Bust through your exercise blocks! To knock down the barriers that keep you from getting active, follow this step-by-step plan.

To knock down the barriers that keep you from getting active, follow this step-by-step plan.

* "I'm too tired."

* "I don't know how to get started."

* "I just don't have the time

* "I'm allergic to exercise."

These statements may be all too familiar to you--they are the most common excuses for failing to start or maintain an exercise program. While some of these justifications may seem reasonable, the truth is they are merely artificial barriers to a healthier lifestyle.

Any rationale that prevents you from exercising is an exercise block. Some exercise blocks, such as injuries are physical. Others, such as inclement weather, are external. But most blocks are psychological. By overcoming these psychological blocks you are likely to find yourself on the way to making exercise an enjoyable aspect of your life.

To break through your personal blocks, use the following ideas.

* Block Buster 1 Get Started

Make a commitment. Write a list of reasons exercise is important, and place the list where you can read it (e.g., on your refrigerator, desk, or dashboard). Look at the list several times a day.

* Block Buster 2 Plan to Exercise

While this may sound simplistic, many people start with great intentions but never put them into action. Scheduling exercise for "sometime after work" or "in the morning" is too vague to be realistic. Be specific and schedule exercise as you would any other appointment. Put your exercise appointments on your calendar, and then be sure to show up. A detailed, long-term schedule is more likely to succeed than a day-to-day commitment, especially if you're new to exercise.

Be realistic in your planning. Don't try to make up for years of lost time in one week. Committing to two hours of exercise a day, six days a week, would be difficult! Not only would you be likely to have sore muscles, but you would also risk triggering another exercise block by overtraining. If you start out with lower expectations, you will probably have a more successful experience.

* Block Buster 3 Figure Out Your Exercise Personality

List your favorite healthy activities. By selecting a particular activity only because it's a good workout, you can unintentionally turn exercise into a chore. It's better to choose activities that match your personal interests or your "exercise personality." This will increase your chances of starting and maintaining an exercise program.

Exercise personality has various dimensions--socialization (high or low), competitiveness (high or low), mood state (angry, depressed, happy, etc.) location preference (indoors, outdoors, high-tech or low-tech), and optimum time of day (morning or evening).

Use these dimensions to help you choose an activity. For example, if you spend your day dealing with other people, you may want to exercise in solitude. If you are competitive and prefer being outside, you may want to incorporate a sport, such as tennis, into your regimen. If you dislike waking up early, you should exercise after work or during lunch.

* Block Buster 4 Set the Right Goals

Focus on "process goals" rather than "outcome goals." Process goads are steps that dead to an outcome you desire whereas outcome goads state the end result you want to achieve. For example, a process goad could be exercising for 20 minutes on the treadmill on Mondays and Wednesdays and 20 minutes on the stationary bicycle on Tuesdays and Thursdays. An outcome goal, on the other hand, could be to lose 15 pounds in two months.

One problem with an outcome goad is that if you don't meet it, you will probably feel your exercise plan has failed. This sense of failure can create a new exercise block to overcome. Another problem is that if you do meet your outcome goad (e.g., you do lose 15 pounds), you no longer have a goal to motivate you, so you have limited your long-term potential to keep exercising. If your process goals are realistic, the outcome goals will take care of themselves.

* Block Buster 5 Hold Mental Rehearsals

Almost everyone wishes he or she could get a complete workout by just thinking about exercise. While there are no physical benefits to envisioning leg curls while watching television, there are mental advantages. Imagining yourself correctly and successfully completing an exercise routine can help you break through exercise blocks. This technique, whereby you create pictures in your mind to simulate real events, is called "visuomotor behavioral rehearsal." By frequently picturing events, you can program your mind, body, and emotions to perform the way you want them to.

You can use visuomotor behavioral rehearsal before and during exercise. For example

* To overcome an exercise block, visualize a wall around the gym and a way to get over it.

* While running on a treadmill, visualize yourself winning the New York marathon. This will help you associate the feeling of exhilaration with exercise.

* Visualize the eventual outcome of exercise (e.g., a toned, healthy body) to help influence your drive to adhere to an exercise program.

As another motivational technique, you can also develop "key phrases," or answers to the negative self-talk that might defeat you. For example, you may want to exercise but block yourself because you feel selfish when you take the time to do it. For you, a phrase such as "Now it's time for me" might help. If you always feel too tired to exercise, "I have a lot of energy" might work.

* Block Buster 6 Reward Yourself

Rewards are also great motivators. Getting a massage or buying a new compact disc when you reach your process goals can be a positive reinforcement. Remember, a positive reinforcement is a reward intended to motivate repetition of the good behavior. In time the benefits of exercising will become their own reward and the exercise habit will reinforce itself.

A Helping Hand

You may find you need external structure or motivation to help make exercise a part of your life. That's fine! Exercising with a group, attending exercise classes, or hiring a certified personal fitness trainer might help.

Remember that the first few weeks of trying to establish a new habit are always difficult. Once that initial period is completed, it will be only a matter of time before exercise becomes a rewarding part of your lifestyle.

RELATED ARTICLE: Got A Minute For Your Health?:60

Overeating and Sleep

Weight-control experts may have overlooked one potentially significant factor in the current epidemic of obesity in the United States--too little sleep. In a study of college students who were deprived of sleep, all reported a greater appetite--sometimes slight, sometimes marked. In another study, in which participants didn't get REM sleep (that's when you dream), some subjects developed enough of an appetite to gain a few pounds. Explanations for this vary from boredom to body heat.

Researchers at the Sleep Disorders Center at Emory University, why conducted the studies, say the results don't mean that if you're short on sleep you'll get fat. They'll go only as far as to say that "people eat more, and they eat more often" when they're tired.

Listen to Got a Minute for Your Health? on many local radio stations.

Jan W. Kuzma. Ph.D.. is president of Sentinel Research Services and former director of research at the School of Public Health. Loma Linda University. Loma Linda. California.

Eric Goldstein, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and the president of the Sports Psychology Center of Miami, Florida. In the past 11 years he has worked with hundreds of individuals and corporations to help them enhance performance and develop healthier lifestyles. Article supplied by IDEA, the International Association of Fitness Professionals.