Muscle weighs more than fat!!
What are your reasons for exercising? I think the most popular reason is weight-loss for most people. This could be to just drop a couple of pounds or a more serious health issue such as high blood pressure or risk of heart disease due to their size and lifestyle. Whatever your reasons your doing great just even starting this change, and no matter what, try and keep it up! It will be tough sometimes, and will be easier not to complete a session than to show up and give it your all.
You will realise your on the path to building that habit if you DON’T make excuses and DO show-up! To be honest I feel that exercising is the easy part, it's a total change in your lifestyle which is the hardest. You’ve been stuck living this type of lifestyle most of your adult life and because of this it will take time, commitment and consistency to change.
On top of that you need to find a way to measure your progress, will you look at your fitness, weight or will you look at the whole picture concentrating on the health aspects and seeing if any progress has been made in those?
Most people use the scales to gauge how their doing if the long-standing goal is to lose weight. It's been ingrained in us by the media that this particular way of recording progress is necessary but I don’t agree. I find the scales the most demotivating part of any reviews I do with clients. With a lot of my clients now, I measure progress by photos, this is a great way to see what’s happening to their body shape. You can see curves forming, shoulders shrinking, legs becoming leaner all things which accumulate to be a change in a dress size for sure. As many of my clients lift weights they are going to build lean muscle, so when they jump on the scales for their first review with me they get disappointed as the little arrow hasn’t moved OR even worse goes further! I then show them the photos or get the measure tape out and EUREKA they realise there is progress, and their hard work is paying off - for me that is the greatest feeling as a PT. If one of my clients actually realise they can drop a dress size and become fitter without being chained to the scales, well that is a win for me!
So if your starting out, take a photo, get some measurements and keep a close eye on how your clothes feel, where do they feel tighter/looser don’t become chained to the scales, enjoy your journey, love the fact that you feel stronger physically and mentally, feel proud how your blood pressure has lowered as has your cholesterol, like how your not out of breath when you climb the stairs all these things give you ideas on your progress without the old fashioned scales that make everything seem like a waste of time with one number, when in the grand scheme of things you are winning bigtime!!