How to Stay Motivated to Exercise (Even When You Really Don't Feel Like It)

How to Stay Motivated to Exercise (Even When You Really Don't Feel Like It)

Short answer: Motivation fades, but systems last: goals that work, habits that stick and discipline carry you when feelings do not. This guide covers staying motivated, setting goals, building discipline, staying consistent for years, getting back on track, and starting again after years away, with a mindset that thinks like an athlete.

You signed up for the gym in January. By February, you were going three times a week. By March, your membership card was gathering dust and the only thing you were lifting was the remote. Sound familiar? You're not lazy — you're just relying on the wrong fuel.

Here's the honest truth about motivation: it was never meant to carry you. Motivation is a spark — brilliant, exciting, and gone by Wednesday. What actually keeps people exercising for years is systems, identity, and small wins, not willpower. In this guide, I'll show you exactly how to build those systems, based on what actually works for real beginners (not fitness influencers who love burpees).

We'll cover why your motivation keeps dying, the difference between motivation and discipline (and why the answer isn't what you think), and a toolbox of proven, research-backed tricks you can start using today — including the two-minute rule, habit stacking, and the "never miss twice" principle.

Why Do I Lose Motivation to Exercise After Two Weeks?

This is the most common question I hear, and the answer usually stings a little: you didn't lose motivation. You lost the conditions that made exercise easy. In week one, everything was novel — new clothes, new playlist, new routine. By week three, the novelty is gone, the soreness is real, and your couch has never looked more comfortable.

Psychologists call this the motivation dip. Studies on exercise adherence show that roughly half of people who start a fitness programme drop out within six months. Not because they're weak-willed — but because they built their plan on enthusiasm instead of structure. Enthusiasm is a feeling. Feelings change with the weather, your mood, and how well you slept.

The second culprit is all-or-nothing thinking. You miss one workout, and your brain helpfully concludes the whole plan is ruined, so you might as well skip the rest of the week. One missed session becomes five. Research on habit formation shows this "what the hell" effect is one of the biggest killers of consistency — a single slip matters far less than the story you tell yourself about it.

The third culprit? Vague goals. "Get fit" is not a goal — it's a wish. Your brain doesn't know what to do with a wish. And when the goal is fuzzy, progress is invisible, and invisible progress kills motivation faster than anything.

Does Motivation or Discipline Matter More?

You've probably heard the macho line: "Motivation is garbage; discipline is everything." There's truth in it — but it's incomplete, and for beginners it can be actively harmful.

Think of it this way: motivation starts the engine, discipline keeps it running, but design removes the need for both. The people who exercise consistently for years aren't white-knuckling through every session with iron discipline. They've designed their life so that exercising is the path of least resistance. Their gym bag is packed. Their workout is scheduled. Their running shoes are by the door.

So the real question isn't "how do I get more motivated?" — it's "how do I make showing up effortless?" Every trick below works on that principle: shrink the decision, remove the friction, and make the behaviour nearly automatic.

How Do I Stay Motivated When I Hate Exercise?

Let's be honest: if you hate exercise, that's useful information, not a character flaw. It almost always means you've been doing the wrong kind of exercise — probably something boring, painful, or chosen because a fitness influencer said it was "the best."

Here's the reframe that changes everything for most beginners: stop asking "what's the best workout?" and start asking "what workout will I actually repeat?" A mediocre workout you do three times a week beats the perfect programme you quit after nine days. Every time.

Some people hate the gym but love dancing in their living room. Some find treadmills soul-destroying but will happily hike for two hours with a friend. Swimming, cycling, boxing, football, martial arts, gardening, even vigorous housework — they all count. The best exercise is the one you'll still be doing in six months.

Practical steps to find your thing:

• Audit your past: what physical activities did you enjoy as a kid or teenager? That enjoyment is still in there somewhere.
• Try the 3-session test: give any new activity three sessions before judging it. Session one is always awkward.
• Add entertainment: save your favourite podcast or series only for workouts. Your brain starts associating exercise with reward.
• Ditch the "no pain, no gain" story: beginners who start gently are far more likely to still be exercising a year later than those who go all-out and get injured or miserable.

What Are Proven Tricks to Keep Exercising Consistently?

These aren't motivational quotes for your fridge. They're behaviour-design tools backed by real research — the same ones I use with every beginner I coach.

What is the two-minute rule?

When you don't feel like working out, promise yourself you'll do just two minutes. Put on your shoes and do a warm-up. That's it. Once you start, you'll almost always keep going — starting is the hard part, not continuing. And on the rare day you genuinely stop after two minutes? You still showed up, and the streak survives.

What is habit stacking?

Link your workout to something you already do automatically: "After I brush my teeth in the morning, I do my 20-minute routine." The existing habit becomes the trigger, so you don't need to remember or decide — the cue fires on its own. Research on habit formation consistently finds that context-based plans ("I will exercise at 7am in the living room") outperform time-based intentions by a wide margin.

What is the never-miss-twice rule?

Missed Monday? Fine — life happens. But Tuesday is non-negotiable. Missing twice is what starts the slide; missing once is just a blip. This rule kills the all-or-nothing spiral because a single missed day no longer means anything about your identity as an exerciser.

How do I make exercise stupidly easy to start?

Lay out your workout clothes the night before. Pack the gym bag and leave it by the door. Put your shoes where you'll trip over them. Every second of friction between you and the workout is a chance for your brain to talk you out of it. Friction is the enemy of consistency.

Should I track my workouts visibly?

Get a wall calendar and put a big X on every day you exercise. Jerry Seinfeld famously used this "don't break the chain" method for writing — it works just as well for fitness. After two weeks of X's, your brain wants to protect the streak more than it wants to skip. Apps work too, but there's something uniquely powerful about a physical calendar you see every morning.

What is the 10-minute compromise?

On days you're dragging, negotiate: "I'll just do ten minutes." Ten minutes is short enough that your excuses sound silly — but long enough that your endorphins kick in and you usually continue. And even if you don't, ten minutes of movement is infinitely better than zero, and your habit stays intact.

How Long Does It Take to Build an Exercise Habit?

You've probably heard "21 days." That number came from a misquoted plastic surgeon in the 1960s, not from science. A well-known 2009 study in the European Journal of Social Psychology found that habit formation takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days, averaging about 66 days — and simpler habits form faster than complex ones.

Here's what that actually means for you: stop expecting exercise to feel automatic after three weeks. It's normal for it to still feel effortful in month two. The good news? It gets gradually easier — you don't wake up transformed on day 66, but one day you notice you just... did it, without the usual mental argument. That's the habit forming.

The key insight from the research: consistency of context matters more than perfection. Exercising at the same time, in the same place, after the same trigger builds the automaticity fastest. Same time, same place, same shoes — boring, and incredibly effective.

Can a Workout Buddy Really Help?

Yes — and the mechanism is more powerful than you might think. When you commit to meeting someone, skipping isn't just letting yourself down; it's standing someone up. That social accountability is one of the strongest adherence tools in the research literature.

But choose wisely. The ideal workout partner is someone:

• At roughly your fitness level (a marathon runner friend will either bore or destroy you)
• Reliable — a flaky partner teaches you both that skipping is normal
• Positive — someone who shows up with energy, not someone who complains through every session

No suitable friend? Join a class with regulars, find a local running group, or use an online accountability group. Even posting your workouts publicly — a group chat, social media, a simple streak calendar — creates a mild version of the same pressure. And if you prefer training alone, an accountability check-in with a coach or a friend (a simple "done ✅" text) captures most of the benefit.

Should I Reward Myself for Exercising?

Rewards work — but only if you design them correctly. The reward has to be immediate (not "I'll buy myself a holiday in six months") and it should never undo the workout (so no, the reward for a run isn't a pizza binge).

Effective immediate rewards:

• A long, hot shower you only allow yourself after training
• Your favourite coffee on the way home from the gym
• An episode of the series you're saving exclusively for workout days
• A small weekly non-food treat — a book, a bath, new workout socks

Also consider the most powerful reward of all: tracking how you feel. After each session, rate your mood and energy 1–10 in a note on your phone. After a few weeks, you'll have your own personal data proving that you always feel better after exercising. On a low-motivation day, reading back through those notes is more convincing than any motivational quote.

What If I've Tried Everything and Still Quit?

If you've started and stopped more times than you can count, hear this: the problem has probably never been your willpower. It's been your plan. Almost every chronic quitter I've worked with was trying to do too much, too soon, with too little flexibility.

Try the minimum viable workout instead: the smallest routine that still moves you forward. For many beginners, that's 20 minutes, three times a week — walking, bodyweight basics, whatever feels doable. Master that for a month. Consistency with a small plan beats intensity with a big one. You can always scale up; you can't scale up from zero because you quit.

And if the pattern keeps repeating, consider getting professional support — a few sessions with a personal trainer to build a plan that fits your actual life, or even talking to a counsellor if low motivation is tied to stress, low mood, or depression. Exercise motivation problems are sometimes really life problems wearing a fitness costume.

Why Do Most Fitness Goals Fail?

Before the fix, the diagnosis. Fitness goals typically die for five predictable reasons:

Every failed resolution you've ever had probably hit at least three of these. The system below is designed to dodge all five.

What Is the SMART Goal Framework for Fitness?

You've probably heard of SMART goals. Most explanations are corporate and dull. Here's the fitness translation that actually works:

Example transformations:

• ❌ "Lose weight" → ✅ "Lose 4kg in 10 weeks by walking 8,000 steps daily and eating a protein-rich breakfast."
• ❌ "Get stronger" → ✅ "Increase my goblet squat from 10kg to 20kg for 10 reps within 8 weeks, training legs twice weekly."
• ❌ "Eat healthier" → ✅ "Cook dinner at home 5 nights a week and include a vegetable portion in each, for the next 6 weeks."

Should I Set Outcome Goals or Process Goals?

Both — but understand their different jobs.

Outcome goals (lose 8kg, run 5k, bench press 60kg) give you direction and motivation. They're the destination. Keep one or two, and hold them lightly — timelines for outcomes are always estimates.

What Should I Track (and What Should I Ignore)?

Tracking turns effort into evidence. But track the wrong things and you'll drive yourself mad. Here's the hierarchy:

What should I track cautiously?

• Daily weigh-ins: useful only as a weekly average trend. Daily fluctuations of 1–2kg from water, food, and hormones are normal and meaningless. If daily numbers mess with your head, weigh weekly or ditch the scale for the tape measure.
• Body fat scales: home bioelectrical impedance scales are notoriously inaccurate — hydration alone swings the reading wildly. Treat the number as entertainment, not data.
• Calorie burn estimates: watches and machines often overestimate calorie burn noticeably. Fine for relative effort, useless as precise accounting.

Why Motivation Fails (and What Actually Works)

Motivation feels powerful because it's emotional — a great video, a doctor's warning, a photo you don't like. But motivation is a feeling, and feelings are weather: they change daily. Research on behaviour change consistently shows that motivation predicts whether you start something, not whether you continue it. The people still exercising a year from now aren't more motivated than you. They just built systems that don't require motivation.

Start Ridiculously Small

The #1 mistake beginners make is starting too big. Five intense workouts in week one isn't a plan — it's a countdown to burnout, soreness, and quitting. Your first goal isn't fitness; it's becoming the kind of person who exercises regularly. Fitness follows automatically.

So start embarrassingly small:

Anchor It: The Power of Habit Stacking

"I'll exercise three times a week" is a wish. "I'll do a 20-minute workout right after my morning coffee, in the living room, on Mondays and Thursdays" is a plan. The difference is an anchor — an existing habit your workout attaches to. This technique, called habit stacking, works because the existing habit becomes the trigger, and triggers beat intentions every time.

Build yours with this formula: "After [existing habit], I will [workout], at [place]." Examples:

Design Your Environment (Willpower Is Overrated)

Here's an uncomfortable truth: the people with the "most discipline" usually just have the best environments. They don't resist temptation better — they encounter less of it. Apply this ruthlessly:

Every bit of friction you remove is one fewer decision between you and the workout. The best exercise plan is the one with the shortest distance between intention and action.

The Two-Day Rule: Your Safety Net

You will miss workouts. Travel, illness, chaos — life doesn't care about your routine. What separates long-term exercisers from quitters isn't perfection; it's how they handle the miss. Enter the two-day rule: you can skip one day, but never two in a row.

One missed session is life. Two missed sessions is the start of a new habit — the habit of not exercising. The two-day rule gives you full permission to miss (no guilt spiral, no "I've ruined it") while drawing a hard line before a blip becomes a pattern. Missed Monday? Fine. Tuesday is non-negotiable — even if it's just a 10-minute walk. Never miss twice.

Why Does Motivation Always Fade?

Motivation is an emotion, and emotions are, by nature, temporary. It spikes when you watch an inspiring video, buy new gym clothes, or step on the scale and see progress. But emotions respond to circumstances, and circumstances change. A bad night's sleep, a stressful day at work, or a rainy morning can drain your motivation completely, and if motivation is your only fuel, the workout simply does not happen.

What Is Discipline, Really?

Discipline is often misunderstood as harsh self-punishment, as if disciplined people simply force themselves through misery by sheer willpower. In reality, disciplined people tend to use willpower less, not more. They design their lives so that the right choice is the easy choice. They lay out their clothes the night before, train at the same time each day, and keep tempting food out of sight. Willpower is your backup, not your main strategy.

How Do You Design an Environment That Supports Discipline?

Your environment votes on your behaviour all day long, and it usually wins. If your phone is beside your bed, you will scroll in the morning. If biscuits sit on the kitchen counter, you will eat them. If your gym bag is packed and by the door, you are far more likely to train. Changing your surroundings is often easier than changing your character, so start there.

None of this requires heroic effort. Each change is small, but together they quietly tilt your daily decisions in the right direction. Over weeks and months, that tilt becomes the difference between someone who trains twice a year and someone who trains twice a week.

What Role Do Routines and Cues Play?

Habits form around cues: a time, a place, or an event that triggers the behaviour. Morning exercisers often train right after waking, before the day has a chance to interfere. Others train straight after work, using the commute home as a trigger. The cue matters less than its consistency. When the same cue always leads to the same action, your brain eventually stops debating and simply starts.

How Do You Build a Routine You Can Actually Stick To?

The biggest mistake beginners make is starting too big. Five intense gym sessions a week, a strict diet, and a 5 am alarm, all at once, is a recipe for burnout. A sustainable routine starts small and grows slowly. Two or three sessions per week, for 30 to 45 minutes each, is enough to build real fitness and, more importantly, to build the habit itself.

Should You Set Goals, or Just Focus on Habits?

Both, but in the right order. Outcome goals — lose 10 kg, bench press your body weight, run 10 km — give you direction. Process goals — train three times this week, walk 8,000 steps daily, cook dinner at home five nights — give you something you control every single day. Long-term consistency comes from process goals, because you can tick them off even on a week when the scales do not move.

What Do You Do When Life Gets Busy?

Busy periods are where most routines die, because people treat consistency as all-or-nothing. They think a 20-minute home workout "does not count," so they do nothing instead. The truth is the opposite: short, imperfect sessions are what keep the habit alive through busy weeks. A 15-minute walk, a quick bodyweight circuit, or a single set of your main lifts is infinitely better than zero.

How Do You Stay Consistent When You Get Bored?

Boredom is not a sign that fitness is not for you — it is a sign that your routine needs variety. Doing the identical workout for a year will dull anyone's enthusiasm. Change your programme every 8 to 12 weeks, try a new class, train outdoors when the weather allows, or set a fun challenge like a charity walk, a hiking trip, or a friendly competition with a friend.

What Role Do Rest and Recovery Play in Consistency?

Rest is not the enemy of consistency — it is part of it. People who train hard every day without recovery eventually burn out, get injured, or start dreading the gym. Planned rest days, deload weeks every month or two, and good sleep are what allow you to train hard for years instead of months.

Why Do You Lose Motivation in the First Place?

Motivation usually fades for a reason, and finding that reason is the first step to fixing it. Sometimes the cause is physical: you are tired, under-slept, or training too hard without enough recovery. Sometimes it is psychological: your goal feels too distant, your routine has become boring, or life stress is draining the energy you would normally spend on exercise. Sometimes it is simply that the novelty has worn off, and what once felt exciting now feels like routine.

Do You Need Rest or a Restart?

Not every motivational dip should be pushed through. If you have been training hard for months, sleeping badly, feeling constantly sore, and dreading every session, your body may genuinely need rest. Overtraining and burnout are real, and pushing through them usually makes things worse. A planned week of lighter activity, extra sleep, and gentle movement can restore both energy and enthusiasm far better than another punishing week.

How Can You Make Starting Easier?

The hardest part of a workout is almost always the beginning. Once you are moving, momentum takes over, and finishing feels far easier than starting felt. So when motivation is low, your entire strategy should focus on making the start as easy as possible.

The goal on a low-motivation day is not a perfect workout. It is simply showing up. A short, easy session keeps the habit alive, protects your identity as someone who trains, and often turns into a better session than you expected.

Should You Change Your Routine or Your Goal?

Boredom is one of the most underestimated motivation killers. Doing the same exercises, in the same order, in the same gym, for months on end, will dull anyone's enthusiasm. If your routine feels stale, change it. Try a new sport, a different training style, an outdoor activity, or a class you have never attempted. Strength training, cycling, martial arts, dancing, hiking, and swimming all build fitness, and the best exercise is genuinely the one you enjoy enough to keep doing.

How Do You Stop One Bad Week Becoming a Bad Month?

The most dangerous moment in any fitness journey is not the first missed workout, but the story you tell yourself afterwards. "I have ruined my progress." "I will start again on Monday." "There is no point now." These thoughts turn a small slip into a long break, because they make restarting feel pointless. The truth is far less dramatic: a missed week costs you very little fitness, and your previous progress is still there, waiting to be picked up.

What Really Happens to Your Fitness During a Break?

It is natural to worry that a break has erased all your progress, but the reality is more encouraging. Cardiovascular fitness declines first, usually noticeably after two to four weeks of inactivity, while strength declines more slowly. Muscle size may reduce somewhat over several weeks, but the muscle nuclei built during training remain for a long time, which is why previously trained people regain muscle faster than beginners build it. This is the well-known muscle memory effect, and it is genuinely on your side.

How Should Your First Week Back Look?

The single biggest mistake people make when returning is trying to pick up exactly where they left off. You remember lifting a certain weight, running a certain distance, or training five days a week, and your ego demands that you match it immediately. Your body, however, has different ideas, and the result is often extreme soreness, exhaustion, or injury that forces another break. The comeback that works is the humble one.

Your first week is not a test. It is a reintroduction. Treat it as a chance to relearn movements, rediscover what you enjoy, and remind your body what training feels like, without punishing it for the time away.

What Does a Sensible Four-Week Comeback Plan Look Like?

A structured ramp removes the guesswork from returning. The plan below assumes a break of several weeks or more; if your break was shorter, you can move through it faster. The principle stays the same at every stage: increase only one thing at a time, either weight, volume, or frequency, never all three at once.

By the end of this month, most people are training normally again, with far less soreness and a much lower injury risk than if they had rushed. If you feel strong and fresh at any stage, you can progress a little faster. If you feel beaten up, repeat a week. The plan serves you, not the other way around.

How Do You Rebuild Your Eating Habits Too?

A training break often comes with an eating break, and that is completely normal. Holidays, stress, and busy periods change how we eat, and there is no point feeling guilty about it. Just as with training, the return to healthy eating works best gradually. You do not need a detox, a cleanse, or a punishing diet to undo a few weeks of relaxed eating.

Is It Safe to Exercise After Years of Inactivity?

For most healthy adults, yes — gentle exercise is safe and the benefits begin almost immediately. But "most" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, so be honest with yourself first. If you have a heart condition, uncontrolled blood pressure, diabetes, joint problems, or you're over 45 and have been fully sedentary, get a quick check-up or at least a conversation with your doctor before doing anything vigorous. This isn't fear-mongering; it's a 20-minute appointment that buys you confidence.

How Do I Start Working Out If I'm Completely Out of Shape?

You start with walking and a handful of simple strength moves — that's genuinely it for the first month. For a deconditioned body, a brisk 15-minute walk is a real workout: heart rate rises, leg muscles fatigue, breathing deepens. The stimulus matches your current fitness, which is exactly what a workout should do.

Your first 8 weeks, mapped out

Weeks 1–2: Just move. Walk 10–20 minutes, 3–4 days a week, at a conversational pace. Add two 15-minute strength sessions of bodyweight basics: wall push-ups, chair-assisted squats, glute bridges, standing marches. Rest a full day between strength days.

Weeks 3–4: Build the base. Extend walks to 20–30 minutes, 4–5 days a week, with gentle intervals (2 minutes brisker, 3 minutes easy). Progress the strength moves — wall push-ups become countertop push-ups, chair squats become free-standing. Stairs and groceries should already feel easier.

What is the 10% rule for preventing injuries?

Increase only one variable at a time — duration, frequency, or intensity — by no more than about 10% per week. Walked 60 total minutes last week? Aim for 66 this week, not 120. This feels laughably slow, and that is precisely why it works: tendons strengthen on a timescale of months, and the 10% rule keeps you uninjured long enough to let them.

What Is the Best Exercise for Beginners After a Long Break?

The honest answer: the best exercise is the one you'll repeat. But some choices are objectively kinder to a returning body than others. Ranked by restart-friendliness:

What to avoid in the first two months: high-impact running on hard surfaces, heavy barbell lifting, intense HIIT classes, and anything involving jumping until your joints have re-adapted. These aren't bad exercises — they're just month-four exercises, not week-one exercises. You need almost no gear to begin: supportive, broken-in shoes (cushioning dies with age even unworn), comfortable clothes, and a water bottle. A yoga mat helps for floor work. That's the entire shopping list.

What Does It Mean to Think Like an Athlete?

Thinking like an athlete does not mean training for six hours a day or obsessing over every calorie. It means treating your training as something you do because it matters to you, not something you do only when you feel like it. An athlete sees a workout the way you might see brushing your teeth: it is simply part of the day. Some days it feels great, some days it feels like a chore, but it still gets done.

How Do Athletes Stay Motivated When They Don't Feel Like It?

Here is a secret that surprises most people: athletes often do not feel motivated either. Motivation is unreliable for everyone, including professionals. What athletes have instead is a system that carries them through low-motivation days.

The first part of that system is lowering the barrier. On a tough day, an athlete does not demand a perfect session. They commit to just showing up and doing ten minutes. More often than not, once they start, they keep going.

How Should You Set Fitness Goals That Actually Work?

Vague goals produce vague results. "Get fit" or "lose weight" gives you nothing to aim at and no way to know whether you are succeeding. Athletes set goals that are specific, measurable, and broken into steps. You can do the same without any special knowledge.

Start with one outcome goal, something you want to achieve in three to six months. For example: walk 10,000 steps a day, do ten full press-ups, run 5 kilometres without stopping, or lose 5 kilograms. Then break it into process goals, the weekly actions that will get you there. For example:

What Do Athletes Do When They Miss a Workout?

Everyone misses workouts. Athletes get injured, travel, fall ill, and have family emergencies, just like you. The difference is what happens next. A non-athlete mindset treats a missed workout as proof of failure: "I have ruined my routine, so I might as well stop." An athlete mindset treats it as a single data point: "I missed one session. The next one is tomorrow."

This is sometimes called the "never miss twice" rule, and it is one of the most useful ideas in fitness. Missing once is normal life. Missing twice in a row is the start of a new, unhelpful habit. So if you skip Monday, make Tuesday non-negotiable, even if the session is shorter or easier than planned.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it normal to hate working out at first?

Completely normal. The first few weeks of any new exercise are the hardest — your body isn't adapted, everything feels awkward, and the rewards haven't kicked in yet. Most people who love exercise now hated it for the first month. Give it at least six.

How many rest days should I take as a beginner?

Two to three rest days per week is ideal when you're starting out. Your muscles, joints, and connective tissue need time to adapt — beginners who rest properly progress faster and get injured less than those who grind every day. Rest days are part of.

Does listening to music actually help motivation?

Yes — music is one of the best-studied exercise motivators there is. The right tempo music can make effort feel easier and lift your mood. Build a workout playlist with songs at 120–140 beats per minute, and save your absolute favourites for the hardest part.

What should I do when I travel or my routine breaks?

Have a "minimum viable" backup: a 10-minute bodyweight routine (squats, push-ups, plank) you can do in a hotel room with no equipment. The goal during disruptions isn't progress — it's protecting the identity of "someone who exercises." Keep the chain alive with the smallest possible.

How long does it take to build an exercise habit?

Most people need six to eight weeks of consistent, gentle effort before exercise starts feeling automatic. The first month is the hardest — shrink the first step, track your streak and focus on showing up, not on perfect workouts.

Related Reading

• how to measure your fitness progress
• how to build muscle as a beginner
• sleep and weight loss

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Consult a healthcare professional before starting any new exercise or diet program.