How to Stay Consistent With Exercise

Estimated Reading Time: 32 Minutes

Why is exercise consistency important?

One of the biggest challenges people face with exercise is doing workouts on a consistent basis. Actually, when I first started working as a personal trainer I always thought that the majority of people struggled with their fitness goals it was because they didn’t know what to do to achieve them.

But it turns out that today there is so much great information to help get you started in fitness, that access to knowledge really isn’t a challenge anymore. It actually comes down more to a lack of consistency is the reason more people aren’t where they want to be, and that generally comes down to a lack of accountability or a mindset around fitness that is knowingly or unknowingly sabotaging their progress.

There is no way around it, consistency is crucial if you want to get results in fitness. So if it’s ever been a challenge for you keep reading because we’re going to take a deep dive into exactly why this is the case and how to overcome it.

It’s common to experience a lot of initial enthusiasm when pursuing a new fitness goal. This enthusiasm often burns bright in the beginning. Over time that flame can dwindle and many things can trigger this from poor results, a bad training program, or logistical constraints.

A start/stop relationship can emerge and attempts to rekindle a fire are like working with damp kindling. It would have been far more effective to keep your initial fire ignited perpetually with small but consistent efforts. To labour the metaphor, this way you would have kept yourself warm. Therefore you would never be in a situation where you are cold and in dire need of sparking your fire again. 

The reason you have to stay consistent with exercise is that being fit, lean, and strong is a moving target. Meaning, that even if you achieve great things in fitness, those achievements are not yours to keep, at least not physically. As soon as you enter a period of inactivity you will start to lose your conditioning. Of course, it won’t happen overnight but it’s a physical law, it’s called entropy and it’s acting on us all. 

Typical fitness advice invites you to consider ‘your body, your temple’. However, this could imply that you want to protect it from harm and keep it from wear and tear. Like a classic car, you buy and leave it in a museum to appreciate. The problem is, if you treat your body in this way, it won’t appreciate, it’ll degenerate through lack of use.

A better way to look at your body like a machine in a factory. The goal is to get as much productivity out of the machine as you can without burning it out. If you leave it running all day and don’t maintain it it will break down and eventually stop. You will then have to spend time and money repairing it. Except when it’s your body, it won’t be as simple as replacing a part. A better strategy would be to run it at optimal output, giving it plenty of maintenance and downtime. This way that same machine might serve you well for decades.

The other problem we humans face is that when it comes to exercise, our achievements aren’t ours to keep simply because we’ve obtained them. Think of earning a degree or qualification, once you have it, it entitles you to a certain pay band, and it’s yours to keep. Same thing in a computer game once you’ve leveled up you are playing with a new set of attributes.

However, in health & fitness your conditioning and your body shape is a constant negotiation. You are negotiating your time and nature, so you won’t win. The only way to play the game and maintain what you achieve is consistency, everything else will be futile.

So with the gauntlet set. Let’s explore how to get consistent.

A Summary of what you’ll Learn in this article:

• An all-or-nothing mindset is the biggest mistake you can make in fitness
• A well-calibrated program is essential to maintain a consistent workout regime
• Understanding what motivates you and what demotivates you is essential to stay consistent
• Setting up your environment for consistency massively increases your chances of workout consistency
• Embrace and expect your relationship with fitness to outlast any single fitness goal
• Set smaller goals in the beginning. Realistic goals, keep you focused.
• Exercise and healthy lifestyle choices must become a part of your daily routine.

Before we begin, just to showcase that the theory, tips and advice in this article is not purely academic academic here are some of the consistency badges awarded to some of my online personal training clients:

This level of consistency was achieved by implementing the practical tips in this article. So without further ado, let’s get into the article:

The physical health benefits of regular exercise

Cardiovascular health

• Regular exercise strengthens the heart and improves circulation.
• Exercise Consistency helps in reducing blood pressure and cholesterol levels. This significantly decreases the risk of heart disease and stroke.
• The cumulative effect of sustained activity is essential for long-term heart health, reducing the risk of metabolic disease.

Weight management

• Consistent exercise helps maintain energy expenditure, helping to maintain a healthy weight.
• Regular physical activity increases metabolism over time, aiding in weight control. Both resistance training and cardio work contribute to this.
• Inconsistency can lead to weight fluctuations and hinder the attainment of a stable, healthy weight. This can tempt restrictive dieting, which is never a long-term solution.

Muscle strength & bone density

• Regular strength training and weight-bearing exercises increase muscle mass and strengthen bones. This can be achieved with body weight or specific resistance equipment.
• Consistency is key to preventing muscle atrophy and bone density loss, especially as we age.
• Regular exercise stimulates bone formation and can help in preventing osteoporosis.

Improved immune function

• Regular, moderate exercise boosts the immune system and helps the body fight off infections. A consistent, and well-balanced exercise regime should help reduce instances of illness.
• Consistent activity enhances the body’s ability to detect and respond to illness.
• Exercise-induced improvements in immune function require sustained activity over time. Consider that exercise is a ‘hormetic stressor’ in that it actually exposes the body to stress. The body gets stronger from the repeated exposure. But too much exercise, too soon, can have the opposite effect.

Increased energy & endurance

• Consistent exercise improves muscle strength and boosts endurance. This is useful for general activities in daily life, not just in the gym.
• With regular training, the body becomes more efficient at delivering oxygen and nutrients to tissues, increasing energy levels.
• Inconsistent exercise patterns can lead to fluctuating energy levels.
• In the early stages exercise can be tiring, but over time it acts as a dynamo, increasing your baseline energy levels.

Better blood sugar & insulin levels

• Regular exercise helps regulate blood sugar levels and is beneficial for insulin sensitivity.
• Consistency in exercise alongside healthy food choices, can be a key factor in preventing or managing type 2 diabetes.
• The body’s improved response to insulin from sustained exercise can diminish if exercise is not consistent.

Improved balance & coordination

• Regular exercise, especially activities like yoga or Tai Chi, improves balance and coordination. This can also be trained specifically in a gym setting.
• Consistency helps in maintaining and improving proprioception. This is a significant step toward reducing the risk of falls, especially in older adults. Falls can trigger events for a general decline in health, so the importance is not to be underestimated.

Longevity & quality of life

• Consistent exercise has been linked to increased lifespan and better quality of life, especially in later years. The term ‘healthspan’ has been used to describe the period through which one is able to maintain functional health.
• Regular physical activity maintains physical function. Contributing to sustained independence in older adults.

 Mindset & the mental health benefits of consistent exercise

Enhanced brain health & memory

• Exercise stimulates the production of chemicals in the brain that affect the health of brain cells and the growth of new blood vessels in the brain.
• Regular physical activity improves cognitive function and slows down the ageing of the brain.
• Consistent exercise is particularly important for long-term brain health and memory preservation.

Build self-esteem

• The very act of carrying out your fitness program gives you a powerful sense of accomplishment.
• It’s tempting to think that self-confidence comes at the ‘end of the rainbow’ so to speak when you have achieved your goals. But the truth is lasting self-esteem comes from keeping the appointments we set for ourselves. The first day you successfully follow the program is the day you start building self-esteem.

Improves mental health

• Exercise is a potent tool for enhancing mental health. Exercise acts as a natural antidote to stress anxiety and depression. By releasing endorphins, it boosts mood and creates a sense of well-being.
• Exercise has been shown to lower the occurrence of anxiety and depression.
• Establishing a consistent exercise practice can offer a powerful antidote to stress. Helping you manage life’s challenges without letting them overwhelm you.

Better sleep

• Regular exercise can help regulate your body’s natural circadian rhythms. Everyone has a natural sleep-wake cycle. Over time this improves sleep quality and makes it easier to get to sleep.
• Healthy exertion through regular exercise can lead to healthy physical tiredness. This helps induce sleep and has been linked to longer sleep duration. Think of it as ‘earned tiredness’
• Importantly, over-exercise can go the other way and cause insomnia. A well-calibrated training program is crucial.

Develops grit & resilience

• Exercise helps develop a growth mindset. This is because it reinforces the belief that hard work and dedication get results. This is a foundational element of developing grit
• If you stay consistent with exercise for long enough, you will face some challenges and setbacks. Overcoming them builds resilience and confidence that you won’t easily be derailed.

Provides a vehicle for personal development

• Exercise has very few barriers to entry, and importantly, no gatekeepers blocking your entry.
• You can use the skills and confidence earned on a fitness program and apply them to other areas of your life. So in a roundabout way, getting consistent with exercise is a springboard for everything else you want to go on and achieve.

 Common obstacles in staying consistent with exercise

All-Or-Nothing mindset

The single biggest and most common obstacle to consistent exercise practice is thinking that establishing an exercise habit is an all-or-nothing proposition. It leads to periods of overzealous fitness kicks that can’t be maintained because they are overly ambitious or restrictive, often both. Then exercise inevitably goes to nill, you pretty much lose everything that was gained in the first place, such is entropy.

The ‘domino’ effect

A big mistake that’s easy to make with exercise is to allow one setback to set off a chain reaction. One isolated negative event should not lead to another. Those who seek perfection are most likely to suffer this knee-jerk reaction.

Logistical constraints

Many people feel that frequent travel and tight schedules are the number one reason they can’t stay consistent with exercise. This is often due to overestimating how long an effective workout needs to be, or how frequently one needs to work out to see results. Even 10-minute mini-workouts can be extremely effective.

Being too outcome-driven

Focusing too intently on an outcome can make exercise unnecessarily transactional. Unfortunately, this means that there isn’t much joy to be experienced in the process. This tends to negatively impact one’s tolerance for setbacks. For example, starting with the motivation of “I need to lose 10 lbs” and measuring weight intently each day is a very poor way to form a healthy habit. But if you can find a way to enjoy working out, because it naturally makes you feel good. You will be able to orient yourself around the process, rather than the outcome. This sets you up for serious long-term success.

Why can’t I stay consistent with exercise?

In your quest for a consistent exercise routine, the greatest challenge is going to be mastering your own psychology. There are no right answers, or out-of-the-box solutions to staying consistent, and no one is going to be able to do it for you.

This can be both daunting and exciting. I’m going to outline a number of strategies to get consistent. I’ve seen all of them work, though some of them are contradictory. For example, should you:

• Harness positive or negative motivation?
• Rely on a fixed schedule or go with the flow?
• Do what you love or take the shortest route to what you want to achieve?
• Model others’ achievements, or avoid the comparison game entirely?

You’ll have to answer those questions for yourself. I say that because Notice how you feel when you read and think about the various strategies. Lean into what feels like the right fit for you, and discard the rest.

Overcoming frequent barriers to consistency

Time management strategies for busy schedules

Most people drastically overestimate the amount of time they need to spend working out. When people think of hour-long workouts, that’s mostly because that’s how personal trainers package their services. When people consider longer sessions than that, that is usually the realm of endurance sports like marathon training.

There is actually a technical point of diminishing returns that kicks in at about 50 minutes into training. This is due to a combination of muscle exhaustion, energy depletion, and hormonal stress response. This means there is no utility in going past this point unless you are training for an endurance event.

This misunderstanding can add unnecessary friction to regular exercise. I can tell you as a personal trainer that my workouts rarely go beyond the 40-minute mark. But even that is a considerable block of time. You might be relieved to hear that you can get an effective workout in 10 minutes or less. Time really isn’t the barrier you thought it was.

Dealing with boredom & low motivation

Experienced fitness coaches know that different people have differing tolerance for repetition. Some theories go as far as saying this is due to neuro-transmitter dominance in the brain, but for our purposes let’s call it a preference. You’ll have to gauge for yourself here. It’s a balancing act that depends on what your goals are. For example, if you simply want to get fit, you could do well with a different workout in every session, this is the realm of exercise classes.

However, if you want to get stronger or build muscle, repetition is a part of the process. You need to control the variables in a workout so that you can be sure that you are exposing your body to progressively harder challenges. But, that can get monotonous, so it’s best to switch up the routine every 4-6 weeks. Balancing preferences with efficacy is a lesser-discussed challenge in fitness. But it’s a real one and boredom has derailed many workout programs.

Gym anxiety

Many people experience feelings of anxiety when they think of going to a gym. It’s common and it makes sense. It can be intimidating to walk into an environment where everyone seems to know what they’re doing and be in great shape. Firstly, it’s important to say that the express goal we are trying to achieve here is getting consistent with exercise. This means that trying to overcome gym anxiety is not necessarily the battle you want to fight today, it could be like having a war on two fronts.

For this reason, perhaps it’s best to set up a home workout routine, gather your initial momentum and then you can always move to a gym later.

Having said that here are some fast, effective tips for overcoming gym anxiety:

Everyone starts somewhere

 I worked on the gym floor for over a decade. I can tell you that no matter how you meet someone, they too had their first day in the gym, and probably shared a lot of the same feelings you have. You can’t be expected to have mastery as a beginner, so anyone who would try to make you feel bad about that isn’t worth your mind or your time. But don’t worry, I assure you most people in gyms are focusing on themselves and would actually be delighted to help you if you asked. If you get unsolicited advice, just say “Thanks but I’m following my trainer’s program” Even if you don’t have one, it’ll usually work.

Have a plan

One of the fears around the gym is feeling lost as if you don’t know what you’re doing. Having a plan for your workout helps you overcome this and gives you something to focus on throughout your training session

Go off-peak

Whether you experience gym anxiety or not, it’s often a lot more comfortable to visit a gym during off-peak times, when it’s quieter. You’ll have more time and space to get your feel of things and gym staff will be more accessible should you need any assistance.

Create an ‘If this, then that’ plan

Things don’t always work out as expected. In fact, Murphy’s first law states that if several things could go wrong, the worst one will, and that when something goes wrong, it will be at the worst possible time. But that shouldn’t block your exercise efforts.

Create contingency plans for things not going as planned. Some of these things will never happen, but you can pretty much guarantee that one will, so it’s best to have a plan that will allow you to keep moving. Yes, it can feel a little like overkill, but it’s a worthwhile thought exercise, and for many a loss of momentum, leads to a trend toward inactivity.

As a personal anecdote, I recall many people being found wanting during the lockdown years. Gyms were forced to close, online shops sold out of fitness equipment, and people were searching for whatever they could find in charity shops. Many people took to ordering sets of weights online, but that often took weeks. An extreme example of course, and let’s hope we never see the likes of those days again, but many have still not recovered from this setback.

Personally, I built a wooden platform in the garden, used a plastic greenhouse to stop my weights from getting rusty, and hung a boxing bag on some scaffolding. Not because I’m so resourceful, but because I learned about levels of redundancy when starting my podcast. One camera, one mic, and one memory card are never enough.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

If…The gym is closed then… Is there a second that sells day passes?

or… Can I do a barbell or resistance band workout at home?

If… you’ve missed all opportunities to workout

Then… Can you do a light stretch sequence before bed?

If… You cannot plan your meals…Then…Default to first principles and eat purely for nutrient value, not numbers

If….You twist an ankle Then…You wait for the acute phase to pass and re-tool your workout for seated and lying exercises

Following this strategy is like installing a new solution-oriented operating system in your mind. And it need not be limited to the realm of fitness, try it with any habit or goal you’re trying to orient yourself toward and you might notice how much less often you’re getting derailed.

Limiting Beliefs that Block Exercise Consistency 

Sometimes a lack of consistency is down to limiting beliefs in our own mind. These are deeply held convictions about ourselves, others, or the world that limit our potential.

Limiting belief can form based on past trauma or experiences. They could also be formed via what someone in person or online has taught you or indeed simply established through osmosis by accepting social norms or common misconceptions

Let’s look at some limiting beliefs and how they could be replaced with a more empowering one:

“I am too tired to exercise” > “Exercise is one of the ways I can increase my energy”

“I am too old to get results from exercise” > “Other people, my age and older have gotten excellent results in fitness, I will too“

“I am too busy to exercise” > “I can find 10 minutes to exercise”

“I don’t enjoy exercise” > “I don’t find exercise fun, but I do enjoy all the health benefits I see from it” 

“I’m too unfit to exercise” > “Every day I exercise gets me 1% fitter, in 3 months time I’ll be a whole different person” 

If you find yourself with a limiting belief that is holding you back in fitness it’s important that you take steps to challenge it. Simply put, unless you overcome the belief it will continue to hold you back.

There are various ways to do this. You could directly challenge your belief through a process of logically challenging its veracity. Once you’ve identified holes in the thought processes underpinning the belief you can start to tear them down and replace them, with accurate beliefs that will serve you far better.

Another form of ‘excuse mitigation’ would be to find someone who is like you and has what you want. Or perhaps even more powerful, someone who you deem started in a worse place than you’re in now. If they have what you want, then there is a proven path to it, and there shouldn’t be any reason you can’t have it too. Of course, you’ll have to be discerning here, that no health risks took place in the transformation, but the principle stands.

How to get motivated to exercise

Building one from our discussion of limiting beliefs in fitness, another common one relates to motivation. In my experience as a personal trainer, many people believe they aren’t motivated. But technically, that’s a misunderstanding and it can cause problems. 

Being motivated isn’t an identity, it’s a state of affairs. And contrary to what you might believe, you are motivated, just perhaps not to exercise. I know that it sounds strange, perhaps even confrontational, but motivation is acting on you right now, just like gravity is. 

You can’t see it, but it’s dictating your behaviour. Whether you exercise consistently or not isn’t going to be determined by how much you enjoy it, but by the calculator you are running in your mind that amounts to 

The discomfort you experience by staying the same vs the discomfort you predict making a change will take. 

Right now, if you aren’t consistently exercising but you know you should, and even say you ‘want’ to or you’ve ‘tried to’ the truth is, that for whatever reason it’s more comfortable for you to stay the same than it is to change. If you can accept that, that’s the first step to making a change. 

This is why so many people join exercise programs, work with personal trainers or follow influencers expecting to get motivation from them, but that doesn’t work. Because no one can make you want something you don’t desire for yourself. With trainers and workout programs can provide inspiration and help you get the best out of yourself, ultimately YOU have to want it. 

So now that we’ve established that you are already motivated. Let’s have a look at how to make motivation work for you, rather than against you. 

Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation in fitness

There are two types of motivation: 

Intrinsic Motivation

This comes from within. It’s about doing an activity because you genuinely enjoy it or inherently find it rewarding. I.e you do it for the act or process itself, not for an external reward. In the context of exercise, this would mean working out because you love the feeling it gives you, the sense of achievement you feel, or the health benefits it provides. 

Intrinsic motivation is more sustainable in the long term because it’s tied to personal satisfaction and enjoyment. People who are intrinsically motivated are more likely to stick with their exercise routines consistently, even in the absence of external rewards or recognition.

Extrinsic motivation

This is driven by external factors or rewards. In terms of exercise, extrinsic motivators might include wanting to look good for a holiday, to win a competition, or to receive praise or recognition from others. 

While extrinsic motivation can be an effective strategy in the short term, it’s a moving target because it is outcome-dependent. Once the external reward is gone, or if the desired outcome takes too long to achieve, motivation can wane. Think of it like the classic cartoon where the rabbit runs chasing the carrot on a stick hanging right in front of them. No carrot, no running. 

How to Find Your ‘Why’ to Exercise

It may be possible to hack this system. Take some time, perhaps even a piece of paper and note down everything staying the same would mean for your life. What would you never be able to do? What would gradually be taken away from you? How would you feel about yourself and what would this mean for your self-esteem? 

Then write down everything that making a positive change would make for your life. What activities would you be able to do? What could it mean to your interpersonal relationships? What are the implications for the future of your health?

Once you have the answers to these questions, they are effectively your ‘why’. The reasons that you want to exercise consistently. Take this exercise seriously, be sure to both think and ‘feel’ your way through the exercise. The more you feel the reasons to exercise, the more you’ll be able to transcend any logic and lock in an emotional drive toward exercise. This is a psychological principle known as ‘anchoring’.

The next time you’re trying to talk yourself out of exercise, just access these thoughts and feelings and you will have the will you need to start your workout. This is the difference between being motivated and being driven. Motivation comes and goes, drive is permanent.

You must embrace failure

In the realm of health & fitness, failure doesn’t mean what it might in the other areas of your life. To understate it, failure is feedback, but you might actually go as far as saying that in exercise, failure is a good thing. 

This is because your body is only going to change when it’s put up against enough challenge that the natural intelligence of your body understands that if you’re going to do that again i.e your workout, you’ll need to be bigger, stronger or fitter to handle it. 

That’s literally how progress is made in fitness. This means that if you want results you’ll have to be operating at the threshold of your capabilities. Sometimes you’ll complete a workout and sometimes you won’t. Both outcomes are good. They are both good because you are sending the signals for change. It’s like creating a support ticket, when your body gets the ticket it’ll know it has to respond to the response with a physical adaptation. 

Perhaps in the early stages of your fitness journey, it’ll be beneficial to stack the odds in your favour and give yourself fun, easy workouts whilst you build the habit. However one of the ironies or counter-intuitive aspects of fitness is that the more advanced you get, the more you will fail. 

Put it this way, if you never run into a workout that you can’t fully complete as intended, then you probably aren’t working hard enough. 

The academic trap

Those who have excelled in academics through their youth have a particularly hard time with the concept of failure in exercise. They also have a hard time accepting the 80/20 Pareto principle or the concept of a net positive, rather than a perfect day. This is because exams and qualifications are pass/fail, you either pass and move forward or you fail, and have to deal with everything that comes along with that psychologically. 

I see this all the time with my online personal training clients who work in the professions. Specifically medicine, law, architecture and, engineering. This is because they work in fields where even a small mistake can have dire consequences. You have to acknowledge that fitness doesn’t work this way or you will be stuck in an all-or-nothing mindset, operating on a rule set and belief system that is inaccurate. 

Expectedly, entrepreneurs and self-employed types have an easier time with this because they have to work on a net aggregate basis, some things work, others don’t and you just hope that when it’s all added up it’s a net positive. This is much more similar to the way progress is made with exercise.

The type ‘A’ challenge

One of the medium to long-term challenges with health & fitness is learning to nurture a sense of intuition and learning to read the signs of your body. When you know your body well, occasionally you will be able to discern when you are actually better off with a rest day than training as your schedule dictates. 

I learned just how hard some people find taking a day off when training movie producers. They would often want to train twice per day, every day on movie sets. Despite being very tired. It’s a discipline, and it takes knowing yourself, but sometimes relentless drive can drive you right into burnout. As you get more advanced with exercise, the less you have to follow a set schedule. The qualifying aspect to this though, is that you need to be certain that you have the discipline to exercise even when you don’t want to. Only then can you be sure that taking a rest is a sensible decision, not just an excuse. 

Schools of thought on habit forming.

Strategy 1: Don’t break the chain (the Seinfeld method)

Strangely enough, one powerful strategy actually comes from the world of stand-up comedy. It’s an anecdote from the career of elite stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld. If you’re not already a fan, Jerry Seinfeld is one of the top stand-up comedians in the world. He’s’ the star of his own eponymous and very successful sitcom, Seinfeld.

The anecdote was actually first told by a then-fledgling comedian by the name of Brad Isaac. Isaac once approached Jerry Seinfeld and asked him if he had any tips that would help the career of a young comedian. Seinfeld said, “The way to be a better comedian is to create better jokes, and the way to create better jokes is to write every day”.

Seinfeld then recommended that Isaac purchase a large wall calendar, and get a big red marker. For every day Isaac successfully carried out his writing practice he marked the day with a big red “X”. Seinfeld noted: “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”

An important consideration here is that Seinfeld didn’t ask Isaac to gauge the quality of his jokes. Rather he simply encouraged him to honour the consistent practice. It doesn’t matter if you are writing jokes or establishing a consistent workout routine. What delivers the results, is the consistent practice, never any one performance, or even the results they yield. It is a game of aggregates.

To explore this concept further through the lens of exercise, we need to make a couple of considerations. There are different classifications of exercise, so you may not necessarily be served by doing every type of exercise every day. It would depend on your goals, so you can edit your calendar to the frequency you need to perform.

For example, you might set up a weightlifting calendar to be ticked off on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You would just block out the other days. Whereas a daily walk or mindfulness practice for your mental health may very well be something you would plan for every day. A great personal trainer or fitness coach will be able to help you design the right workout program for you.

Strategy 2: James Clear’s habit-stacking

Of course, we can’t endlessly stack behaviour on behaviour all day long, that would get a little robotic and inflexible. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t myriad other potential triggers in your daily life that you could leverage.

Author James Clear has an excellent strategy for identifying opportunities for habit change. Clear suggests that you sit down with a pen and paper and create two columns. The first column would be an exhaustive list of all of the habits that you do each day without fail. This list would include things like getting out of bed, showering, and travelling to work. The second column would consist of a list of all the things that happen TO you each day without fail. This would include things like the sun rising, receiving an email, and having the song that you’re listening to end.

Once you have your lists, you can look for the highest leverage points. Your task will be to establish your new habits by linking the new behaviour with the activities that will take place regardless.

The habit stacking formula is:

After/Before [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

When ‘habit stacking’, be sure to be as specific as you can. For example, saying that you’ll take a mobility break during your workday, probably isn’t going to be specific enough. There would be too much room for error. You might find yourself at the end of your workday with an hour to go and more than an hour’s worth of work to do. Thus you would have lost your chance for a mobility practice.

A better approach would be to say something like “The moment I clear my emails in the morning, I will play and follow a 10-minute mobility video on YouTube “.

The methods I’ve outlined here certainly aren’t limited to a workout routine. They can be used to incorporate a new habit in any area of your life. Combine these strategies and you’ll be able to establish new habits and stay consistent with them.

You can then leverage them to build further habits. This could lead to an entirely new healthy lifestyle. Setting yourself up for the long-term and set you up for success across all areas of life.

Consistent habit implementation has benefits that extend beyond the psychological. It actually strengthens the connection between the neurons that fire with the behaviour. It’s this level of repetition that leads to mastery of a skill. Or to put it another way, practice makes perfect.

This way you can see how you’ve now leveraged an action, a behaviour, a habit that was going to take place regardless and used it to bolster your new habit. So every time you do something that you’ve been doing anyway, you now also do the new habit that stands to enhance your health. This is a specific form of implementation intention and we can use it in this way to achieve what is known as ‘habit stacking’.

Strategy 3: Create a life that naturally encourages health

In today’s work-centric world, the common narrative around exercise is one of struggle. We face a relentless battle against the clock and our own exhaustion. All too often we complete work weeks that run from 40-80 hours per week. We might call this experience ‘time famine’

So it’s not surprising that exercise becomes yet another task on our to-do list. A task overshadowed by feelings of business and burn-out, it isn’t surprising that so many people feel overwhelmed. What should have been an exciting pursuit of physical fitness, that naturally rejuvenates us, becomes a source of stress. And if we’re lucky, exercise is squeezed into the little amount of free time we still have.

What if we could step back and take a 40,000 ft view of the situation? Instead of trying to carve out time for exercise with a chaotic schedule, we could contemplate reshaping the days of our lives into ones that naturally facilitated exercise.

This perspective isn’t about overnight transformations or radical life overhauls. It’s about gradually building a lifestyle where free time isn’t a rare commodity. With more free time and different surroundings, our lifestyle could naturally motivate us to move more.

Imagine a life where work doesn’t consistently encroach upon our personal time, where our days aren’t a sprint from one task to another but a more balanced marathon. With deliberate intervals for rest and rejuvenation. Much like how a lion lives, a simple hunt vs rest dichotomy. This way exercise wouldn’t be a squeezed-in session of hurried activity but a more enjoyable and anticipated part of our routine.

This approach requires a paradigm shift. A new way of thinking where we prioritise our well-being on the same level as our professional obligations. It’s about creating a culture, both in workplaces and in our personal lives. One that values and facilitates a sense of balance, allowing us to reclaim our time and energy. In fact, I built a workout program designed to do just that, it’s called Healthy Ambition.

While this vision might seem distant when viewed from the trenches of our current busy lives, small, incremental changes can set us on this path. It could start with setting firmer boundaries. Advocating for more flexible work arrangements, or even re-evaluating our commitments to align more closely with our wellbeing. As we gradually shift towards this more balanced lifestyle, we might find that exercise no longer feels like a struggle against time. Perhaps that’s a conversation for another day, but it never hurts to plant a seed of change. For now, let’s get back to the more practical aspects of getting consistent with your exercise program.

How to get consistent with exercise, a personal trainer’s guide.

The following tips aren’t textbook theories. They are practical tips that I see working day in and day out to deliver sustainable results for online personal training clients.

21 Proven tips to help you get consistent with exercise

1. Workout in the morning

If you complete your workout in the morning, it’s in the bag before anything else can get in the way. No matter what subsequently goes awry that day, you’ve had a big win very early on.

2. Create a consistent workout schedule

Our bodies have natural circadian rhythms. Exercising at the same time each day can align your workouts with your natural peak energy times. Not only that but exercising at the same time each day is excellent for habit formation and reduces decision fatigue.

3. Create a ‘third space’

You have a workplace, and you have a home. Consider making the gym your ‘third space’, actually, there is a popular gym chain of this name, and it’s not just a great brand, it’s a great concept. The gym can be more than a place you go to work out, it can be your personal spot that you use to relax and unwind that’s just for you.

4. Prepare your workout gear

Pack a gym bag and lay out your workout clothes the night before you intend to workout. This will lower the friction between getting to the gym the next day.

5. Prime your environment

If you implement your workout plan at home consider priming your environment to make it easier to start. This could be as simple as putting an exercise bike in front of the TV or having a space where you leave your yoga mat rolled out.

6. Audit your schedule

If you feel like you lack time to exercise, run an audit on how you spend a typical week. Perhaps you can pull time from something that isn’t as productive as exercise.

7. Don’t seek perfection

Perfect days are impossible to maintain, even for professional athletes. If you seek perfection you are setting yourself up to fail. Aim for ‘Net-positive’ days. In busy, chaotic times, a day that was more good than it was bad is a fine goal.

8. Make exercise non-negotiable

Some things in life are non-negotiables. Brushing your teeth, taking a shower, and probably some hobby or pass-time that you can’t do without. Flick a mental switch and consider exercise, non-negotiable and you will look for ways to make it happen.

9. Build one habit at a time

Research suggests that building one habit and then stacking others incrementally can be very effective. So you might start by simply drinking more water. Next, you might want to establish a workout habit and so on.

10. Focus on attendance, not performance

When seeking consistency with exercise, focus on your attendance rather than your performance. The very act of showing up is a win.

11. Total body workouts

For those with a busy schedule prone to interrupting the best of intentions, total body workouts can be a prudent strategy. This allows for a full workout to take place in each session. So even if workout days need to move around a little bit.

12. Remember discomfort is ‘front-loaded’

Getting conditioned to exercise can be tough. Remember that it’s most uncomfortable in the early stages. That’s when you’ll have to make the biggest sacrifices and experience the most physical discomfort. Once exercise is a habit, it will actually be harder to stop it. This is why a start /stop relationship with exercise is so turbulent. You end up living through the same early-stage discomfort over and over, and you start to think that’s just what it’s like to exercise, it’s not.

13. Set a missed session threshold

Set up the maximum number of missed events in a row you can tolerate. For example, “I will never miss more than two workouts in a row” or “I will never miss more than 5 workouts in a month”. This acts as a self-reinforcing pact.

14. Optimise gym logistics

Find a gym that you feel comfortable in. Make sure the staff are welcoming and the energy is right. If you can find a gym that will be quiet at the time you like to train. Make sure it’s safe and easy to get too year-round. Not many people consider this, but walking to a gym through parks and canal paths might be lovely in the Summer, however, if it stops you from going come winter it might be better to find a different spot.

15. Try exercise-based travel

Planning vacations or weekend getaways around physical activities like hiking, biking tours, or yoga retreats can be a unique way to integrate fitness into a lifestyle. Choose holidays and select hikes and activities like you would restaurants.

16. Long-term consistency beats short-term intensity

Create a workout program you could implement all year. Don’t try to go from inactivity to exercising every day. It’s too big of a jump. Start moderately and aim for longevity. If you find it easy, you can always step it up later.

17. Make it Enjoyable

Choose forms of exercise that you enjoy whilst trying to get consistent. However, you must caveat this by making sure it’s conducive to your specific goal. For example, you could be very consistent with walking, but if you want to gain muscle you will need to incorporate resistance training. Therefore, you must find a way to also get consistent with resistance training. This compartmentalization of disciplines is likely to require multiple strategies.

18. Think of ‘sessions’ not Schedule

As much as it can be beneficial to have a schedule, be careful not to get locked into it. If you miss a scheduled workout, it’s not written off for the day and could still find another time to work out.

19. Make your workouts mini spa-days

Huge chain gyms can be uncomfortable. Consider joining a gym that has spa facilities to make the whole experience a relaxing, rejuvenating event.

20. Write down your goals

Before you set out on your fitness journey, take time to write out your goals on paper. The very act of committing your goals to paper can serve as a bond of accountability and offer a tangible way for your goals to become a reality.

21. Have a ‘no zero days’ policy

Not all days have to be perfect. Stuff happens, and things get in the way. But that doesn’t mean that the day will be a total loss. There is always a small action you can take to win the day. This could be as simple as listening to a short meditation practice:

And… one less practical tip:

Get a dog

I’m going to reveal some personal bias here. I think that if you want a reason to get active, one of the best possible things you could do would be to get a dog. Yes, it’s an instant love-fest and to me, your quality of life would increase immeasurably as soon as you get your doggo home. The more strategic reason though, is that research suggests we tend to look after those we care for better than we do ourselves. Researchers found that people are more likely to complete a course of prescription medication for their pets than themselves. Think about that.

Having a dog would imply at least one daily walk, and I guarantee you’ll do it. Interesting how often we fail to extend that same level of prioritisation to our own well-being. Having a dog practically guarantees consistent exercise practice. Plus you would get all that love and companionship into the bargain.

How do I keep my workouts consistent?

A well-calibrated exercise program can increase your chances of staying consistent. Likewise, a poorly calibrated program can ask too much of you too soon and burn you out. In fitness, we call this over-training. The clue is in the title, but it belies an important truth about exercise: more is not necessarily better. Optimal is better. Too little is sub-optimal. Too much is sub-optimal.

Set realistic goals

This is why it’s important to have a realistic goal for your training frequency and your end goal. I would suggest three workouts per week in the early stages of your fitness journey. It’s typically a big mistake to try to train with intensity daily, more than that and you could diminish your chances of overall success.

For your end goals, the smart goal-setting system can be a very effective way to determine whether your goals are achievable. Once you know they are, you’ll be able to orient your whole program around them.

Schedule Rest & Recovery Periods

Your body will need a rest day every so often, especially in the early stages of your fitness journey. This allows for full rest and recovery. I have found two excellent rules of thumb you can apply to your workout routine.

A. Don’t do intensive exercise more than two days in a row

B. Take an active rest week or a week off every 4-6 weeks

Efficient workouts

The effectiveness of working out isn’t determined by the length of a workout, so don’t let that be a barrier. If you struggle with consistent exercise, don’t make things harder than they need to be with long training sessions. Focus on the efficacy of a workout rather than its length, technically a workout is effective if it forces an adaptation. This adaptation could be you getting stronger, fitter or, growing muscle mass.

Predicting fatigue

Working out consistently is a healthy habit, but it’s not without its consequences. You can’t workout hard every day without a break without accumulating fatigue. However, not all types of exercise induce an equal amount of fatigue. You need to understand which activities are going to tire you out and which won’t, once you know that you can easily determine what to lean into and what to ration carefully.

It’s a bit like healthy eating. If you want to lose weight, you know there are some foods that should be eaten in moderation, for example, refined sugars. Whereas if we’re talking leafy greens you would run out of hunger before you could ever eat enough to actually gain body fat. 

Consistency vs intensity 

There is a balance to be made between frequency and consistency. Too much intensity and you risk an interruption in consistency through burnout. Too little intensity and you may not get the results you look for, which could lead to a loss of momentum. This is a delicate balance and will take some time to calibrate perfectly, unless of course, you prefer to outsource that task to an experienced fitness trainer.

Measuring progress & adjustments

One of the most crucial elements of staying consistent with exercise, lies in actually getting the results you’re looking for. If you’re just not getting any results, you might experience quite short-lived enthusiasm for your exercise program. 

You need to be certain that you’re measuring the right things. The banana skin for most people in this area is investing too much in what you weigh. Think back to the task I mentioned earlier that helps you find your ‘why’. Under close inspection I doubt very much of what you want to achieve is actually going to be influenced by what you weigh on a scale, it’s arbitrary. Not to mention that it fluctuates daily anyway. 

Focus on your performances in your resistance workouts, are you getting stronger over time? Focus on body composition, are your clothes fitting better? Do you feel better when you look in the mirror? Is your internal mental narrative getting more positive? That’s what counts. 

Celebrating milestones & setting new targets.

To stay consistent over time, it’s important to always have something motivating to work toward just across the horizon. As soon as you achieve a goal, celebrate it, reward yourself and enjoy the moment. But then swiftly move onto a new emotive goal that you can set your sights on. If you need to, retool your workout regime for this new goal, and set about achieving it.

Never stop learning

When you first start exercising it can feel like a means to an end. We do it to achieve our goals, we don’t necessarily enjoy it, but we do it because we want the reward.

There is nothing wrong with that. But as time goes on, if you can stay curious your fitness routine could prove fertile ground for lifelong learning. Did you realise that even walking has more than a dozen different classifications from trail running to bushwhacking?

Or perhaps in the gym, you notice you don’t progress in a particular exercise. Let’s say the squat. Well, that might take better core strength, ankle mobility, knee stability, or perhaps different footwear, or no footwear at all. Every variable is a rabbit hole in itself.

Perhaps you determine you are squatting too heavily, too often. You could start looking into recovery. From active rest weeks, stretching the impact of sleep, and nutrition, to the idea of managing your autonomic nervous system.

As you get more advanced you could look into concepts like:

• Optimal training splits
• Optimal training volume
• Dynamic vs static stretching
• Nutrient timing
• Mobility techniques

There are many lines of inquiry you could pursue. You may never want to look into these, many people prefer to outsource the decision-making to a qualified personal trainer. But there are endless rabbit holes there if you want them. They can either create more guesswork that you’d like a fitness coach to deal with or provide a life-long learning opportunity. It depends on what interests you.

How long does it take to see results from consistent exercise?

Seeing results from consistent exercise can vary greatly from person to person. There are many variables including the type of workout, intensity, frequency, individual body types, and fitness goals.

With a well-structured exercise routine and proper nutrition, you might start noticing visible changes within three to four weeks. It isn’t uncommon to see considerable weight loss in the early weeks as you make wholesale lifestyle changes. Remember that when lifestyle contrast is most stark, that’s when you stand to see the most profound change.

It’s also important to remember that ‘results’ aren’t just physical. The benefits of exercise include increased energy levels, better mood, improved sleep, and a general sense of well-being. Depending on your start point, you might notice some of these things in as soon as 2-3 days.

But of course, this is a guide to achieve consistency, which is a long-term game. This outlasts any particular fitness goal. It’s also an intention beyond any particular outcome. Let’s say you were at your ideal weight whilst looking and performing exactly as you want to. You would still have to stay consistent to maintain what you’ve achieved.

How much exercise is too much? The dark side of consistency.

As with anything in life, when taken to an extreme, even consistency has its dark side. This is where it’s key to develop some kind of intuitive or ‘instinctive’ approach to training. Really, this just means that you’re able to listen to the signals your body is sending you.

Some consequences of rigid consistency:

Over-training

The most common consequence of not listening to the signs of the body and pushing through with brute force is over-training. This can be as innocuous as tiring yourself out. Or as serious as metabolic disturbance, insomnia, hormonal imbalance, and deleterious effects on mood.

Overuse

Too much repetition on the same joints and muscles can quickly amount to overuse and repetitive strain. For example, let’s say you set a goal to run 5km a day for 30 days. It’s a mental challenge to be sure, if you weren’t resting well, and taking steps to mitigate impact and workload, you could easily end up with lower back, ankle, or knee issues that could have been avoided simply by adding a rest day here and there.

Poor form

In sports, you’re often forced to deviate from technique to make something special happen. Look at MMA, look at Tennis. But crucially, in fitness, the test is the form. Because you’re competing against the workout protocol, not an opponent, letting your form slip could be considered cheating yourself. But not just that, as technique is compromised, you’re injury risk increases. This is completely unnecessary.

Not listening to your body

Developing an intuition for what your body is trying to tell you is crucial for long-term success in fitness. You might hear things like ‘no pain no gain’, you might even see it written on a gym wall somewhere. But it’s not to be taken literally, you train through the discomfort of reaching the threshold of what you’re capable of. You don’t train through actual physical pain, it’s only going to get you injured or make an existing injury worse.

Arbitrary goals

Be careful not to put the body through unnecessary duress to hit an arbitrary goal. You might find yourself unnecessarily overdoing it. An example of this would be holding a daily 10,000-step goal spending an hour in the gym and then going for a long swim. Then find yourself running around your living room at 10 pm to meet your step quota. I’ve seen this done and it betrays rigid thinking. The day has been active enough, so a goal that is a fail-safe mechanism to ensure a level of activity becomes less relevant in this context. The same would go for often well-intentioned 30-day challenges.

How healthy eating helps you stay consistent with exercise

It’s crucial to understand the relationship between nutrition and exercise. If you don’t, you are setting yourself up for failure. I say that for two important reasons. Firstly, because you could be doing perfect workouts, but if your nutrition isn’t on point you could actually make it mathematically impossible to achieve your goals. This is particularly pertinent when your goals involve changing weight or body composition.

The second reason relates to the old truism of ‘you are what you eat’. Perhaps this should read ‘What you eat, determines how you feel’ though you can see what that wouldn’t quite make it past the desk of Donald Draper. It’s simple really, if you don’t feel good or lack energy you’ll be less likely to workout. Likewise, if you’re eating poor quality food, the wrong quantity of it, you’ll perform worse and get sub-par results. This will have a knock-on effect on your motivation and you’ll be fighting for consistency again, even with the best of intentions.

There are a few simple steps you can take to ensure you’re setting yourself up for success with the food you eat:

Stay hydrated

You must work to get enough water each day. Which works out to about 6-8 glasses each day. This sounds like a mundane one, but studies have shown that if you are as little as 7% dehydrated it will impact your workout performance.

Don’t be restrictive

When trying to get consistent with exercise one of the worst things you could do would be to eat restrictively. You are almost guaranteeing that before long you reach a point of burnout. If you do this, your momentum, not to mention your results are short-lived. People tend to underestimate how many calories they can eat and still lose weight. So if it’s crossed your mind that you’re eating too few calories, you probably are.

Eat nutrient-rich food

Select your food for its nutrients, not how many calories it has or ‘if it fits your macros’ this can lead to 2D thinking. Focus on the nutritional benefits of the food you eat, and it’ll be more likely to fully fuel your workouts.

Eat enough protein

One of the quickest fixes for low energy is making sure you are getting enough protein. As a quick rule, you should aim for 1g per lb of body weight. I have seen a massive uptick in energy levels after as little as two days once this is corrected.

Steer clear of processed foods & sugar

This type of food is inherently inflammatory which means it can drain your energy levels. This isn’t to be underestimated, inflammatory foods are a contributing factor to chronic fatigue.

Food logistics

Schedule grocery shopping and cooking in the same way you schedule your workouts. This will help you more consistently eat what you intend to, helping you avoid energy turbulence from eating the wrong foods. Consistently eating well also ensures that the path is clear to get the results you’re working hard for with your workouts.

Could accountability help you stay consistent?

There is a delicate balance in fitness between self-efficacy and having a support system of accountability. When you are starting with the hope of becoming consistent with exercise, having some accountability can make a huge difference.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can add accountability to your fitness efforts:

A workout partner

Having someone you deem a ‘workout buddy’ can really boost your accountability. Basically, you won’t want to let them down, so you’ll be more likely to show up. Training with someone else also offers a social outlet and makes training fun. The Achilles heel of having a training partner is that if they don’t show up, you will have to decide what you are going to do. Thus, if all your habits, or even your transport rely on someone else, you aren’t fully in control of your schedule.

Hire a personal trainer

Personal trainers are of course known for their expertise in the realm of fitness. They will help you get the best out of yourself in a workout. Through the lens of consistency though, what hiring a fitness trainer does is allow you to hack your own brain. Basically, once you’ve invested in a course of training with a professional coach, you will be motivated to turn up so that you don’t feel that you’ve wasted your money. This is known as loss aversion and you can use it to your advantage.

Consider an Online Personal Trainer

Whilst you might be able to evade an online coach more easily than an in-person one. The advantage an online coach has is that they will have oversight on your exercise habits, nutritional intake, and lifestyle habits. You’ll also be able to contact them easily via instant messaging to help plan or get back on track if things aren’t playing out as intended. Having the help of an online fitness trainer, like myself, could be crucial in your quest for consistency.

Joining a community or class

For many, the act of attending a group session can be very motivating. There is a shared energy to working out with others and that can boost motivation. It can also act as a built-in community, for example in joining a local CrossFit box or yoga studio. There are times in all our lives when this is exactly what we need, not to mention its effects on consistency. Of course, the downside is that it’ll have to match your schedule, but if you live in even a medium-sized town this shouldn’t be a problem.

Summary:  Your consistent exercise habit checklist:

• Establish a S.M.A.R.T goal
• Get a fitness plan
• Make a meal plan 
• Communicate your goals or get accountability
• Prime your environment for success
• Establish your real motivations
• Create if, this, then that contingency plan
• Start exercising 
• Get active outside of your workouts
• Bounce back from your first setback
• Get consistent again
• Take an active rest week
• Re-tool with a new training phase
• Continue….

Final thoughts

Ultimately, as we’ve explored, you will get consistent with exercise when it’s less uncomfortable to make the necessary shifts in thought and behaviour than it is to stay the same. Once you’ve made those decisions you can take many steps to set your environment, lifestyle, and mindset up to help you. Then you need to stay the course until you reach a breakthrough. The breakthrough is what’s known as an inflexion point. It is the point at which it is easier to stay the course than it is to give up, for a number of reasons. 

I.e Once you start, you must keep going until it’s easier to do the thing than to not do the thing. 

On a long enough timeline, this will happen. With Certainty. Stick with it, you will get there.