What does it mean to exercise in a truly sustainable way? It's not all about the environment although you should think about how all your actions play a part in climate change, even something as seemingly harmless as working out.
When it comes to exercise, sustainable means doing it in a way that you're going to keep it up and maintain it for the rest of your life. For people who don't exercise this seems daunting, but it's the only way to live a healthy lifestyle.
You don't have a choice. People quit for many reasons, but it all comes down to not planning or setting goals. Lack of desire is in there too, but not even the healthiest person in the world likes working out every day.
Finding the right schedule
Some people say that they don't have any time to exercise, but that's a lie. Everyone can make time to exercise even busy people, everyone makes time for things they deem important. So make sure that exercising is near the top of your priorities.
Exercise doesn't have to be done in a typical way, it can be fit in and around your schedule. It doesn't have to be done every day either, it can be congested into a few days of the week.
Once you've found your schedule you've done a lot of the hard work as now you don't have the excuse of being "too busy". Some days things will genuinely get in the way, but you can plan ahead and move your workout to another time in the day or another day entirely.
Don't beat yourself up just because you've missed one day, make sure to get back on task as soon as you can.
Finding exercises that suit you
People think that exercise has to be done in a specific way when it's extremely versatile. Some people don't do traditional exercise at all, they replace it with sports as they get the same or even more benefits.
For example, if you want to work out your legs, you don't have to do squats at the gym. Squats are one of the best exercises, but depending on your goals you can get similar benefits doing something else like hiking, riding a bike or playing football.
A combination of other exercises might work well for you. It's not going to give the exact same outcome, but it's going to help you build strength and muscle in your legs which is the goal when you squat.
Setting goals
Set achievable goals and you'll feel more motivated to workout. Doing anything without a clear purpose leads to uncertainty and loss of motivation. You're going to get to a point where you're asking yourself why you're doing this, and you're not going to have an answer because you didn't set out with one.
To set realistic goals, you're going to have to educate yourself on what you want and plan the best route to get there. You'll quickly learn if you're taking on too much, but don't worry as goals can be adjusted. Goal setting involves a little bit of trial and error.
When you're working towards goals might find that what you thought you wanted isn't what you want any more, this is normal. But you can set new goals and correct your path before you get to a place in life that you don't want to be.
Adding variety
At some point, your workouts are going to get stale or ineffective, but instead of adding more sets or reps, you can do something different. When I got bored of lifting weights I decided to ditch the weights altogether and do calisthenics instead. Now it's an entirely new challenge for me.
Do whatever you need to do to keep yourself interested and motivated. Exercise is like going to work, no matter what you have to do it for the rest of your life. When you get bored of a company you can get a job somewhere else, and when you get bored of a workout routine, you can switch to a new one.
It's not realistic to be the same all the way throughout your life, so don't get in your own way, there are already enough obstacles out there which do a great job of this.