Green tea, cardio, lush green salads. Feeling motivated to get healthy, one day, you get a year-long gym membership, vowing to work out for at least an hour a day.

For 3 days, you set aside the time to stretch, run, pull weights and stay on healthy alternatives. Come day 4 and it’s ‘Hello, reality’. Assignments, deadlines and responsibilities seep into your fitness resolve and before you know it, you’ve fallen off the health wagon.

Been there, friends, and done that. So, as part of your new fitness booster, we bring you surprisingly useful tricks to stick to a fitness routine:

1. Wake up and put on your running shoes before your coffee

Even if you spend an hour getting coffee and doing chores around the house, if you’ve already got your running shoes on, you’ll be obligated to go running. It’s a simple thing, but it works as a motivator. If you’re one to untie shoe laces quickly, try sleeping in your gym clothes, so you wake up ready to work out [it sounds silly, but it might work].

2. Place post-its

in your car, bedroom, washroom, living room and workspace that read:

‘This ain’t a one-night stand’

Okay – you don’t have to do that, but it’s a nice reminder. You’ve heard ‘be realistic’ before, but we’re talking specifically about time allotments. Focus on integrating workouts into your daily life and don’t attempt to dive head-first into 2-hour long workouts in your first week.

This is a marathon, so don’t be demotivated if you don’t see results in a week or two. Don’t expect yourself to be brilliant at the exercises either. You have to ease into them and keep at it. It’s a cliche but ‘It’s a lifestyle choice’

3. Pair workout reminders on your phone with the line ‘Be incredibly selfish’

When it comes to that half an hour of working out [Research shows that half an hour workouts can be more effective for a long-term plan than hour long workouts], shove everything aside and make time. Think of it this way: You will be able to cater to everyone else through the other 23 hours with a lot more patience and confidence.

P.S: Women, please note.

4. Use apps such as Fitness Pal

Measuring your performance will help you focus on the workouts you made, instead of beat yourself up about the ones you missed. You don’t start from zero if you missed a workout 2 days a week and the number on your Android/iPhone will remind you of it.

5. Keep a check-list on your phone to keep track of the days on which you worked out

Make use of that calendar app and remind yourself every time you make excuses to yourself that ‘You are choosing to be stuck in a rut.’ It’s alright to skip a day or two, but when you make skipping a habit, you’re re-enforcing the habit of skipping. Before you know, you see yourself as ‘lazy’ and stop working out altogether. IT’s not an all-or-nothing-at-all scenario – remember that!

We hope these help and keep on track [the jogging track].

Let us know what tricks have worked for you personally. Maybe a workout buddy or an external incentive? Tell us in the comments below: