Be Fit Fitness Blog

Fitness in Ten Minutes. If you’re reading the title of this article and thinking, Bah, humbug, to yourself, I wouldn’t blame you. I’ve been there, done that myself. But that was only until I realized that there was more than a modicum of truth to this statement. Yes, it is possible to get fit by spending just ten minutes a day if you know exactly what you want to do and doing it diligently. So if you’re ready to take a trip down the road to fitness, continue reading.

Interval training:
This is the single most important aspect of fitness – to put it in a nutshell, it’s fast and furious. It’s great for people who have absolutely no time to spare but who want to stay fit. Interval training is simple – all you need to do is choose a cardiovascular exercise that you’re comfortable with, like cycling, running or swimming. Now let’s say you’ve chosen running – warm up for two minutes, then run as fast as you can for the next 30 seconds (or 1 minute if you’re up to it). Now slow down to a walk for the next 30 seconds, and when your heartbeat is almost back to normal, start sprinting again. Repeat this cycle for 10 minutes and you pack in a workout equivalent to an hour’s worth of jogging. By alternating bursts of high intensity exercise with periods of rest, you improve your fitness and stamina, and also lose weight.

Strength training:
Working out with weights helps you tone and strengthen your muscles, but there are some strength-training exercises that don’t require you to use weights. If you have ten minutes to spare, use them to do three sets of 12 squats each, and/or three sets of 12 lunge pairs (a single lunge on both legs counts as one lunge pair). If you have a pair of dumbbells, hold them in your hand to improve the intensity of your workout. These exercises will have your thighs and buttocks looking great in no time at all.

Active lifestyle:
If you spend half an hour watching television, use ten of those minutes to do your chores around the house. If you take the elevator to your office, get to work ten minutes earlier so you can take the stairs. And if you live close to your workplace, walk to and from your office. It takes a little time to get used to an active lifestyle, but once you get going, you’ll see that even ten tiny minutes is enough to make a difference in your fitness and weight.
Remember however, that you must try not to negate the positive effects of your ten-minute workouts by eating more than necessary. Eat every couple of hours so that your stomach doesn’t start to crave food and binge on unhealthy and fatty stuff. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, juices (without sugar), salads, and baked snacks (with low sodium) are healthy snack ideas in between meals. And while it’s ok to indulge your taste buds once in a while, not counting your calories could lead you to count much higher up on your bathroom scales.

By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Amy S. Cook, who writes on the topic of LVN to RN. Amy welcomes your comments at her email id: amy11s.cook@gmail.com

These days there are many different and new approaches to cardiovascular exercises. It’s a way to make cardio a lot more enjoyable and fun, while at the same time helping you to get in shape, stay in shape or lose weight in the process.

Quality gyms usually incorporate into their fitness classes these new exercise trends. The latest is Zumba. Actually, Zumba as fitness exercise has been around awhile, but I’ve noticed that more gyms are now creating fitness classes for it.

Have you tried it yet?  What do you think?

Summer has just ended and fall is here. During this season many people become less active, eat more and exercise less. A lot has to do with the fact that summer holidays are over! People are all back to work and their children are back to school. People are back to the normal routine of their daily lives.

Just because summer has come to an end doesn’t mean you have to adopt a more sedentary lifestyle. You should still exercise regularly and eat properly. Sure work and your private life will put more stress on you, just look at exercise as a way to escape any stress in your life.

Here are my recommendations to exercise and stay healthy now that summer has unofficially come to an end.

First of all, when it comes to exercise, set your goals. Decide what days are best for you to work out, how long you want to workout and stick to your goals. Avoid missing days because over time it will become a bad habit!

Vary your workouts so that over time they do not become boring or monotonous. Perhaps incorporate weight training, cardiovascular exercise or exercise classes like Yoga into your workouts. Even varying your weight training over time will produce better results for you and prevent you from getting bored.

Most importantly, pace yourself. You may want to do lighter workouts from September to December and then pick it up in the New Year. In this way, you don’t burn yourself out or get bored of exercising by the time spring rolls around. Also, a lot of people use summer as their workout endpoint. By this I mean, they want to look good for the summer. Sort of like a fiscal workout year end!

Also, sometimes it’s good to take a couple of weeks off in a year from your workouts. A lot of people do this during the summer. This way it gives you a chance to get away from the gym and feel refreshed when you get back to exercising.

These are just my recommendations to stay fit, keep your workouts interesting and effective and to remain healthy throughout the year!

Have you seen the recent commercial with LL Cool J? The one that compares him how he looked like in the past and how he looks now. It’s quite a contrast and a rather humorous commercial. If you haven’t, it’s the commercial where he is a weak-looking guy, with a squeaky voice and a low self-confidence trying to approach a girl at a dance or party.

If you compare him to the person he is now, it’s like night and day! He is self-confident and pumped to the max. He looks great and healthy!

You may be wondering how he accomplished this amazing transformation? Well, if you read LL Cool J’s book, you will get a better understanding. It may even shed some perspective on your life or your exercise workouts. In the book, he mentions that he was out-of-shape and his eating habits were very poor. He finally decided that it was time to hire a personal trainer Dave Honig and get-in-shape, change his life!

You may say that since he is a celebrity, he can afford an excellent personal trainer! You are partially correct, but nowadays there are many excellent online personal trainers at very affordable prices. In fact, if you are very motivated and willing to learn, you can even do it yourself. I have! It just takes time, a little reading, learning and dedication.

Anyway, with the help of Dave Honig, LL Cool J got himself on a workout routine and changed his eating habits. It didn’t take long for him to see results. He stuck to his exercise workouts and continues exercising today.

After achieving his fitness and health goals he decided to write Platinum Workout where he shares his exercise tips, knowledge and secrets. The book is loaded with lots of exercise photos and excellent descriptions of each exercise!

It just goes to show, if you are motivated towards achieving your fitness goals and lifestyle changes, you can!

I often see people at the gym keeping a diary or record of their workouts. Some people record their daily exercise workout in a small notebook, while others carry a big binder. Some people keep a record of the type of exercise they do and that’s it! Others keep a more detailed and meticulous account of the type of exercises they do, the number of sets and the number of repetitions as well.

I have to admit, I don’t do this. I tend to keep a record of my workouts in my head. The only problem with this is that, once in awhile, I may forget what I did the week before since I like to rotate my exercises.

This week I was thinking back to the fitness results that I achieved over the last four years. Trying to remember what I call “my best year” and the way I achieved it via exercise, nutrition and the supplements that I was using! I thought to myself that it would have been nice to write down in detail my workout routine. To be able to look back at any year and compare to see what I did! Also to make the record more meaningful, my fitness diary would have included the types and brands of supplements that I was consuming. I’m talking about when, how much protein powder, Glutamine and Creatine that I was consuming. This way I could see what supplements and combinations of supplements worked the best for me. To add to this, maybe make an additional note of my daily diet and nutrition would have been included.

I have to admit that such a fitness or workout diary would entail a lot of work. In the long-term, it could be very useful to compare and determine what types of exercises, how you did them and the supplements that you were consuming worked best for you.

So it’s a new year and you are thinking about getting in shape. Perhaps it’s a New Year’s resolution that you have already made in the past, but you never get around to achieving it, for whatever reason! Online personal training is an inexpensive and effective way for you to get in shape this year. You could also hire a personal trainer at the gym, but they will be a lot more expensive and if you do not choose the right person, you may not achieve the results you are looking for.

Who should you hire to help you with your fitness goals? You should look for someone who is knowledgeable and can customize a fitness program tailored to your needs. Someone who lives the lifestyle of what they do. By this I mean, a personal trainer who is in great shape, toned and lives a healthy lifestyle. If they can achieve personal results with respect to their own fitness goals, than they can obviously help you! You wouldn’t want to hire an over-weight personal trainer. In my opinion, they wouldn’t be able to effectively help you and they send you a wrong message which could be detrimental to getting you motivated.

One example of a online fitness program that can help you is owned by Chad. His new online fat loss and fitness program: Fast Track to Fat Loss has been helping clients to achieve amazing results as you can see from his photo:

and some of his current clients:

As you can see in this photo, Chad is in amazing shape (2nd from left) and so are his 4 clients. If he can achieve results like this for himself and his clients, then he can obviously help you at Fast Track to Fat Loss.

I was at the gym yesterday and they had this big poster up saying that the average person gains 8 to 10 pounds duing the holiday season. That’s a fast amount of time that so much weight can be put on! The reality is that it may be much more difficult to lose this weight after the holidays than it was to accumulate  for a lot of people.

My recommendations for the holiday season:

What I suggest that you do during the holidays is try to exercise at least twice a week. Gyms are relatively quiet during the holiday season and you should be able to do a quick workout in less time than it would normally take.

Watch what you eat. Try too avoid those very fatty, greasy foods and high-sugar content foods. Also, try not to over-eat.

Drink 1 to 2 cups of green tea during the holidays.

If you do end up putting on too much weight during the holidays, you can always try to lose the weight with natural supplements or with exercise. If you are not sure how to begin an exercise program, I recommend that you consult a fitness trainer who can create a customized exercise and nutrition program for you.

The two keys to succeeding with any of your fitness or weight loss goals, through exercise and of course proper nutrition, are motivation and support. There are of course some people who can embark on a fitness program all by themselves and achieve incredible success! While other people end up giving up because they really do need someone there to help, motivate and support them.

You’ve probably watched the reality show where the bride-to-be has to lose a given number of pounds before her wedding day in order to fit nicely into her dress. I’ve watched a few of the episodes. There are probably a number of different such fitness-themed reality shows on TV these days. Anyway, in this show, these brides are given strict customized exercise and nutrition plans. They are given exercise workouts which they must follow. They are also told to eat only what is recommended under their plan. Of course, in every episode the brides give in to the fatty foods and alcohol temptations. This is where the show’s personal trainer comes in and literally makes them pay by putting them through a tougher workout regimen. In the end, they all achieve their weight loss goals because they had someone there to help and encourage them.

This is what I mean when some people really need this extra motivation and supervision. This can be achieved by having a personal trainer, but you must choose your personal trainer wisely. There are great personal trainers and there are of course poor personal trainers. The only problem is that personal trainers are quite expensive!

There are also quality online personal training websites that can provide not only a personal trainer, but also nutritional experts at a fraction of the price. They not only motivate you, but also provide you with the necessary information tools and support to help you keep going and achieve your fitness and weight loss goals.

Welcome to my Be Fit fitness blog. This is a new blog, so over the next little while, I intend to provide you with exercise and fitness tips and my thoughts and feelings about various fitness topics.

In the meantime, check out my fitness story where I try to describe how staying in shape has been my lifelong goal and passion. I feel that if you are into sports and fitness at an early age, it becomes part of your lifestyle and a necessity. Exercise not only benefits your health, but it also benefits your mental state of well-being. On the other hand, if you bounce around from exercising to not exercising throughout your life, not only is it not healthy, but you are really not committed to staying is shape. It then becomes a burden for you when you feel you need to get back into shape. Consequently, it’s not an activity that you look forward to doing.

In my next blog discussion I will be talking about motivation as a key factor to your fitness success.