Superglue: Tricks that Make a Program Stick

Good stuff here. If you want the body or performance of your dreams, above all else you have to be consistent. If you can look back at the past year and made it successfully to 80% of your workouts, you followed a solid meal plan (like what's available to every US Sports Online Strength and Conditioning client), Slept at least 8 hours a night 80%, and reduced your stress levels by 80%, then you should have noticed reasonable progress. If not maybe the below tips can help you get over any humps you may be experiencing.
-Nate
Superglue: Tricks that Make a Program Stick
(Prevention, - You can do almost anything for a week (except hold your breath). It's the second week of an exercise program -- and maybe on into the sixth -- that you find yourself looking for some extra strategies that will bond you and your new routine like superglue. Here are some tricks to help:

Have your stuff handy. Nothing can derail your intentions faster than sneakers that are still soggy from the weekend hike or Walkman batteries that make Frank Sinatra sound like Lurch from the Addams family. Flatten those paper-tiger obstacles by keeping your gear ready to roll and, above all, handy. If you have to trip over your walking shoes on your way out the door, you're one step closer to leaving with them on.

Hitch exercise to an essential. Attaching exercise to something you absolutely have to do every day (until exercise itself becomes that thing) will boost your chances of doing it. Some exercisers leave the house without showering so they have to go to the gym on their way to work. Others leave an essential piece of equipment like eyeliner or concealer in their gym lockers so they either go there or go without.

Be engaging. Sign up your friends, your spouse and anyone else you trust to keep you pointed in the right direction. Most people need something or someone to obligate them to exercise for the first month or two of a new program, says Tedd Mitchell, M.D. For instance, if you've chosen to begin your workday at 8:30 instead of 8, have a friend phone or email you and ask if you've done your workout. Offer to do the same for them.

Find a role model. Oprah is not a role model. Sure, she's lost weight and she exercises. But can she get the kids from baton lessons to baseball practice, put the finishing touches on tomorrow's report, cook dinner and still walk an hour a day during the work week? Find someone like yourself, with your kind of obligations and obstacles, who works out like clockwork. She's the one who proves the point that it can be done.

Acknowledge the cost of doing business. Back when you made that pros-and-cons-of-exercise list, there undoubtedly was a "con" or two. Don't ignore what's there. The person who doesn't give a nod to the fact that exercise may cause some muscle stiffness might pack it in when exercise has that effect.

Drink from the company-only china. Or do whatever else feels like a reward. After you exercise for a while, the glow that you feel after a walk in the park is reward in spades. But in the first few months of a program, you might need to give yourself a blue ribbon now and then. It doesn't have to be extravagant, says psychologist James O. Prochaska of the University of Rhode Island, Kingston. Just remember to reward the behavior, not the outcome. That is, reward yourself for walking five times this week, not for losing a pound.

Don't sweat the skips. Inevitably, real-world obstacles will occasionally come between you and the gym (or your park path). Don't sweat it. "Once you've committed to exercising daily for the next 75 years, missing a day here or a week there isn't catastrophic," says Kerry Courneya, Ph.D. View the "skip" as just that--a temporary skip and go on from there. "People can get back on track quite readily," says James O. Prochaska, Ph.D.