Exercise for leisure, not punishment!

Regular exercise is crucial for our bodys, our ‘machines’ to keep running, and it should never feel like a punishment. Think about what happens to a bike or a car that has not been moved for years. Apart from fueling our body with the right nutrients, we also want to keep moving if we want to live a longer, better quality life.

Ways to get your body moving and feeling good about it:

1. Find friends to play a sport with, or exercise together. Hold yourself accountable and commit to a weekly activity. In other words, find your ‘partner in crime’, you don’t have to be alone in this.
2. Find something that suits you, that you love and that makes you want to do more of, maybe has that ‘addictive’ element. It could be dance, it could be a sport or simply a swim in the pool.
3. Walk or cycle to places to keep your activity levels up during the day; you spend way more energy in the 16 hours you’re awake than in 1 hour of exercise!
4. If you didn’t enjoy exercising previously, keep trying new things until you find the one that drives your soul!
5. Set aside time for it. Make it a priority and treat it as everything else important to you. So put it on your calendar. Another trick is to label it as how it makes you feel, for example: ‘Buzzing Dance Class!’ instead of ‘Exercise’. You will instantly remember the buzz!