The whirlwind holiday season leaves many of us feeling heavy and stale, making the New Year the most popular time to start a new exercise routine. The first few weeks often start with a bang. We set our alarm clocks earlier for morning workouts or pack our bags to hit the gym on our way home from work. We squeeze in lunch hour exercise or turn our daily commute into a run home. As the weeks go by though, we often get distracted or deterred and our routines sputter along.

Some of Chicagoland’s best personal trainers offer a few tips to help you execute your new fitness plan.

Create definitive goals

You need to know what you want to achieve when you start a new exercise routine. Be specific in your fitness aims. Instead of making a broad goal of wanting to get in shape, determine that you want to move down a pant size in thirty days or make it to the gym four times a week. Fitness expert Allegra Feamster (www.thebodybeautiful-ba.blogspot.com) notes that the more you fine tune your objective, the easier it will be to craft a plan to get there.

Start small - Work your way in - Don’t overdo it

Nicki Anderson, president of Reality Fitness, Inc. (www.realityfitness.com), suggests that you start small and work your way into a new routine. Don’t overdo it. “It is important to make sure it’s level appropriate – all or nothing will result in either injury or burnout,” notes Anderson. Any exercise program should be a series of progressions. Start at point A and if you do well, move on to point B and so forth. You have to be patient as your body gets stronger; it doesn’t happen overnight.

Make an appointment with yourself

Make an appointment to exercise. Mark it on your schedule just like you would a visit to the doctor. Doing so formalizes your fitness plan and makes it more difficult to “cancel” your workout. An exercise appointment need not be scheduled for the same time each day. Rather, you should look at your calendar for the week or month ahead and designate the times that will work best for you.

Log your progress

Keeping an exercise log serves as a great motivator. When you rely on your scale for feedback, you can get discouraged when the numbers aren’t moving in the right direction. Move your focus away from the scale and track your progress by keeping a journal of your workouts. Make an entry after each workout. Note how you feel after you finish exercising. Write about your goals and note when a milestone is achieved. Motivation increases when we reach personal goals. On a day when you feel weary, pick up your journal and read about your achievements. Sometimes that is enough to get you into your running shoes and out the front door.

Motivation is all around you

Bill Shipley, fitness manager at Equinox Fitness in Highland Park, recommends that you look for things to motivate you and utilize those as much as possible. This could be anything from great workout music to a picture of yourself or someone else you wish to emulate. Inspiration can also be found within the pages of fitness magazines where you can read about people who showcase the strength of the human spirit. It is easier to get off your couch after reading about an extraordinary 80-year old triathlete defying the laws of aging or a wounded war veteran training for her first marathon.

Find a workout partner

One is the loneliest number. This is especially true when it comes to exercise. Find a workout partner who shares a similar fitness goal. This could be a spouse, a friend, a neighbor or someone you know from your gym. Set up a workout schedule with each other. It is more difficult to skip a workout when you know someone else is relying on you. Your partner can provide the extra encouragement you need on the days you struggle to head to the gym.