I have been a Yo-Yo exerciser for most of my life; someone who exercises in spits and spurts I would join the local gym, I used to think I knew what I was doing I would exercise with heavy weights in the hope of building muscle quickly to look buff in a few short weeks. All that would happen is that I would ache all over because of not doing things correctly and mentally condition myself to associate exercise with pain. How stupid was I, exercise is like a long distance hike, not a sprint, I know that now.As we see the days getting shorter the nights getting longer we turn our thoughts to winter and Christmas most of us think that getting in shape can wait until the new year, but this is such a wasted opportunity. The winter is great time to kick start your fitness and weight loss. Normally over the winter months, we find it easy to excuse ourselves from doing anything physical due to the cold.This is such a wasted period of the year but such a great time to get active. With the changing seasons, there is so much colour and beauty to appreciate. Walking is such a great way to ease you into exercise and to see nature in all its glory. Grab yourself some walking boots and start exploring the country side there is so much to see it's like exercising without formally exercising. The aim of exercise is to get your heart pumping faster and to burn fat and there is no better way to do that gently then hiking. If your not the outdoors type the gym could be the place for you over the winter months but there are a few things you should consider. Not all gyms are the best place to be if your getting back into exercise. Some can be full of the body building crowd while some may not find this a problem some may feel a little out of place within such an environment. When choosing a gym, have a look round, see what sort of people are there. You may find there are many people just like yourself, just trying to shed a few pounds and tone up. The most important thing is talk to the gym staff a lot of the good gyms will put together a personal training schedule for you to help you achieve your goals. Do not do what I used to do and try to speed up the process by going at it to intensely to quickly this will only de-motivate you Some people are lucky and never put on weight, eat what they like exercise very little but still manage to stay slime, alas I am not one of those and if your reading this I guess neither are you. Exercise is more mental then one might think its motivating yourself to just do it. Once you get over the habit of quitting it can be fun but its getting through the first two month of doing regular activity that can be the toughest. After that point it becomes a habit for your body, the body will start to enjoy the endorphins being released by the brain in response to you exercising and start to crave those feeling lick a drug addict on crack so get your self addicted to exercise and change your life today