First and foremost you will want to come up with a reasonable plan of how you are going to attack the whole idea of getting into good physical condition.
Think about it: you wouldn't run off and start a business or corporation without first at least doing some sort of planning.
Rather than just jumping right into it like that, you would likely want to think about some of the most important factors, such as what direction you want your business to go in, and where you would want it to be located, and what you would envision the business accomplishing within a reasonable time frame.
You should basically treat your work out plan in the same manner, and use careful planning before you even start.
Whether you are just starting out with exercising, or you already exercise and are just trying to raise the bar a bit and improve some aspects of your physical appearance or endurance, you will need a plan, plain and simple.
And you will need a realistic plan that you can actually stick to, otherwise it is not going to do you much good at all, since you will likely get sick of it, or worse yet, give up on it entirely after a few weeks.
When it comes to working out, whether it be cardio exercise to lose weight, or building masses of solid muscle, you first have to figure just why you want to get yourself into shape to begin with.
Is it because health issues such as heart disease etc.
runs in your family, and you want to minimize the chances of suffering the same fate as some of your relatives? Or perhaps you can't quite keep up to speed with your children, or even some of your grand children? Or worse yet, have you ever tried to get up out of a chair and had your pants literally split apart, right in the middle of public? Regardless of the reason why you want to get fit, you should definitely at least come up with a reason why you want to do it, or even a SET of reasons.
However, what ever the reason(s) for you wanting to beat yourself into shape, make sure that you are doing this for yourself, and no one else.
The easiest and best way to formulate your fitness plan is by setting achievable goals.
These goals can be just about anything, but setting a specific number of a certain repetitive work out seems to work the best.
But before you start doing this, first test your physical fitness to some degree, so that you can get an idea of what to reasonably expect of yourself first.
Then, after you are ready to start setting some goals, perhaps you could start with doing 25 sit ups per day, give or a take a few, depending on your physical condition.
The great thing about goals is that you can always challenge yourself to beat them each day, at least if you go for actual numbers as we just talked about.
However, be careful not to set the bar to high to soon; just ease into things and keep your goals reasonable.
This is the key factor to actually sticking to your goals, and sticking to them for years to come, rather than just for a few weeks.