

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