Posts Tagged “exercise”

I was just writing a post of new years resolutions and realized that I had not taken a hard enough look at last year and what it brought me as well as my failures. I will list the downsides of last year first just to get them out of the way.

Over 2007 my fitness activity actually went down. The exercise that I have always enjoyed on my bike dropped as the year went on because I moved to a house that was a lot closer to work so my ride is shorter. One thing that has helped in this regard is that I have been riding a lot more days, still not enough in my opinion though to make up for the shorter ride. Another fitness issue has been my lack of weight training. This last year I was very on again off again about it and have not joined a gym because the distance is far to great for me to really make it worth my while. Lastly my eating although good also comprises some bad foods and that is one thing I will be working on this year.

I hate that part. This part is much better, my victories for 2007. In this last year I was really happy in my focus on fitness increasing, I at a lot better, I focussed on great thoughts instead of destructive ones and I strengthened my core (back and abs) more os I feel really good about myself. I got myself a new bike and although it was still under $250 it is much better than my sub $100 bike I rode for three years. I was able this year to spend more time with my family taking them to California and Disneyland in the Summer although I have to stil improve my work-family focus over the next year.

As far as this blog goes I am most excited with the fact that I moved from and old family subdomain to a whole new architecture (Wordpress) and domain of www.fitnesstipsforlife.com. Also since about the beginning of October I have posted everyday which for me proves to myself that I can be very consistent although I always think of myself as not.

Overall I am happy with how 2007 worked out. My family and work life are better this Jan 2nd than last and I think that I am more excited about this upcoming year than I have been in several years, this is a sign that I have forward running momentum I think.

Only one more post remains for this whole new years resolution stuff and I am ready for the new year anyway.

I know lots of people have talked in the last year about using a Wii for getting exercise but I sat on the sidelines, sad because I had no Nintendo Wii.

Well this has all changed now since I got a Nintendo Wii yesterday for the kids for Christmas. I am not sure if the Wii is really going to be a fitness machine but I am really excited about Christmas morning and trying this thing out.

I just ran across a site for a Wii workout called Wii Healthy. The site has a workout program that i will have to try and see how well it works.

Really the Wii looks like more fun than exercise but if you are moving then you are getting exercise right? Well I am sure we will soon se a bunch more Wii related “get in shape” type articles so it will again be fun to see since I can actually take part.

Now in response to everything that Nintendo has heard and seen about response to the Wii. Nintendo has come out with an actual fitness program called Wii Fit. The idea behind Wii Fit is that you get a board around 18 inches or so wide and do certain exercises on this and see yourself (or a reasonable facsimile of yourself) on the screen. You can also track your results as can everyone else in the family. I can imagine this whole idea scaling out where you can have fitness contests with other people online. Very exciting to be sure. Read the rest of this entry »

How can you be lazy and get in shape? Everyone that wants to get started, or is scared to get started working out and changing their diet to become more healthy thinks that it is a giant change in your life. I would like to warn you not to make too much of the changes that you need to make.

Sure you need to change your diet. Sure you need to exercise but to get started in a healthy lifestyle you do not have to do much more than eat better and get 30 minutes of exercise a day. The changes that you make have an immediate impact to make you feel better and to actually be healthier right away but you still have the opportunity to be lazy a lot of the time.

I remember the first time that a lazy attitude to exercise first hit me. A few years ago when I started running. I had never really run before and the guys that were experienced were giving me tips. Stretch, start slow and start getting faster every week, try to change my route to keep things interesting. And you know what the last, most important tip form the seasoned runners was. Don’t push yourself too hard. Don’t hurt yourself by running all the time as you get started.

When you start to exercise you are going to be working out a half hour each day, six days a week. This will not be running from dawn to dusk. The change in your life to fitness will mean that you will wake up and work out or work out in the evening for a half an hour to get yourself in better shape and then stretch. You can even do this watching TV. Last night I did exactly that.

The other big change is your diet. Is it really so hard to eat better? No, all you need to do to actually to make eating easier and more healthy is to cook your food ahead of time. If you spend some time making a few big meals on Saturday or Sunday and pack these up for meals for the week. Get some Oatmeal or something as healthy for breakfast that will start you day quickly and easily. Get some meal replacement bars (low cal as you get started) and you have the makings of a lazy way to start a great diet without the hassle of cooking all the time.

So do you believe it? You can start a lazy way to get in shape and still change your life for the better. Sure there is a time everyday that you will definitely not be lazy. If you get into action making food it will give you a bit of lazy time later. But, if you are smart, workout hard and eat right this lazy way will hep you to get in great shape without the stress that you have to give up everything in your life.

Everyone likes to have shortcuts to losing weight. Although as we all know the important things really are to have a good diet and to get exercise.

Having said this though there are times that you can make a real difference quite easily. Some people make such incredibly poor decisions that they can turn things around pretty easily. So for these people here we go.

1. Stop smoking - Smoking lowers the amount of oxygen that your body can get to your muscles. In fact if you quit smoking the amount of oxygen in your system will increase even within the first day. Some people smoke in the bizzare thought that by smoking you will eat less and although it is hard to eat with a smoke in your mouth, this will be counteracted by the fact that you will not have the energy to exercise and keep yourself healthy.

2. Don’t drink - Drinking alcohol will lower your metabolism and force your body to store more fat. I do not know the details of this but if you go about having a couple of beers every night then cutting these beers out will make a huge difference to how you feel, your outlook on life, and your chance to be motivated to workout in the evening. Read the rest of this entry »

Often things take a bit of time to take affect. Sometimes you do all the right things but see no results and change tactics, don’t do that ride it out instead.

When people start a new diet they get excited do all the right things and then in the first week they lose 5 pounds or so and are very excited with the results, then the next week comes and the only lose a pound or nothing at all and discouragement sets in.

You hear a lot about yoyo dieting, gaining and losing weight only to gain it back again and often this will happen because people become discouraged and don’t let the changes that they are making to take affect and change to a different type of diet. Although our bodies are complex and in many ways can change very very quickly, losing weight does not tend to be one of these things

If you eat all of the right foods and get the exercise that you need and then at the end of the week you have not lost any weight is it becasue the diet and exercise are not working? probably not. Often when you make big changes your body will start a bit of a backlash. You will retain water, your metabolism will slow down in fear of starvation or your body will just not have caught up with the changes. Often the diet and exercise changes that you make will not show up for a couple or even three weeks. Many of the bog diet companies know this. Jenny Craig only has you weigh in once a week as does Weight Watchers and Weight Watchers cautions people not to weigh themselves at all during the week. As you have probably noticed beofre your weight will fluctuate all over the place during a single day so any changes that you see are very hard to predict from week to week even.

Stay on a course doing the right things and give yourself at least a few months to see if you are tending in the right direction. Do not just take the scale into account but also look at how you feel, how your health is, how your energy is and how well you are sleeping. What you want out of any diet and exercise program is to improve all areas of your life, not just the bathroom scale

How long should you exercise? Experts say that you should exercise for at least 20 minutes a day. I don’t know about you but 20 minutes is not a long time to exercise. If you get up just 10minutes early and get 20 minutes of exercise the you will have to rush around and still get to work on time.

20 minutes for exercise is easy to find.

If you have dinner a few minutes early and then do the cleaning up and have your workout before starting your evening routine you will never miss the time. If you are really ambitious you can wolf down lunch and go for a walk or some other exercise at lunch.

20 minutes exercise twice a day for the extra ambitious

How about getting some exercise on the way to work. I feel blessed that I can ride my bike to work but soon the weather will turn too cold aqnd I will need to drive. But you can just park a few blocks from work and walk to work. After work you get that time to unwind walking back to the car or the bus or train.

Try to be creative. There are many ways to get exercise every day and if it is important you will find the way.

I have taken it a bit easy that last week and a half or so. I had access to a car for work, we had a long weekend up here in Canada and I was just being a bit lazy.

This week started on Tuesday with a very windy morning that continued to yesterday and I had some really tough riding.

This morning I got up and started getting ready for work. My wife asked me what all the grunting was about and I realized that I was having real trouble with sore legs. I had not noticed it yesterday but the riding in the wind after taking it easy had done it’s job to put my legs through the ringer.

I took a couple aspirin this morning, hopped on the bike to a breezeless  dark start to my ride and by the time I arrived I felt great.

I know that sometimes we get sore from our exercise and although I am not much of a fan of any pills other than regular supplements I sometimes find that aspirin will do the trick to make me feel better. If there is anything that will kill motivation quickly it is sore muscles. When you have sore muscles your body will come up with almost any excuse not to do what you need to.

Now that fall is in full swing and the baseball playoffs are winding down most of our exercise is going to need to take place indoors instead of the outdoors that it is so easy to do in the summertime. There are of course two kinds of exercise, weights and cardio.

First I want to apologize in advance to any hardcore weightlifters here. Most of this stuff is a bit of a review for you.

Sometimes I think that everyone of course lifts weights on at least a weekly basis. Of course this is not fair as most people, although well meaning, have never lifted weights in their life and are not about to join a gym to start lifting weights this week.

The simple fact is that the more muscle that you have the more calories that you body will need to burn in order to maintain your weight. This fact alone should make any person looking to lose weight to start looking at the gyms that they drive by.

The simple fact is that if you have never lifted weights just think of this time between now and the beginning of the New Year as the best time to start warming up to the idea of lifting weights. If you start lifting some kinds of weights at home then you can get stronger, build muscle mass and when the new year comes with all of the gyms giving great deals to join you will have a better idea if you want to join a real gym or not.

First of all I think that it is easy enough to get some light weights that you can start lifting with at home. Either look in the classifieds in your local paper or go to the local pawn shop or used sporting goods place and get some 5, 10, and 15 pounds dumbbells, women can probably get away with 2.5, 3, and 5 pound weights to start with.

So what if you have no weights at home? First of all are all of the regular calisthenics that we all know. You can do things like push-ups for your chest, shoulders and triceps, lunges for your legs, and sit-ups for your abs.

If you would like to start doing weights proper then you have many options. Look around the kitchen and you probably have some heavy bottles or cans that you can do bicep curls with, you have kitchen chairs that you can do front laterals with. There are many options and if you look around I am sure that you can improvise with what you already have.

I will write another article this week about what kind of workouts to do exactly but this week why not just try to find a few kinds of exercises that you can do around the house if you have no weights and if you can beg, borrow, or steal some weights it will make things a lot easier

I wanted to post this question and answer from the guy that created the Turbulence Training program because I know how many people just run through their cardio without doing it the right way. It is not a pleasant jog or a sprint you are looking for but instead something in between that you should strive for. Read on….

Question
I’ve been told to exercise in my “fat burning zone”. What’s the best cardio method for weight loss.

Answer:
Cardio is not the only solution.

Clearly it adds to the energy deficit and overall calorie balance that favors fat loss.

BUT it’s not the “be all & end all” of fat loss success - and that is anecdotally supported by the number of overweight distance runners.

I almost never recommend long, slow cardio…simply because no one I train or consult with has the time for this, and it doesn’t work any better than shorter, less frequent, more intense interval training sessions.

Five or six days of 45-minute cardio sessions in my fat-burning zone? Yeah right, like anyone has time for that.

If I told you that you could get the same results (or better, as recent research suggests) in three 20-minute interval sessions each week as you could from three or five 45-minute slower cardio sessions each week, which would you choose?

Yes, intervals feel about 10x’s harder than regular, slow, boring cardio. And yes, you won’t be able to read your people magazine when doing intervals. And you might breath a little heavy. So if you’re worried about sweating, than maybe fat loss isn’t for you.

But if you don’t mind going against the crowd, intervals are worth every second for the superior results.

Now here’s one reason why Turbulence Training may actually work better for women than men…

More women tend to start Turbulence Training after having spent months or years using slow cardio and light (if any) weights. And selfishly, I could not be any happier - because when these dedicated women start using the shorter, more intense strength and interval sessions they make rapid progress and make me look like a genius.

The accolades come pouring in…I have dozens of testimonials from women thanking me for saving them TIME while helping them finally breakthrough stubborn fat loss plateaus (and eliminating the pain from their overuse injuries that occurred due to high volumes of cardio). Their words make me feel like a million bucks because the Turbulence Training workouts are making these women feel like a million bucks.

Losing weight while watching TV seems like one of those nirvana type situations that would be great but very tough to figure out. For all of the couch potatoes that watch lots of TV everyday there has to be a way to watch TV every night and still lose weight. I laughed out loud, really out loud when I thought of this idea but it was a challenge to think of so here I am coming up with a training plan to lose weight while watching TV. So here are my ideas for how you could successfully lose weight while watching TV

1. Eat right - This is the toughest part of losing weight for many people. Night time is the time to snack and it is hard to measure how much you are eating when you are not lookin at your food but are instead just grabbing food and putting it in your pie hole.

Make sure that what you are eating is low cal by picking fruit like grapes which you can eat one at a time or  fruit salad with all of the different tastes that make you notice that you are eating. Also make sure that you are drinking lots of water as it will fill you up more than anything when you are always distracted by the show you are watching.

2. Exercise during commercials - First of all there are a few ways that you can exercise during the shows you watch but you will never do that anyway so be realistic and wait until the commercials. Have a pair of 5 pound weights dumbells that you can have sitting next to the couch. During commercial breaks you have about a two minute break and during this break you can  do a couple sets of weights. The weights that you will do are called supersets. First do 8-12 reps of shoulder presses and then 8-12 reps of alternating curls per arm. This is it for this commercial break but during the next commercial break you can do another couple of exercises maybe tricep kickbacks and one armed rows.

The reasons that you are doing weights is not because the weights will directly make you lose weight but the additional muscle that you will have will help you lose weight over time.

3. The missing cardio requirement - The real need that you have to lose weight as well as eating and weights is the need for cardio. Cardio exercise is critical and you cannot do it to help you lose weight while watching TV so my best recommendation is to decide that right before dinner or a half hour after dinner you should go for a bike, run or even a brisk walk so that you have a bit of time before sitting on the couch to have a shower and at the same time be confident that you did everything that you needed to to get yourself in just a little bit better shape then you were in the day before.