How do I start exercising and build a lasting habit?

Every start is difficult and we've experienced, both when dieting and when starting to exercise, that good momentum lasts for a while. Swe find ourselves back at square one.

We're guessing that the reason you've found this text and come to this place is because you really want to be more active and achieve your goals. You would like to stay on the path you have chosen and not stop in the middle of the road or go back. But life intervenes. What to do?

Why does life get in the way and people decide to give up their goals? This is a question that fascinates many psychologists, including those at the University of Tartu.

If we could work out with you every day and count all your meals, achieving your goals would be super easy - at least from our point of view. But that's not the way to reach the masses, and we need technology to help us reach the masses.

FitQ is with Stebby and the University of Tartu Institute of Psychology are preparing a study to investigate the persistence of sport motivation over time. Kenn Konstabel, Associate Professor of Personality and Health Psychology at the University of Tartu, is advising and helping to conduct the study. We are conducting an experiment in which we are inviting anyone interested to participate.

To make it even clearer - you, too, dear reader, are welcome.

The first step

You, as a test participant, choose a target to reach within two months.

Goal 1: Lose at least 5 kg of body weight

Goal 2: Perform at least 30 arm curls

Goal 3: Run 5 km without stopping

Did any of these objectives resonate with you? Pick one for yourself.

Step two

Sign up as a participant in our challenge. You can do this in the form at the end of this blog post.

Step three

Now we are coming into play. We're not going to whip you with a workout, climb into your bedroom, hide your cooking utensils in your kitchen, or eat your chocolate bar from the buffet cupboard. We will not meet you physically or virtually, not once. All we want from you is 5 seconds every day. Is it possible to get results in 5 seconds? We'll see.

We'll let you know exactly how it works on the first day of the test, Monday 1 March. At the end of the 60-day trial, we want to send you just one question by email and get a short answer from you. In total, we would like to get about 10 minutes of your time over the two months, and the 2 minutes spent reading this article are already included in that time. We will soon find out whether these 10 minutes are worth your chosen goal and whether they will be useful.