How To Make Exercise More Enjoyable

If you want to get fit and lose some weight, then exercise is something that you should be doing on a daily basis. Even if you are not exercising for the purpose of weight loss, exercise is still something that is worth doing as it can help to improve your mood, your health and even increase your lifespan.

However, despite the obvious advantages and benefits of regular exercise, sometimes it can be very hard for people to motivate themselves to do it. Many people for example, complain that they find exercising to be boring and so soon give up after they start. Unfortunately, this can then put a person off from exercising for the rest of their life, which then increases their risk of developing obesity, diabetes and osteoporosis.

In order to turn exercise into a habit, it is therefore important to do something which you enjoy. There is no point for example, in going to the gym and pumping iron every day if you hate working out in a gym, just as there is no point in forcing yourself to get up early every morning to go for a run if you hate running.

The truth is, when it comes to exercise, if you start off by doing the things you dislike doing, then you will probably quit very quickly and will soon go back to your old lifestyle and routine of not exercising.

This is why people hire personal trainers to help them get fit, because it is very difficult for a person to motivate themselves to keep on exercising when their body is tired and feels like lying or sitting down rather than lifting weights or going out for a run.

Of course, not everyone can afford to hire a personal fitness trainer, so unless you are able to find a way to make exercise more enjoyable, then exercise probably isn’t something that you are likely to stick with for very long.

Making Exercise & Weight Loss Fun

Although exercising can be very hard work at times, it doesn’t have to be. You can, believe it or not, have fun exercising by doing activities which don’t seem like exercise. The trick is to find something which you enjoy doing, and to do it in a way that will make you want to do it again.

In the remainder of this article, we shall be looking at some of the ways that you can do this. Hopefully, these tips will make it much easier for you to develop exercise into a habit, and experience the long-term health benefits that exercising can provide.

Get An Exercise Buddy

One of the best ways to make exercise and weight loss more enjoyable, is to do it with a friend. By working out with a friend you will have someone to keep you company, and so will be much less likely to become bored during your workout sessions.

Furthermore, your friend will also be there to motivate you to exercise when you don’t feel like exercising, and so you will also be much less likely to quit exercising if you are doing it with someone else.

If you have a family, why not exercise with them? You can have a great time exercising with your husband/wife and children, and will also get to spend some valuable time together that may not be available to you during other periods of the day.

Mix With The Right People

When I was a young boy my mum always used to tell me not to mix with bad people, because if I did, then I would turn out bad like them. Like most of the things my mum said, she was right. If you hang around the same people long enough, then eventually you start to become more like them, for better or for worse.

When it comes to exercise, you want to be around the people who share similar goals to you and make similar lifestyle choices. If all your friends do is sit at home and watch TV whilst eating pizza, then that is probably what you are going to end up doing. If however, your friends exercise on a regular basis and eat healthy foods, then you will probably end up doing that instead.

The people in your life can make it easier or more difficult for you to achieve your fitness goals, so make sure that you give yourself the best chance possible by surrounding yourself with the right type of people.

Use Rewards

If you cast your mind back to when you were a child, then you will probably be able to remember being rewarded for doing something well. Perhaps you received a gold star at school? Or got a piece of candy from your mum?

The reward that you received most likely made you feel good, and so in order to experience that positive emotion again, you became motivated to repeat a certain type of behavior.

Well guess what? Rewards still work, even for adults, and they can be a great way to make exercise and weight loss a much more enjoyable process!

The next time that you complete a goal which you have set for yourself, such as exercising for 4 weeks in a row or losing your first 10 pounds, give yourself a reward for its accomplishment as doing so will increase your motivation to achieve future goals. You will also find that by using rewards you will be much better able to persist through times of pain or discomfort, and much less likely to quit and give up when things get difficult for you.

Furthermore, rewards can also increase your level of self-esteem and self-confidence, because with each goal that you complete you will start to look better, feel healthier and like yourself more. This positive feeling can then be used to enhance other areas of your life, thereby further raising your self-esteem and confidence.

Do Weight Loss Exercises That You Enjoy

When you ask someone who says that they don’t like exercising why they don’t like it, in the large majority of cases you will find that a person does not dislike exercise in general, but rather that they dislike certain types of exercise. In other words, this means that everyone can enjoy exercising, they just have to find the right type of exercise to do.

It is also important to realize that exercise does not have to involve formal exercises, such as those you would do in a gym or in a sports club, but can be any form of activity in which you are physically active.

So whether you like walking, swimming, dancing, playing team sports or anything else that doesn’t involve sitting or lying down, if it helps you to burn calories and gets your heart pumping, then it is something that you can use to help keep yourself fit and burn fat with.

Vary Your Routine

Regardless of the type of activity that you do, eventually you will grow bored of it if you don’t add any variety to your routine. For this reason, it is important to try to do something different every once in a while.

You could for example, change the environment you workout in, change the people you workout with or change the amount of reps you do. Whatever it is that keeps you from doing the same thing day in day out, will make exercise much more enjoyable and so will encourage you to keep on doing it for longer.

An added benefit of varying your routine is that it will help to prevent adaptation. This is a process whereby you become adapted to doing a particular type of exercise in a particular way, which then results in you receiving no additional benefit from it. By varying your exercises and preventing adaptation, you will therefore allow your general level of fitness to continue improving rather than being stuck at a lower level.

Burn Fat Playing Video Games

Although the large majority of video games involve you sitting down and staring at the TV, there are certain computer games that will help you to improve your fitness and lose weight in the process.

Wii Fit for example, is a very popular exercise game on the Nintendo Wii that can help to make exercise more enjoyable and also allows you to track your progress over time. There are also games that involve dancing, such as Dance Dance Revolution, so you are bound to find something which you find entertaining to do.

If you do not have a video games console at home, try using workout videos instead. They can be a great way to ease yourself into exercise, and are a lot more fun than exercising by yourself.

Get Competitive!

Playing a competitive team sport is an excellent way to make exercise enjoyable, and is something that you will gain great benefit from on many different levels.

When working as part of a team you will form friendships with people who you may never of had the opportunity to do so with before, and because you are all working towards the same goal, you will bond much quicker than you would in a normal type of relationship.

In addition, competing against another team for a prize or a position in a league will give you a massive adrenaline rush that is much more energizing than most of the things you can do on your own. And because you are part of a team, you will be very unlikely to quit after a few weeks and so will benefit from a long-lasting form of exercise that you will be able to participate in for many years to come.

Some examples of team based sports that you can take part in are basketball, football, soccer, baseball, hockey, rugby and netball.

Take It Easy

If you haven’t exercised in a long time, then your level of fitness probably isn’t very good at the moment. So unless you ease yourself in to something very gently, you are unlikely to enjoy it and won’t want to continue doing it. Rushing into exercise is one of the biggest mistakes that novices make, as they think that by doing as much as they can, as soon as they can, they will lose weight and burn fat faster.

In reality however, the reverse is true. Those who do too much too soon end up hating exercise because it makes them feel so bad, and nobody will keep doing something they hate for very long unless they are forced to do it.

A much more effective approach to take is to view things from a long-term perspective by recognizing that losing weight is something which takes time to achieve. Once you stop expecting results to happen overnight, you can then give yourself the time it takes to start at the bottom and work your way up.

If you want to run every morning for example, you could start by walking. As your fitness improves, you could then progress to brisk walking, power walking, intermittent jogging and then full jogging.

This gradual approach is exactly what bodybuilders do. In order to lift very heavy weights they first start with the lighter weights, and as their strength improves, they gradually increase the amount of weight they lift.

Pump Up The Music!

Listening to a song that you like can change your mood in an instant. So whether you like classical, rap, rock, pop or reggae use the powerful effects of music to keep you entertained while you are working out.

If you don’t want to listen to music, try watching TV instead or listening to an educational audiobook. Although you won’t be as pumped up as you would with music, these things can still help to increase your level of enjoyment by keeping your mind busy and making your exercise easier to deal with.

Get The Right Gear

Just like how you wear different types of clothing for different types of sports, when you exercise, you also need to pay attention to what you wear. In the winter for example, you want something that offers full body coverage, but at the same time allows you to take some items off in case you get too hot. In the summer, you want something cool and light to wear, but might also need a hat and some sunglasses to protect yourself from the sun.

Most sports however, won’t require specialist clothing, so your main concern will be with finding a good pair of trainers and some comfortable clothing for your upper and lower body. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different types of clothing, as it may take you some time to find something which you both like and enjoy wearing.

Go Outside

Sometimes you have to workout indoors, as if it’s raining, cold or windy outside then you are probably better off staying indoors. But when the weather is nice, try exercising outside because exposure to natural unfiltered sunlight can actually have a positive impact on your mood.

In fact, if you stay indoors all the time, you can put yourself at an increased risk of developing depression and having low vitamin D levels. So even if you go outside only for a few times each week, try to get some sun exposure as it will help to make exercise more enjoyable for you and improve your health in the process.

Get A Dog

If you have always wanted a dog but never got round to it, now might be just the right time for you to get one! Dogs require daily walking, at least twice a day, so if you find yourself being unable to motivate yourself enough to get up off your butt, then getting a dog could help you to turn your fitness levels around.

You should of course, only get a dog if you will be able to look after it properly, as owning any type of animal is a big responsibility and one that can cause you inconvenience. But if you think that your up to it, go ahead and get yourself a dog and you will have a fun companion to exercise with.

Fun Fat Burning Exercises

Not everyone likes to exercise in a gym, and even if you do, there will eventually come a point when you want to try out something new, as doing the same form of exercise over and over again can quickly get boring.

Once you get bored, you start to lose the motivation to exercise, and before you know it, you are back to your old routine of sitting down in front of the TV and eating ice cream whilst piling on the pounds.

To help keep you interested in exercise for longer, below we have listed some of the funnest fat burning exercises that you can do.

Body Combat

Body combat is a form of martial arts which teaches you various kicking and punching techniques that can then be synchronized to music. It will help you to tone up your arms, legs, improve your cardiovascular system and help you to reduce stress and built up nervous tension.

Thai Boxing

If you are keen on learning martial arts, then Thai boxing is a great way to improve your general fitness levels and tone up your whole body. And because it is also quite a vigorous form of exercise, it will also help you to lose a lot of weight in a relatively short period of time.

Ballet

Ballet combines lots of stretching and lifting movements which makes it good for toning the entire body and improving ones flexibility. It is also quite a gentle form of exercise, so even beginners should adapt to it relatively quickly.

Aqua Aerobics

Doing aerobic exercises can sometimes be very damaging to the joints, but if they are done in a swimming pool, then your risk of injury is minimal. Aqua aerobics tends to be quite a popular form of exercise with older adults, as it can be done socially with friends and by people of all fitness levels.

Salsa

Salsa teaches you how to move your body to music which makes it a great form of exercise for music lovers. It will tone your whole body, boost your self-confidence and can be done with friends or with your partner.

Circus Skills

Circus skills teach you the things you see done in the circus, such as tightrope walking or riding a unicycle. Not only can this help to improve your strength and agility, but it can also be a very enjoyable form of exercise, especially if you have already tried many different things and are looking for something new.

Rowing

If you want to tone up your arms and legs but don’t like the idea of rowing indoors, then rowing outside in a boat with your friends can be a good alternative. It is an excellent form of cardiovascular exercise, and will rapidly improve your overall fitness levels.

Belly Dancing

If you like dancing but are looking for something a bit more exotic, then belly dancing could be just what you are after. It is an enjoyable form of exercise that you can do by yourself or with friends, and one that will help you to tone your whole body, help you to lose weight and turn your partner on in the process!

Bike Riding

Bike riding is a low impact form of exercise which enables you to do a bit of sight-seeing whilst you get fit. If you don’t have the time to exercise, try riding your bike to work instead of using your car and you will end up saving money and improving your health.

Mountain Climbing

Mountain climbing can be a very exciting form of exercise, although it is also one that is quite difficult to do due to the skill required and the need to find somewhere suitable to climb. But if you can make this work for you, then mountain climbing is one of the most rewarding exercises that you are ever likely to come across.

Ballroom Dancing

Ballroom dancing is something that you can do with your partner to become more intimate with them, something that you can do by yourself to find a partner or just something that you do by yourself for fun. Ballroom dancing will train you to coordinate your bodily movements, and is a very social form of exercise that is suitable for people who are not looking for anything too strenuous.