Many times, I have heard workouts being compared to relationships.  First you go through the “honeymoon phase,” where everything is new and exciting.  In time, this stage passes and you develop routine workouts.  Every day, it’s the same old thing, nothing new, nothing exciting.  Then along comes the boredom and just being comfortable with the workout.  That’s when you need to find a way to make your workouts fun and exciting again.

The question is — what is there to do?  Simple – rejuvenate, add excitement to your workout relationship and boost your metabolism.  Here are some tips:

• To burn more calories throughout the day and raise your metabolism, you need to weight train.  If you already weight train, you will eventually need to find a new routine.  You can make it as simple as lifting the weights at a different angle or adding a new type of lift to your routine.  Start using heavier weights.  The weights you use now may only be stabilizing the muscle you have.  If your muscle gets used to the weight, you will hit a plateau.  Try going to the point where you absolutely cannot do another repetition.  This is called fatiguing the muscle.  You can also do a set of lifting to fatigue and then each set after that reduce your weight for about three more sets.  Do the reverse and begin lifting lightweights and move up to the point of fatigue with heavier weights.  Try supersets.  This is where you pick a muscle, for example biceps, and you would do three sets of bicep exercises in a row without a break.

• If walking and running are just not cutting it, add some depth to spice up the workout.  Change your route to include hills.  If you are on a treadmill, use the incline button.  Find a hill or stadium stairs and repetitively run up and down.  Add intervals to the workout.  Walk for one minute and run for three minutes.  Add a different walking and running route.  Going the same direction day after day is boring.  Add a cardiovascular exercise such as swimming or aerobics to the routine.

• Eat breakfast.  Very, very, important.  Breakfast helps keep your metabolism up and gives you that boost to get you going for the day.  Those who forget to eat breakfast will tend to feel more worn down throughout the day and snack more.

• REST.  When people hit plateaus in their routine, they will tend to overdo it trying to get over their plateau.  Instead, people need to know that taking a few days off for recovery is as important as the exercise.

Making sure you are aware of your exercise routine and knowing that, at some point, you are going to have to change it to keep seeing results is important.  By changing your routine when you feel you have hit a plateau, you will be able to keep seeing results.