Today I'm going to write about a topic that I know all of us have lots of questions about and the question is do you really have to exercise if you want to work out? And I'm going to follow that up by the different types of exercises that you could possibly do if you want to lose weight.
So the second question is what type of exercise should I do if I want to lose body fat? So let's start by saying that exercise is always recommended. Getting your body moving getting your joints moving it's always a fantastic thing to do.
It's good moving your body walking maybe jogging a little bit because there is a fluid called the synovial fluid that isn't all the joints of your body. And this is basically a lubricant that keeps everything moving smoothly all of your joints working properly together gliding over top of each other instead of grinding against each other.
You can think of it as being like the oil that you put in your car to keep the engine running smoothly and flowing properly. Without the oil the engine just went up grinding together and literally destroys itself.
So if you don't keep this synovial fluid pumping in your body you wind up having bone on top of bone in your joints and things like that and it causes arthritis. So that's one reason why you really want to exercise especially walk almost every day of the week almost every day of your life.
In fact in the countries is where people walk 1 hour after their dinner it seems like they have the longest life expense expectancy they lived the longest and they are actually the healthiest that they grow older compared to countries where most people are sedentary and they just sit down and stuff your face all day long.
Exercise is also good for your cardiovascular health. It helps keep your heart healthy. Your heart needs to pump blood throughout every muscle ligament and tissue in your body. And because of this you want to make sure that you were fairly active. You want to move around you want to have some periods where you're doing high-intensity stuff to really get your heart pumping and pounding and it just pushes the blood through your body and then you also want to do some exercise where you're just flowing nice and smoothly just keeping at a steady pace you don't need to get your heart rate pounding through the roof.
Most of the week, for me I like to do low intensity type of exercise just keeping my heart pumping smoothly at a steady rate and two or three times a week I like to kick it up a notch and do some high intensity of stuff. This way my heart is able to pump lots of blood through my body when I need it like especially during times of stress and strain both physically and mentally and emotionally.
People don't realize it but emotional stress can give you a heart attack just as easily as doing lots of physical stuff and overloading your heart. Being Physically Active walking or riding a bike is awfully beneficial mentally and emotionally. I always know that I do when I walk first thing in the morning I am always a little bit more relaxed for the rest of the day and calms me down. In a way it censors me with the universe. It's nice to walk in the neighborhood on a beautiful day when the sun is shining, the birds are singing and everything is good.
I just feel good and it's relaxing and it allows me to really notice how beautiful the world is and how nice people are. It's nice when I'm going for a walk around the neighborhood and I see young children playing together and everyone is getting along beautifully.
Neighbors and friends, every one is laughing - everybody's having fun everybody, is helping one another. And this also helps physiologically because it increases the Endorphin levels in our bodies. And the endorphins are your body's natural feel-good chemicals. S
o instead of taking that Xanax go for a nice 60 Minute walk if you can and just relax calm down and you will be amazed at how good you feel after that walk and you may not need to take that Xanax.
So for me this really helps it helps me deal with all the stress and strain of everyday life. For weight loss it does help burn fat. When you do the low intensity cardio it takes about 30 minutes for your body to burn all the sugar from the food you have eaten and all the beverages you have drank over the course of the day the burn out of your body and then finally at minute 31 your body finally starts burning your body fat is starting to finally starts burning fat calories.
Well depending on how healthy you are and how physically fit you are the type of exercise that you should be doing definitely is dependent upon your Fitness level. If you're just starting out you definitely just went to start walking a little bit. Maybe walk 10-15 minutes a day I at a relaxing pace. And that's all you really need to do just to get started. I see so many people when they start exercising for the first time they go out there by the latest and greatest running shoes, expensive running pants. They buy heart rate monitors and Fitbit for their smartphones and all this crazy stuff they spend a ton of money and then they go try to run 10 miles the first time they get out there.
This is totally ridiculous - it is totally insane. You cannot go from being a couch potato and then turn yourself into an Olympic Athlete and one day just by buying all of this amazing gear. So just get your good self a great pair of walking sneakers I just talk for 10-15 minutes when you were first starting.
And then overtime you could add I add minutes to your walking time gradually over time. You can go from 15 minutes of walking to 20 minutes of walking were there 25 minutes of walking. But you don't want it from being fat or overweight and not physically active to running 20 miles a day or at least trying to run 20 miles today. You're going to give yourself a heart attack doing something stupid like that. So be smart and take it slow. You slowly once you begin your exercise program and you must discuss it with your family medical doctor first. You want to start out slowly with your exercise especially if you have health problems like diabetes, hypothyroidism the also high blood pressure. Doing too much can definitely put you at risk for some significant health problems. So we first talked with your medical doctor to get the OK and then slowly start your exercise. Now if you are physically fit then you can go ahead and do the more intense type of exercises but again you want to discuss this with your family doctor first. For the low intensity exercise as I usually recommend walking or riding a bike you can walk outside like I do enjoy the beautiful sunny day or you could walk on a treadmill and the other thing you can do is ride a bike outside or you can ride a stationary bike inside. For the more intense type of exercises are a lot of different exercise routines that you can possibly do.
If you like walking outside running outside jogging outside doing sprints outside that's a great way to get some high-intensity work done outside. If you're inside you can do an elliptical machine, you can do a stair stepper you can even do a little bit of sprinting on the treadmill or something like that. But just be careful on the treadmill that you don't lose your balance and whined up falling and doing a face-plant on the machine and injuring your face than other body parts. You really want to pay attention when you were on the treadmill you want to not be distracted and you want to make sure you have your balance at all times.
Don't play around when you are on a treadmill you can get seriously hurt if you're not paying attention. You can also do other type of exercises with rubber bands and rubber tubing, you can lift weights, you can use kettle-bells, dumbbells and even barbells. For me I like doing bodyweight exercises.
So you can do a lot of different things you could do high intensity interval training with jogging in place, doing burpees, doing high power squats, doing jumping jacks, sprinting up the steps on your health, doing push ups Kama planks handstands yoga stretching in a multitude of other exercises that you can do just with using your own body. It It amazes me that you can build a really spectacular physique just by using your own body weight and just by being creative and putting forth the time and effort to do it. What I do nutritional consultations with people lots of people tell me yeah I joined the gym so I'm going to exercise. But my question was do your exercise not do you plan on exercising or do you hope to be exercising. And to be honest just because they joined the gym does not mean they're going to actually be exercising. S
o for me I suggest that most people do their exercise at home. It's a lot easier because you don't have to drive there with Jim and you don't have to wait on line for machines and equipment. It's funny by the time I drive to my closest gym I could do a whole 20 or 30 minutes exercising routine at home and be finished before the time I would arrive at the gym if I drove there. So do yourself a favor be creative and exercise at home.
But if you like being with other people in the gym type of environment or health spa then go ahead spend the money and join the gym. So I've covered some high intensity reasons and different types of high-intensity exercise then I will also cover the reasons for doing low intensity type of exercises and also reviewed some different type of low intensity exercises that you could actually be doing everyday.
Now the question is do you really need to be exercising to lose weight? An answer for that is quite honestly no you do not need to be exercising if you want to lose weight.
It makes losing weight a lot easier. And with that being said if you're following a diet 100% perfectly you should be losing weight but if you are not going to be following a good weight loss nutritional plan exactly the way that your weight loss doctor has given it to you then doing some type of exercise everyday or possibly every other day is a good thing to do.
Doing any type of exercise makes up for any mistakes that you might have in your nutritional plan. And if you are following your nutritional plan perfectly and you decide to exercise along with it you will lose even more body fat.
So for my weight loss and diet clients I definitely recommend that they engage in some type of physical exercise even if it's just walking but it's totally not necessary 100% of the time if you do want to lose body fat.
I actually tell my weight loss clients in a perfect world I would have them walking 60 straight minutes every day, 7 days a week but if they are not able to promise me 7 days a week I asked him to promise me 4 days a week of walking or riding a stationary bike.
Most people can find the time in their life to do this especially if you were serious about losing weight and getting healthy.
If you have to exercise everyday than I definitely suggest you continue with a low intensity cardiovascular training like walking and riding a bike. But if you are short in time you may have to consider performing high intensity interval training otherwise known as HIIT.
HIIT works really well when you are short on time; these type of high intensity interval training workouts are very efficient. T
hey do not take a lot of time to do properly and they give you a totally exhausting work out. You have to make sure that you are giving one 110% in your effort though so that is the only drawback that in order for them to be truly effective you have to go full-throttle.
These type of workouts are totally exhausting but it's physically and even mentally stimulating because you have to have the mental capacity to push yourself to the total extreme.
The great thing about them is that they only take about 15 minutes or 20 minutes to perform and you should only do this type of exercise routine 2 times a week or at the most three 3 a week. T
hey work a different metabolic pathway then doing the lower intensity type of exercise training. Like I said earlier in this article that in order for your body to just burn body fat the low intensity training is probably best especially if your goal is to burn body fat and conserve muscle mass. But if you're looking to burn fat and you don't care if you are gaining muscle and extra body weight then you should consider this type of training.
With HIIT, you will gain muscle and the scale does not decrease; meaning your body weight does not decrease with this type of exercise routine. The high intensity interval training is a good thing if you want to increase your muscle mass and have a more athletic looking physique.
So if you don't have the time to spend 4 or 7 hours a week in the gym this is a good alternative. But like I previously have said I enjoy the best low intensity training type of exercising by just walking outside and enjoying my neighborhood.
But some people feel that they need to go to the gym whenever they work out. So it's totally up to you, whichever you decide to do. You can give the high intensity interval training a try in the gym or you can do it in your neighborhood, you can do it in your backyard if you have space or you can do it at a local park or a recreational facility.
These high-intensity interval training workout routines usually incorporate your entire body. You can just do some type of calisthenics or bodyweight exercises You can sprint or you can use equipment in the gym that's the beautiful part about this type of training is that it is so diverse you can do so many different things to push your body to the maximum extreme. Most people seem to like focusing on the core musculature, working their entire body at one time.
Doing full body movements like planks, burpees, lunges Kama, power jump squats, etc... These type of high-intensity training sessions work your cardiovascular system and your muscles as well.
Of course before you start any type of exercise routine you want to discuss it with your family medical doctor and get his approval or her approval that it's okay for you to do this type of exercise.
So we are just going to assume that you have gotten the OK from your family medical doctor and you are able to do these types of exercise routines.
Let's start by warming up. I usually like to spend about a good 8 - 10 minutes to warm up just stretching my muscles and getting the blood flowing throughout my body. So after a good 10-minute warm-up u12 perform approximately 5 minutes or six minutes of the high intensity interval training exercise series.
So depending on what you have available you could work out almost anyplace anywhere. If you are on vacation, if you're on a business trip really doesn't matter. What I'm going to do is give you a couple different ideas for different types of high intensity interval training tape for programs that you could do.
OK, for the first exercise routine we are going to keep it basic.
Let's start with the most simplistic one and that's basically just sprinting. If you have the space you can basically just Sprint just run as fast as you can for about 30 seconds or even 1 minutes and then after that all you really have to do is just walk and recover but don't you sit down you want to keep on moving keeping your blood flowing throughout your body.
Now if you are physically fit you should probably just walk for about 1 minute or so but if you're out of shape I would not suggest starting with the Sprint thing I would suggest riding a stationary bike so let's assume that you are physically fit and looking to kick up your exercise routine so we're going to start with the one-minute Sprint followed by one minute of walking to recover and we call this active rest so after that one minute of rest you want to go ahead Sprint again for one minute and then walk and recover for 1 minute and then Sprint for 1 minute and then finally recover for 1 minute walking after that you want to of course let your body cool down so for me I just continue walking until I feel that my heart rate is back to normal.
Now instead of doing this type of routine outside you can do it in the gym or in the comfort of your own home on a treadmill you would basically keep the time intervals of the same and just do it at home.
If you do not have a treadmill you can't even do this on the stationary bike and to be totally honest with you I prefer doing this on a stationary bike instead of a treadmill just because I think that it's more safe to do this type of high-intensity sprinting and running program not really on the treadmill but outside and if you're going to have to do short high-intensity bursts I would rather you doing on the bicycle.
Another routine would be to do your warm up and then basically do jumping power squats and that's basically doing a bodyweight squat down and then power jump up as high and as hard as you possibly can do this for 30 seconds and then after that 30 seconds just walk around the room for another 30 seconds letting your body recover and then repeat the sequence and you want to do this for a total of 6 minutes and then of course you want to have your cool-down period of course you can substitute any other type of plyometric core body weight type of exercise in place of the power squat I just happen to like doing them.
So of course I know one of the questions that you have is "How do I stay motivated to do all of this exercise to accomplish my weight loss goals?" A
nd I have to tell you that I have done a lot of looking inward And discussing things with a lot of weight loss clients trying to find out what really is the best way to keep people motivated and I'm going to give you a few tips on how to keep your motivation to accomplish your weight loss and physical fitness goals.
Now just going for a 15 or 20 minute walk once or twice a week is it really all that difficult to do so you don't have to reach down to the internet from your soul to be motivated to do this but if you really want to make changes to your body you really should make a total commitment to making changes and that takes effort and that takes dedication so if you are looking to accomplish major changes and improvements in your body I suggest you continue reading and hopefully you will gain some help from these tips.
I cannot say it any other way but if you are going to accomplish your weight loss goals if you are going to be making changes to your body then you really have to have dedication and commitment you're going to have to do things day after day week after week like following your nutritional plan and even exercising. You were going to have to do this even when you don't want to but sticking to your plan is the only way to achieve your goals. So let's try to get some inspiration and let's try to keep this plan going for more than the first two or three weeks we really want to make this a lifestyle change so that these results stay with us for our entire life.
These are some tips that are going to give you a motivational boost to achieve all of your goals. Let's start by making a board of inspiration. We need to have an inspirational board or a wall somewhere on her home that when we look at it it'll give us everything that we need to get out of bed, to exercise, follow the diet plan and say no to all of the Sweet Treats than we would normally indulge in during the course of the day.
We should really try to keep this in a room that we see it almost all of the time. Personally I have pictures that I have cut out of magazines of people's bodies who presently look like what I want to look like. So I set them on the board and I have that as my inspiration. Because I know if these people can do it that I certainly can.
And I had people in different Fitness levels I have some people that are super clean and super shredded and I have them posted as my ultimate goal and I have pictures of some people that are physically fit but not super lean mean and ripped and shredded.
So I have set up a timetable of a transition physique going from starting to losing weight and then evolving into a person that has a totally great body. On this board I put little Post-it notes when I achieve some positive goals. When I hit my weight loss goal if I'm able to do a particular exercise for an increasing repetitions or run a greater distance I put little victories that I have accomplished on these boards to try to provide motivation on a daily basis.
I even have some of these little Post-it notes on the mirror in my bathroom so when I'm shaving I look at these little inspirational quotes these victories that I have and I even have pictures of the type of physics that I want on there so I am constantly reminded of the type of body that I want ultimately.
Another trick is to keep my enthusiasm for exercising to keep my motivation fired up is to mix up my routine. There are certain exercises that are really love the dough and I could do them every day but I have tried this and believe it or not they do become boring so every couple days I try to mix up my exercise routine I try to keep myself mentally stimulated and from everything that I've read it's also a good idea to switch things up because it keeps your body constantly changing and evolving.
Your body eventually adapt to the routines that you are doing and it stops making improvements your physique will actually stop evolving so every couple days try to mix up your exercise routine to keep your body improving each and every week.
Now this does not mean that you should not exercise, it just means that you should change up your exercise routine.
Also with my diet I find that I usually do better when I have the same breakfast lunch and dinner each and every day but sometimes this can get boring too and sometimes if you eat too much of certain foods your body may actually develop an allergy to it so for me personally I might have the same breakfast if 3 days in a row and then I'll mix it up in the same goes for lunch and dinner.
Personally for me I try to have some good healthy fish for dinner. I specially like the fatty fishes like sardines and Cod because they're good healthy protein and good healthy fat in the fat helps decrease the sugar levels in our body and this is especially important as we get past the age of 35.
You also have to keep changing the intensity levels of your exercise routine to some days you want to really kick up the intensity and then of course you want to lower the intensity levels after that because you need to give time for recuperation and healing.
If you don't give your body the proper time to heal and recuperate you were going to wind up burning your system out and being sick and that's not a good thing so make sure that you follow your period of high intensity interval training with periods of rest and make sure you're giving your body lots of good nutrition to heal your body to burn body fat and to build good quality lean muscle ligaments and tissues.
One of the best tips that I can give you is to set up goals that are achievable. Instead of saying, okay I need to lose 50 pounds let's first say I want to lose 10 pounds and then when have dropped those 10 pounds of of body fat then we pat ourselves on the back and give ourselves a little treat.
Whether it's buying a new pair of shoes, new clothing or even having a slice of delicious cheesecake make sure that your give yourself an award for achieving your goals.
I find that it's always easier to set up these little short-term goals and gradually achieve them and have my victories rather than making an insane goal of losing 100 pounds in 30 days and never getting these results and then being depressed and miserable and whined up blowing my diet and wind up eating terribly food and stopping all the exercise unwind of gaining all the weight back.
So let's set our goals for losing 10 pounds at a time and every time we lose that 10 pounds let's give ourselves a little victory celebration.
And of course when you achieve these victories you want to post them on your board and make a big fuss about it put different color paper is highlighted and also Circle it and throw a little mini party for yourselves and remember how good it feels achieving these goals and always remember that these little victories are going to add up to a humongous win over the course of time.
Now I know some of you are going to tell me that you have read on this blog that weight loss is really at least 98% nutrition and that exercise is not really necessary if you want to lose weight. But I have also said that exercising makes up if we do not follow our diet for weight loss plan 100% perfectly and I have also said that exercising provides other benefits besides just burning calories and losing weight. Performing any type of physical exercise helps improve our overall health and it should actually help keep you sharp mentally; meaning it improves your mental health as well.
So if you are looking to be in the optimal condition but physically and mentally you owe it to yourself to incorporate some type of exercise into your lifestyle.
Lots of people think that there's just not enough time during the day to find time to devote to themselves. I have felt the same way over the years being a parent and a husband and having to work to provide for my family is a tremendous task. And then trying to find the tie to be a good father and a good spouse on top of all the time I have to spend working to provide for my family more often than not seem to be an insurmountable task.
But I finally realize that if I wasn't healthy I would be not only hurting myself but my family as well. So I finally decided to take the time and take care of myself.
Personally I like to set targets for myself in life and I really had to convince myself so I tried to make a list of all the things that would improve if I did start to exercise.
And here are a few things I learned really helps when you exercise regularly: improved the possibility of prolonging my lifespan, it increased my overall physical endurance and mobility, it helped me mentally - it put me in a better mood and it allowed me to focus more on the jobs at hand during the course of the day, it improved my muscle tone and reduced my stress; and I read some studies that show that exercise increases your bone density in addition to improving your muscle density, that actually decrease the chances of getting certain types of cancers, it also helps with decreasing the chances of becoming diabetic and developing weight loss resistance syndrome or insulin resistance syndrome and improves the overall cardiovascular health and gave me a healthier heart and also helps you lose weight.
So you can see there are a multitude of benefits for regular exercise. One of the things that I hear quite a bit for weight loss clients is that they are too old.
Well I have to tell you that your age is not an excuse. I have some weight loss clients that are over 60 years old and believe it or not they got up and then go for a walk. Yes that's right walking is considered exercise. So get out there and walk that's all you have to do and it's the best possible exercise for you if you are looking to increase your overall health and wellness.
I have many Weight Loss clients that come to me and tell me that there relationship with their spouse has actually gotten better since joining our weight loss program. That's because they are walking together either first thing in the morning or after dinner at the end of the day. They found that after walking for about 15 minutes there endorphins kick in and they feel nice and relaxed than they have such a lovely and pleasant conversation with their significant other.
If you have read any of my other articles you know that I really like to walk outside in this is my primary type of exercise so I am definitely going to recommend that you go for a walk outside and if you can do it first thing in the morning before breakfast you will burn more calories and burn more body fat plus you'll get some wonderful sunshine and being out in that early morning son just does tremendous things for you both mentally and physically.
And I know after I walk first thing in the morning I am so relaxed that whatever comes to me during the course of a day I am so well-equipped to handle it. But if you don't really have enough time and you have to exercise at the end of the day that's perfectly fine just make the time and do it it doesn't matter if it’s first thing in the morning if it's sometime during the day between breakfast and dinner or even if it's after dinner just as long as you get out there and do something as long as you are moving you are on your way to losing weight and being healthy.
There you have it. An entire plan for losing weight and getting fit and healthy.