The Ultimate Guide To Starting Your Fitness Journey

By Florence Milano

You might think starting a journey of health and fitness is overwhelming. Your mind quickly visualizes an image of exercise equipment or people staring at you. It can be intimidating, but keep in mind that everybody once started as a beginner. 

Deciding to end old habits while making healthy improvements can be a life-changing decision. Not only will this greatly improve your overall well-being, but it can also boost your mood, increase your confidence in yourself while remaining motivated to stay on track.

Coming prepared with the right game plan will help you succeed, so we’ve laid out some strategies to help you get started!

1. Determine Your Reason and Commit to Doing So

One thing to consider when starting anything is why you’re doing it in the first place. Are you doing it for yourself or others? What do you hope to get out of it? 

It should be something you want rather than something that you think you need. The motivating factor could be as simple as not wanting to be out of breath when taking the stairs or improving your mental health. 

Wanting to have a regular exercise routine, researching the most effective methods and other time-consuming tasks will not yield results. It is entirely up to you whether or not you’re ready to make the change, but you cannot achieve your objectives if you’re not fully committed to the process. 

Reassure yourself that you can handle anything and everything that may occur no matter how difficult or challenging it will be.

2. Make a Plan and Set Up a Vision Board

Having a plan is essential to any goal because you need to know what goals you wish to achieve and when you intend to break them when developing a strategy. Be it for exercise, mealtime or meditation; it’s important to establish the best schedule for yourself.

A vision board is typically a list that contains images and graphics rather than just writing. It encourages you to visualize your goal, your journey and the action plans to achieve it. 

Create a vision board wherein you can start planning and working on your fitness vision. You may use a bulletin board, a shadow box, a poster board or just a notebook. It doesn't have to look like anyone else’s: it should be what inspires you. Here are some examples you could collect for your fitness vision board:

• Old pictures of yourself
• Pictures of nutritious foods
• Inspirational short stories
• Journal clippings
• Everything that highlights your ambition

Put your vision board somewhere where you'll see it every day. You can even make another vision board for the things you have accomplished.

3. Setting Positive and Achievable Goals

Some people want to build endurance, improve their health and boost their confidence. But what should you do to get there? 

Fitness goals are important for several reasons. They hold us accountable, expand our perception of the possibilities, and motivate us to push through temporary challenges to attain long-lasting changes.

Though it’s great to have your big ultimate goal, you should also set smaller and more manageable fitness targets to help you get there.

We all want immediate satisfaction, but it’s important to be realistic about the deadline you set and remember that everything takes time. Major improvements will never be completed within a week. 

Choose a goal that you can accomplish over months rather than a year, like getting more exercise and controlling your food intake. In this way, you are more likely to stick to it if you approach it with a long-term mindset than a quick fix mentality.

If you own a RENPHO AI Smart Bike, set smart goals to help make losing weight more manageable by taking AI Gym video courses with certified Les Mills trainers. This can help you with a clear path to success and help you find the motivation to keep going.

4. Start with Baby Steps

It is best to start your fitness journey little by little. There’s no need to run a marathon or lift weights on Day 1, or you’ll end up getting injured and discouraged.

Start with 15 to 30 minutes of daily cardio with your AI Smart Bike to establish a regular exercise habit. Over time, you can add more difficult routines to your exercise.

5. Check Out Different Things and Find Out What's Best for You

You need to know your likes and dislikes so you can be passionate about your fitness program. Every year there are new trends, fun fitness videos and equipment to try. 

Experiment where possible and discover your fitness style so you can have the most fun while working out. Whatever you choose, make sure to include strength, training, cardio and high interval training in your exercise schedule.

6. Track Your Progress

It’s important to track your fitness growth to make sure you stay motivated. 

Note your maximum reps for each set of lifting weights, building core, or tracking your speed and cycling time with the intelligent bike and RENPHO's IA app for cardio exercises. This will allow you to maintain consistency and progress over time.

7. Stick to Healthy Habits

To achieve your goals, consistency is needed in having healthy habits. These habits can be as easy as going for a 30-minute workout with your AI Smart Bike three times a week and treating it as a ritual.

Make sure the healthy habits you include in your daily routine are in line with your desired outcomes. It's also important to make these habits basic so that you can integrate them into your daily routine every day.

Trying to incorporate too many things at once to construct your ideal daily routine can cause more damage than good because it is unlikely to be sustainable. It’s important to remember that being healthy is a way of life, not a temporary solution. 

Sleep improvement and less screen time are examples of integrating healthy routines. It will both make you feel better every day and will also help you recover from your workouts.

Stick to one to three action plans at first, and if you can keep them up regularly, you can add more.

8. Eat a Healthy Diet

Fitness entails more than just physical activity. You must also ensure that your body receives the proper nutrition to fuel your workouts. 

The number of calories you burn doesn’t matter when you immediately include it in your eating habits. But over time, the quality of the calories in the food you’re consuming will become more essential. 

False fats, sweets, false colors and flavorings, among other things, can affect your immunity and may risk you getting sick and hinder fat-burning hormone production.

The best way to start eating healthy at home is by educating yourself– understanding which foods will help you keep your goals will make it easier to create simple healthy eating habits and incorporate them into your daily routine.

There's no need to stick to the most recent fad diet. Begin by consuming a variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats.

The RENPHO Health app, for the RENPHO Smart Body Scale, can assist in setting target goals for you to achieve if you have a specific weight or fitness goal in mind.

9. Choose Water Over Fizzy Drinks

You will normally need to drink more water when you shift into a daily routine and regular exercise. It's a way of your body’s signal, which you shouldn’t ignore!

Hydration refers to drinking enough water before, during and after any activity. It keeps your body cool and your joints lubricated. Water improves the nutrient distribution that keeps you energized and healthy.

Your body cannot function well if you’re not adequately hydrated, which can lead to muscle cramps, tiredness and disorientation and other serious symptoms.

Refresh and hydrate, especially if you do intensive workouts regularly. Drinking plenty of water is just as important as eating healthy. 

10. Don’t Let Your Cheat Days Waste Your Progress

Cheat days are fine, just be smart about them. A small slice of cake is welcome, but go overboard with it, or you lose all your hard work.

By balancing workouts with healthy eating and a life filled with the occasional treat, you can enjoy your fitness routine even more and continue to reap the rewards for a lifetime.

11. Find a Fitness Buddy

Starting your fitness journey may be frightening, so having someone with you every step of the way can help. They can help to keep each other motivated and have fun while doing so. In the end, a trustworthy workout buddy increases your chances of sticking to your regimen!

Don't worry if you don't have a willing friend. The RENPHO Power User is a community Facebook group where RENPHO users with similar ideas can share their fitness journeys and encourage one another.

12. Expect Challenges

Life has the habit of throwing you curveballs. You may find yourself busy with work, family, or life in general that you are unable to work as much as you would like. 

We've all been there: You stick to your diet for a week before breaching it with a weekend heist. You plan to exercise more, work out for 3 days, and then find it hard to get out of bed after a long day at work. 

You build career visions and become enthralled by the possibilities, only to be weighed down by day-to-day responsibilities and not have the energy for fitness for weeks or months.

If you’re having trouble staying motivated to exercise, try a new training approach to see what you prefer. If you’re worried about suddenly losing your motivation, do a strategy ahead of time to avoid it! Find some motivational quotes to keep you focused and remind you why you’re doing it. 

The most important thing is to not give up. Return as soon as possible. Try to find small ways to be more active over the day. Never forget that exercise is better than none.

13. Appreciate Recovery Days

Recovery time is as important as the time and effort you put into your workouts. Every workout puts a lot of stress on the muscles. 

 Because your body goes through a lot during exercise, you need to give yourself adequate time to recover so that you can keep doing it. Therefore, try working out no more than three consecutive days, then allow at least one day of rest in between each workout.

14. Prioritize Sleep

Those who want to achieve their goals must commit to quality sleep. A key component of achieving goals is taking good care of your health. 

You may be sleeping less because of other priorities such as work or business. Try to make a sleeping schedule where you can get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night and manage your activities around it. 

Sleep is especially important for the muscles to repair themselves properly and gain strength from the workout.

If you get only a few hours of sleep per night, your ability to think clearly will suffer and it will be harder for you to fulfill your goals. Embrace the deeply restorative powers of sleep for both your body and mind and put them to good use.

Just as taking breaks is important, having good rest is important as well. But make sure you’re getting good sleep so that you’re able to gain energy and keep working toward your goals. 

15. Use the 80-20 Rule

Keep in mind that starting your fitness path does not mean that you have to stop doing everything else. For most people, fitness, and health are all about striking a balance. Give yourself a break now and then! 

It’s essential to discover something you enjoy while still having an open mind when it comes to fitness: so, be adaptable and change what you do not like. Patience and determination are what you need to achieve your goals. At the end of the day, you have to remember to be kind and loving to yourself. 

Now that you have an idea of how to start your fitness journey, download the RENPHO app and discover more fitness, nutrition and health tips.