5 fun ways to kick start your workout (for body and mind) this year
While many people head into a new year with plans to get themselves in shape, it is often one of the first resolutions to bite the dust once the reality of work and bad weather kicks in. The aim of this article is to offer ways of increasing your motivation to stick to your fitness plan this year. 
1 Reward plan
This is a pretty simple, but amazingly effective, plan for maintaining your exercise motivation. While just getting in shape and looking and feeling better is motivation in itself, it can be hard to keep that end goal in mind on days when you are feeling sluggish and the weather is bad.
The reward plan sees you promise yourself a treat – which can be anything from an evening watching your favourite movies or TV shows to a snack of your choice – once you have completed your exercise for the day. It gives you something a little closer to hand to focus on.
2 Commitment contract
This is another plan to increase your motivation levels, but it works in the opposite way. Basically, you sign a ‘contract’ witnessed by your friends and/or family agreeing to complete a certain amount of exercise, and you then face the embarrassment of having to admit failure to them if you fail to stick to it.
If you think this alone will not be motivation enough, you can always commit to paying out a certain amount of money every time you skip your exercise.
3 Exergaming
As you should probably have guessed from the name, this is a blend of exercising and gaming. It can be a superb way of increasing your motivation because it makes exercising fun, rather than a chore, so you will actually look forward to it. There are exergames to help with both physical and mental fitness.
Playing complex strategy games like StarCraft on a mobile or console can help keep your mind sharp and boost hand-eye co-ordination, while Wii games like EA Sports Active and PlayMotion are great for physical fitness. Even a few card memory games can train your mind, such as blackjack which can be found on a mobile casino games specific site like Mobilecasinocanada many people enjoy these games and others such as Bingo, however if you have difficulties with gambling please note there are many sites offering games for free and you can also seek help at gambleaware.com.
4 MyFitnessPal
This is an exercise app that you can download to your phone, providing you with a calorie counter to let you see what you are putting into your body every day. It provides you with goals for cutting down your calorie intake, incorporates all exercise you are doing into your results, and provides you with the best motivational tool of all – evidence of progress.
5 Zombies, Run!
The threat of having your brains eaten should prove motivational, and this app puts you in the role of someone fighting a post-apocalyptic zombie invasion. It cuts in when you are listening to tunes while you run to warn you that they are approaching – so that you can increase your speed to get away. Again, it adds a little fun to the process of getting in shape.
Why not try some of these different ideas, to ensure that you maintain your fitness pledge this year.
