Make exercise happen automatically: environmental design, rewards, and social support

For example, if I know I shouldn't park near the bakery, I won't drive down that road. Similarly, sometimes I change my daily routine to avoid the temptation to skip my workout. If you're like me, tired later in the day and don't feel like exercising, try moving it to the morning or lunchtime instead. Just like displaying a bowl full of fruit to make healthy food more visible, you can pack your workout bag and leave it by the door so your gear is always in sight. I know some people sleep in their workout clothes so they're ready to go as soon as they wake up in the morning. If you keep your bike in an easily accessible place, you're more likely to use it instead of your car. I hate dragging my bike out of the back shed, so to make sure I actually use it, I lock it in the front. It might sound ridiculous, but these small obstacles can have a big impact (remember the flattened toilet paper roll I mentioned earlier?).

For many of us, exercise loses its appeal when it comes to competing with things we want to do in our free time. So, exercise shouldn't be part of that competition. Just as you should eat vegetables first so they never have to compete with other foods, you can't say, "Tonight I'm either going to the gym or going to the movies," or "This weekend I might go cycling or go shopping." Exercise time should be reserved solely for exercise. If you're not going to the gym, then use that time to run errands or do other tasks or chores you don't particularly enjoy.

Find ways to make exercise worthwhile.

Don't punish yourself for missing a workout; instead, reward yourself for completing one. However, for the reward to be effective, it needs to be immediate. If future motivation worked, we'd all be fit and lean by now, because we all want the long-term benefits of exercise. Unfortunately, future benefits don't motivate us to go to the gym regularly. We need immediate rewards, and they need to be frequent.

To support their dissertation research, one of my students offered a very attractive reward to anyone who climbed 10,000 steps a day: money. For the first week, the money was indeed an exciting reward, but once the reward disappeared, the student participants reverted to their usual walking pattern, even though they wanted to stay healthy and continue tracking their pace for the research. The key point is: unless you have an inexhaustible supply of money, tangible rewards are probably not the right approach.

What if exercise itself is a reward? Just as an apple labeled "healthy" is less appealing than an apple labeled "neutral," treating exercise merely as a health investment isn't enough of a motivator. We need to enjoy exercise. Throughout my life, whenever people have said this to me, I've wanted to slap them in the face and tell them the problem is, I don't like exercising. But the best way to stick to an exercise plan is to find what you truly enjoy. Sometimes it happens when you least expect it-maybe a friend invites you to try rock climbing or take a spin class. After a couple of tries, you'll find yourself hooked.

Staying positive without constantly mentally repeating specific health or weight loss goals can really make exercising more enjoyable. When I was stressed and struggling with the Minnesota winter, a neighbor suggested I try power yoga. The fluid movements of yoga in a warm room, coupled with the instructor's comforting words, helped improve my mood and lessen the winter chill. For a while, I primarily exercised to de-stress, which is a great benefit of most workouts (and a very good reason not to avoid exercise because of stress). But then something else happened: I started to progress. I started with very little knowledge, and almost every class I learned a new skill-contorting my body into a new pose, holding it longer, or doing it without any pain. It was intoxicating.

You may not love yoga, but the key lesson here is that exercise itself needs to be rewarded, because weight loss comes slowly, if it does. However, changes in fitness levels or skills come quite quickly. In yoga, these changes are very noticeable, whether you look for them or not. You couldn't do Crow Pose before, but you can now. In other forms of exercise, you might not see changes unless you find a point to measure many things. Perhaps you can steadily increase the number of pull-ups you do, increase the weight you can lift, or lengthen the distance you run, cycle, or swim, or increase the speed. Or perhaps your resting heart rate is getting lower and lower. I strongly recommend measuring and tracking your fitness levels in as many ways as you can think of.

Another added benefit of making exercise a reward is that it reduces the likelihood of you rewarding yourself with unhealthy foods. In two different studies, participants were sent on walks, some for exercise, others to enjoy listening to music or admiring the scenery. While everyone expended the same amount of energy walking, those who viewed walking as exercise consumed more unhealthy foods afterward than those who viewed it as leisure. When you change your perception of exercise and make it enjoyable, you're less likely to need to reward yourself with unhealthy things.

The final way to make exercise worthwhile is to make it social-enjoy it with others. Just like eating habits, other people's health habits have proven to influence you. If your friends or family members exercise regularly, you're likely to get caught up in their routines, like hiking, playing tennis, or running a 5km race. Research also shows that internalized social pressure can help you stay on track. For example, if my husband runs regularly and I don't, I feel a certain amount of pressure when I get home. It's not because of anything he says. He's not stupid-he wouldn't dare say it. But my husband's good habit helps me internalize it.

Let exercise happen automatically

Of course, the bottom line for exercise is that we need to make it a habit.