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Do you have a healthy relationship with exercise? If not, it could be sabotaging your efforts-just as an unhealthy relationship with food can sabotage your dietary goals.

If you find that you aren’t getting the fitness ball rolling, or you can’t seem to stick with it, you may need to change some of your habits or change how you THINK about exercise.

An article titled “9 Habits of People with a Healthy Relationship to Exercise” recently appeared in the Huffington Post.1 Some of their points may seem obvious-like avoiding types of exercise that you hate, as this virtually guarantees you won’t do them-but others may be less obvious.

If you aren’t making steady progress toward your fitness goals, then maybe it’s time to perform a bit of an inventory of your relationship with exercise. How do you approach exercise? How do you evaluate your progress? Do you need to modify your goals and rewards?
Do you even HAVE goals and rewards?

By understanding a bit more about motivation and behavior, you may be able to make subtle changes that produce substantial and long-lasting effects.

Why Do So Many People Dread Exercising?

In one recent study,2 the exercise habits of average Americans were found to be even worse than previously thought. Men and women of normal weight were found to engage in fat burning activities for a meager two minutes per day.

Obese women were found to manage just one hour of vigorous exercise
per year, which breaks down to about 11 seconds per day.3 The number one reason people fail in their exercise goals is lack of a payoff. In other words, there is no immediate and noticeable reward to keep you motivated.

If you want your child to get into the habit of cleaning his room, you might as well forget it unless you build in a reward… and as larger children, we require the same! We’re simply wired that way.