So you have decided that you want to get healthier, maybe lose some weight, or maybe you just want to lower your cholesterol or high blood pressure. What ever your reasons you have definitely made a GREAT decision! Now is the hard part, what to do, where to start and how much of it to do. Let’s look at these fundamental parts of an exercise program that are sure to help you get started on the right foot.

First of all you need to list the types of exercises that you enjoy doing. Do you like to walk, run, use exercise machines, exercise tapes? What ever it is, make sure it is something that you know you will enjoy doing, even if it is just somewhat, because you are trying to make this a life long change, not just a fly by the night, here today gone tomorrow change.

Once you have decided what you will enjoy doing you need to assess what kind of shape you are in. Have you been doing any type of exercise other than getting up and doing the every day normality’s?

By normality’s I would suggest would be getting up, walking around your house, maybe to your mail box, maybe around the grocery store or walking your kids to school, etc., or maybe no kind of exercise at all. Maybe you have done several different types of programs, or walk regularly or maybe have been a weight lifting or body building champion in the past. Any way it goes once you figure out what you are ready to do then it is time to figure out how much of this exercise you are going to do, based on your physical capabilities.

When ever someone asks, how much should I exercise, many times you will end up with a very generic answer, similar to a one size fits all routine. That is not necessarily the best way to go though because not everyone reads the small print or understand when it is suggested to do a little more or a little less based on how you ‘feel’ when you are working out.

A good rule of thumb would be if you have not exercised at all for some time (being a year or more, maybe even six months) and have never really been on an exercise program or are fairly overweight, start slow. I cannot emphasize that enough…START SLOW. You did not get big over night; you did not get out of shape overnight, it happens over time so losing that weight will take time. There are no real miracles that will make your fat disappear in the wink of an eye. It will take determination and it will take some work, but it can be done!

If you have worked out in the past, done aerobic or had a regular walking routine then I would suggest for you to start out at a fourth of what you used to do. If you worked out for an hour a day or hour and a half, then start only around fifteen to twenty minutes and then build that up every week and a half or two weeks by and additional fifteen to twenty minutes. In approximately two months you will be back to your normal routine and should definitely be seeing some results from your workout efforts.

If you used to be a body building champion then you already know that you will have to start slow, but you should remember how your body reacted to your weight routines when you did work out and it should not take long at all to get back into full swing of a body building routine. Just please, please, be careful, go slow, and don’t rush your program.

If you start to feel pain, ease up, do a little less, but keep on plugging on. If you get hurt, then try doing some exercise’s for the other parts of your body that are not hurt to keep yourself from getting depressed or thinking now you will have to quit it all. There are tons of ways to do exercise if it is what you really want to do.

Also, a last little help, surround yourself with positive people and reward yourself for doing good. If the people around you are always telling you that you look stupid or bad mouthing you in any other way, then you need to find a way to not work out around those people, when they are not around, or even better, if possible, stay away from them altogether.

Rewarding yourself gives you something good to look forward to once you have made a full month of keeping to your exercise resolve, or having made it to one of your weight loss goals.

Allowing yourself to do something indulgent, going out to eat somewhere really nice, buying you a nice outfit, or just putting some money to build up a big reward for yourself for a bigger weight loss goal down the road. Keep your goals reasonable; Go slow, work up to full swing exercising; reward yourself. Doing these thing will help you get yourself to your final goal in one piece and a very happier, healthier person!

Good Luck!!