3 steps to create a workout plan you can stick with

Trying to stick to someone else’s workout and diet plan and failing miserably? Welcome to the club! Try these 3 steps and create a workout plan you can actually stick with!

One of the most important things that help us stay motivated to exercise every single day is having a workout plan that we enjoy.

We've never been able to follow someone else’s diet or exercise plan. In fact we are not even able to follow a recipe – we have too many ideas and too many things we want to try to be able to follow someone else’s directions.

So we like to make our own workout plan.

This gives us the opportunity to enjoy myself and explore while doing something good for our physical and mental health.

Because let’s face it, if it’s someone else’s plan – would we love it? Will it challenge us? Will we not be wondering whether we can do something else today? Will it be everything we want it to be? Probably not a 100%.

But when we make our own workout plan, things just flow. We wake up excited and ready for our workout every day.

Well, in case you want to create a workout plan for yourself as well and achieve your fitness goals, here are three tips that help us.

3 Steps To Creating A Workout Plan You Can Stick With

We usually do our workout plan once a week for the next week and these are the steps.

Step 1. Decide how long and how often you want to work out

Some people like to work out for an hour every day, others three times a week, and then there are others who say once a week is enough.

We like to do 30 minutes every day with no real rest day. We can do 30 minutes in the morning and by doing this every day we can stick with the plan and simultaneously improve our immune system.

If we say we'll exercise three times a week, on day three we always find an excuse to skip our workout.

If we say we will work out 1 hour every day? Yeah, we know we're not gonna do it.

Be realistic about how much time you have, how much you can handle and how often you need to do something to make it a habit.

30 minutes is enough to make us feel good, but not exhausted and doing it every day helps us keep the habit.

Step 2. Explore and take it as a learning experience

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Over the years we tried lots and lots and LOTS of workouts. There were many workouts we loved and many that we didn’t like.

The ones we enjoyed, we would always want to repeat.

As for the ones that we didn’t like? No regrets there, we tried something new. This is a win on its own, because we didn’t just sit around doing nothing, wondering how many calories this workout would burn and whether it would be worth doing it. Like Nike told us – we just did it.

Any workout is better than no workout. Don’t let those endless opportunities paralyze you. If something looks good to you – just try and promise yourself you won’t beat yourself up if you don’t like it.

You need to explore to find out what you like. Pretty soon you’ll know what you like and what you rather not do.

We found we like dance workouts, pilates, barre and yoga, so we do more of these workouts. And we're always happy when we find a new one on BeFiT or Youtube.

Whenever we find an exercise or a full workout we want to try – we just put it on our plan for the next week.

It’s important to first find the workouts that you enjoy, so you can stick with exercising long-term. So if you have some workouts you enjoy, write them down and put them on your plan for the week. Then proceed to tip #3.

Step 3. Switch it up

Finally we’re coming to organizing the workouts you love into a workout plan.

Can we do 7 days of HIIT in a row? Can we do 100 squats every day? We probably can, but we will also want to jump off a bridge if we have to do it.

When you make a workout plan, it’s important to listen to your body and be honest with yourself.

Are you gonna be able and want to do a hard workout every single day? Does it make sense to train your abs every single day? Or your legs? We don’t think so.

Solution: Don’t just wait until you feel it’s time to train your abs again, just switch things up.

Add some yoga, pilates, barre, or whatever you like. Don’t do the same thing over and over again.

We like to alternate each day between strength, cardio and yoga.

With strength we tone every part of our body on a different day – core, lower body and upper body (each has a day).

Cardio keeps us happy, we burn fat and improve our cardiovascular health – we do it 2-3 times a week.

Finally with yoga – we get to stretch, relax and just enjoy our “rest day” – we do this 1-2 times a week.

By changing things up you won’t get bored and you’ll actually be excited about what’s coming the next day!

Finally

Once you have decided on when you’re gonna do what, put it in a table, print it out and keep it somewhere where you can see it. We do on our nightstand, because we do our workouts in the morning. This way we wake up and know what we're gonna do.

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Well, there you have it: how to make your own workout plan that you can stick with and that you actually enjoy!

PS: And if you know someone who might find these tips helpful, share it with them!