Introduction

Sadly, exercise is not like currency. Currency can be banked. It can be stored indefinitely and pulled out in case of an emergency. Extra money saved this Tuesday can be used the following year, with the same benefit. Exercise is the opposite of currency. It cannot be banked. It cannot be stored. Extra exercise we did this Tuesday doesn't have any value at all a year from now if we don't link it with regular exercise between now and then. Since exercise can't be banked, to accrue the benefits of exercise, we have to keep doing it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

We Must Move It, Move It!

It sounds daunting to consider exercising every day for the rest of our lives. But, it's simply the cards we've been dealt. We live in bodies that are not well adapted to our modern environment. We live in bodies that don't stay well unless we move them with regularity.¹

The Problem With The Easy Life

We're lucky to live in an environment where we don't have to haul wood to stay warm, haul water to wash dishes, or haul ourselves around on our feet for transport. Human intelligence and the creative environment of the United States has been a boon for innovation. Further, the capitalist economy allows us to pay others for services that we once had to do for ourselves, like shoveling snow, mowing the lawn or painting the house.

Unfortunately, many of us have traded the convenience of having work done for us for a sedentary life. This has left us in an awkward situation because we still live in a body that needs to move daily to stay well. Now, instead of doing work, we have to make ourselves 'workout' at the gym, on the track or at the yoga studio.

This is a tradeoff we've made. The deal is done. Now it is up to us to figure out how fit work (in the form of a workout) back into our life on a regular basis so we can stay well.

Planning To Exercise Tomorrow?

One of the most common problems associated with adhering to an exercise program has to do with a psychological phenomenon around planning. We often think that the set of circumstances that besets us today is large and that our capacity to deal with those circumstances is compromised. While this might be true, it becomes a problem when we believe that tomorrow's circumstances and our capacity to deal with them will be more manageable than today's.

Make Tomorrow Today

When we believe that tomorrow, and all of the tomorrows that follow, will be less difficult, we put tasks off until a future date when we believe we will be more motivated and capable. This is the crux of the problem is, that when tomorrow arrives, we feel beset again and again delay action. We continue delaying action due to what we perceive to be a unique set of circumstances when in reality, our circumstances in the future will vary little from the present. This phenomenon all but promises that we'll rarely attend to items that aren't urgent because we always believe that today is difficult and the future will be better.

This is a common phenomenon associated with exercise. Though we know we should exercise and many of us believe we can exercise, we often feel compelled by the complications of today to put it off until tomorrow'truly believing it will get done then.²

How To Track Exercise

One common and meaningful way increase exercise adherence is to track exercise habits. There are a variety of ways to track activity and all of them improve exercise adherence.³

• Journal about activity on a daily basis to have an ongoing log of activity.
• Create a weekly or monthly graph demonstrating frequency and duration of exercise.
• Use electronic resources (spreadsheets/databases) to replace tracking exercise with paper.
• Use a pedometer to track how many steps you've taken each day
• Use online forums for accountability, inspiration and motivation
• Use mobile applications with GPS monitoring to produce real time data for distance traveled during activities like running and cycling.
• Use activity trackers with imbedded accelerometers (e.g. Fitbit) to track activity that doesn't travel and can't be monitored with a GPS like tennis, aerobics or plyometrics.
• Use activity trackers to alarm if you've been sedentary for too long

Humans have set ourselves up in an environment where we need to do very little work. In order to stay well, we must create work, in the form of exercise to stay healthy. Use activity trackers to bolster your ability to do the work that we have to do in order to stay well.