You need to approach it like any other habit. Take smoking. At first, smoking sucks so you actually have to work at it to make it a habit. Eventually it becomes rewarding to smoke. Exercise is no different, except for the fact that it's actually healthy for you, but I've never found that to be a convincing argument (just like nobody ever convinced me to stop smoking by telling me it was unhealthy). With that in mind, here are some tips:
1. The most important tip is simple: Exercise six days a week. What you do in the beginning is basically irrelevant. Your job is to form the habit which is much harder to do if you only go three days a week (who smokes only three days a week?)
2. Some may disagree, but I also highly recommend doing your exercise in a gym. It's too easy to put off if all you're doing is going for a run outside or some sit-ups inside. If you fail to go to the gym, you'll feel worse. This is mostly about making yourself feel bad for not going. Also, other people exercising around you will help motivate you (and the scenery is nice... unless it's an all-male gym ;)
3. It helps to be somewhat vain and narcissistic, both of which I admit to being. I don't like being flabby because it presents a poor image. Even if I have nobody else to impress, I still have to impress myself, which when it comes to physicality is not a trivial task.
4. If your discipline is based on seeing quick results, you will fail. Nothing happens quickly at the gym, except injury. It takes about six months to transform yourself, anybody who says differently is wrong. You need to find the granular results; weight lifting helps with this. If you gain weight, even a little weight, every week in your exercises, that should be enough.
5. It's hard being a "noob", especially at a gym. Don't let it get you down. You need to quickly learn one very important fact: at the gym, everybody is always in better shape than you, no matter what shape you're in.
Sooner or later, and probably without noticing, you'll have a fitness addiction. You'll begin feeling terrible if you don't exercise every day. You'll feel bad unless you're slightly sore. Oh, and you'll have a body worthy of admiration (or at least fear ;)
That being said, I've been awake almost two hours so I really should get to the gym... it's back and shoulders day! Good luck!
"at the gym, everybody is always in better shape than you, no matter what shape you're in"
Yes! It's hilarious. I learned this on the running trail near my house. Only a narcissist (which I doubt you really are) naturally compares himself or herself to weaker people. Most of us only see the people who are better than us. It feels exactly as it would if the others weren't there at all. Even when I consciously look at a fatter guy and tell myself I'm better off than him, my reaction is emotionally blank: "So?" But when I see a buffer, faster guy, the fact that I'm less fit than him seems extremely important.
I've found that martial arts (Tae Kwon Do in may case) are great if you're not a gym person. With Tae Kwon Do I didn't have to think about "a plan". It was all pretty much laid out for me. First I get yellow tag, then yellow belt and so on. Having these goals is a great way of keeping motivated.
1. The most important tip is simple: Exercise six days a week. What you do in the beginning is basically irrelevant. Your job is to form the habit which is much harder to do if you only go three days a week (who smokes only three days a week?)
2. Some may disagree, but I also highly recommend doing your exercise in a gym. It's too easy to put off if all you're doing is going for a run outside or some sit-ups inside. If you fail to go to the gym, you'll feel worse. This is mostly about making yourself feel bad for not going. Also, other people exercising around you will help motivate you (and the scenery is nice... unless it's an all-male gym ;)
3. It helps to be somewhat vain and narcissistic, both of which I admit to being. I don't like being flabby because it presents a poor image. Even if I have nobody else to impress, I still have to impress myself, which when it comes to physicality is not a trivial task.
4. If your discipline is based on seeing quick results, you will fail. Nothing happens quickly at the gym, except injury. It takes about six months to transform yourself, anybody who says differently is wrong. You need to find the granular results; weight lifting helps with this. If you gain weight, even a little weight, every week in your exercises, that should be enough.
5. It's hard being a "noob", especially at a gym. Don't let it get you down. You need to quickly learn one very important fact: at the gym, everybody is always in better shape than you, no matter what shape you're in.
Sooner or later, and probably without noticing, you'll have a fitness addiction. You'll begin feeling terrible if you don't exercise every day. You'll feel bad unless you're slightly sore. Oh, and you'll have a body worthy of admiration (or at least fear ;)
That being said, I've been awake almost two hours so I really should get to the gym... it's back and shoulders day! Good luck!