the triad exercise programBuilding the “Exercise Habit”
Building the exercise habit is the key to incorporating this most
important component of being healthy into your lifestyle. Daily
structured movement has to be as important and expected as
brushing your teeth, taking a shower, combing your hair, and other
normal and expected activities of daily living.
When you get to the point where not exercising feels “not right,”
the way you’d feel if you didn’t brush your teeth for the day, then
you have built the exercise habit. When you don’t go home from
work until you exercise, you have built the exercise habit. When
you don’t turn on the TV before you exercise at home, or at least
turn on the TV at the same time you exercise, you have built the
exercise habit. When you are looking for ways to exercise when you
are away from home on business or vacation, you have built the
exercise habit. When you don’t try to make an excuse for not exer-
cising, you have built the exercise habit. If you say, “Some exercise
is better than no exercise” when you can’t do your regular exercise
routine, and you do something else involving movement, you have
developed the exercise habit.
It’s about Time and Consistency
More than Intensity and Technique
If you are new to the exercise game, it is going to take three to
nine months before you build the exercise habit and it becomes
“part of you.” The first step is to create the space (time) to exercise.
Fifteen to thirty minutes is acceptable to start. The second step is
to shoot for daily exercise. It doesn’t matter at first what type of
exercise, as long as it is some type of aerobic, big muscle-moving
exercise and is safe. Build the consistency. Success with exercise is
more about consistency and time than it is about technique and
intensity.
If you build in the time to exercise as part of your normal day
and are consistent with your exercise program, you will see results
and will naturally start to pick up the intensity and duration of the