16 Practical Ways to Make Exercise a Daily Habit to Shed Extra Weight

You can definitely not outrun a bad diet, but since weight loss is all about 80% diet and 20% exercise, to sculpt out a good physique and to boost weight loss efforts, regular physical activity is a must. And you should choose the kind of workout that would challenge the body because if it does not challenge you, it wouldn’t change you. Regular exercise is not only for a great physique or to lose weight, it’s good for mental health too. To look toned, lose fat, and get healthy in general, pick up those running shoes and head out of the door! However, it’s not easy to convert daily exercise routine from a painful chore to a pleasurable activity; especially when there’s lack of motivation and have to push yourself to go through the daily grind. Now, it’s important to condition your mind to turn daily exercise from a daily and painful chore to an enjoyable activity that you should be looking forward for that adrenaline rush because when you exercise with full gusto, your body releases chemicals called endorphins that trigger positive feelings and triggers the release of “happy chemicals” such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin that play an important part in regulating your mood. So, you get to lose weight, look better, and above all, feel better with just a little bit of workout a few times in a week. All said and done, if you are still not able to squeeze in time out of your schedule for physical activity, read about some practical ways to make exercise a daily habit.

Practical Ways to Make Exercise a Daily Habit to Shed Extra Weight

1. Wake up Early: When you wake up a little early, it would be easy to squeeze out 40 minutes to one hour during the 24-hour time period. In fact, waking up early to exercise will help you to sleep better later that day. Also, working out during the early morning hours in a fasted state can push the body to reach out to stored fat for fuel instead of using dietary calories and glycogen. When you workout in the morning, whether it’s 20 minutes of yoga, early morning walk or hitting the gym, it will keep you energized through the day. So, do try to wake up early and keep aside at least half an hour to one hour from your busy morning schedule for exercise and lose weight effectively.

2. Straighten out your Diet: As we have mentioned earlier, you can never outrun a bad diet, and when you don’t see results with exercise, you may lose the motivation for workout altogether. Also, do not expect to burn all the bad calories from the previous day in the next day’s workout. To lose weight by exercising, you have to create a calorie deficit by following weight loss diets such as on the Rati Beauty app and then let exercise show its magic. Without a proper diet in place, there’s no room for exercise to create a change.

3. Make Sure you Get 10,000 Steps Each Day: You can burn considerable amount of calories each week by making sure you are on the feet for most pat of the day, and keeping a target of 10,000 steps can help burn up to 0.5 kg a week. If you find 10,000 steps too much, start by setting a goal of 5000 steps.

4. Ease into the Routine: Do not start with strenuous exercise in the beginning to avoid burnout and exhaustion. Begin with 15 to 20 minutes routine and gradually increase the intensity. In fact, you can even start with just 7 minutes of HIIT (high intensity interval training) in the beginning. It’s highly impossible that you may find excuses on being unable to squeeze just 7 or 10 minutes out of your busy routine.

5. Find a Like-Minded Friend/Partner: Motivation plays a big factor in working out on a regular basis, and when you can find a like-minded friend/partner, you can keep each other motivated.

6. Stay Active Through the Day: NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis and is the energy we use for everything we do in our day-to-day life except for when we are sleeping or exercising. Using the stairs instead of the lift, squatting on the floor to lift something up, walking while talking on the phone, every activity we do while being on our feet, comes under NEAT. All these activities help to burn some amount of calories and these bits of calories spent here and there, add up to a considerable amount when you are trying to lose weight. Read more about how you can include NEAT activities in your daily life here.

7. Bring variation in your Workout Routine: When you follow the same kind of exercise everyday, you are bound to get bored. Moreover, the body adapts to the routine and burns fewer calories next time around, and that’s why bringing in variation in routines is advisable to see faster results.

8. Be Flexible: Do not follow the “all or nothing attitude” when trying to lose weight. It’s easy to convince your mind not to workout if you are unable to keep apart an entire hour for workout. Be flexible, and just do basic stretching if nothing else for 10 minutes. If that’s not possible, take a stroll for 15 minutes. It’s not necessary to walk on the treadmill to burn calories, even brisk walking would do, just find out activities that would fit into your routine or schedule.

9. Make a Plan: Though early morning workouts are easy to stick to, schedule workout at a time convenient to you, so that you do not feel the need to rush through the routine because you have a lot of work to do later on.

10. Keep a Reminder or Alarm for the Workout: Exercise at the same time everyday because erratic schedules are most likely to kill your enthusiasm.

11. Arrange your Workout Clothes and Gear the Previous Night: It would be easy to rush out of the door when you have everything in place. We know some people who quit that day’s workout because they couldn’t find their headphones! So, layout your clothes the previous night, keep headphones, shoes, and other workout gear in a scheduled place so that your mind does not makeup excuses to not workout.

12. There would be no Results without Rest Days: Ideally, you should take two days off every week for the muscles to recover and reconstitute. A lot of people do not get adequate rest to the muscles. Believe us, rest days are as important as workout routines.

13. Do at least 10 reps of pushups, squats, crunches, lunges, and chair dips: All these are compound exercises that activate and work on multiple muscle groups at the same time. Try to do at least one compound exercise in a day to burn fat and also to tone your muscles.

14. Invest in Cute Workout Clothes: Hard to believe, but workout clothes can get you excited and motivate to work on yourself. Try it for yourself!

15. Exercise While Watching TV: Squats, lunges, jumping jacks, plank can all be done while watching TV.

16. Sleep for at Least 7 Hours: Getting adequate hours of sleep and that too uninterrupted sleep is absolutely must to wake up refreshed the next morning for workout routine. If you are too exhausted the next day, you are most likely to skip workout.

Do check out various exercise routines, from HIIT to yoga stretches on the Rati Beauty app.

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