A reader of my blog commented on yesterdays post, "Definitely--If you suck it up and actually work hard, you'll realize that it's NOT THAT BAD afterwords.Plus you don't have to spend 60 minutes on the treadmill every day.."
He makes a very good point especially in the last sentence about variety and weight loss. Why is it that when someone decides to lose weight they pick one activity and stick with it and nothing else? Whether it is walking, jogging, biking, "doing the machines" people choose an activity and stick to it. Now I admire their initiative to at least get up and begin a weight loss program, and frankly anything is better than nothing from a health perspective but you need to incorporate variety if you want to lose weight and improve your fitness level! Not only will doing the same activity all the time make you bored and complacent, turning it into a chore, but your body will adapt faster than you think. Once the adaptation process begins, your body becomes more and more calorie efficient at that activity. Bottom line, the more jogging, for example, you do the less fat you burn while jogging! How is that for unfair!
Well, there is a way around this adaptation process and keeping your body a fat burning machine. It is by using variety that you can keep your body guessing and inefficient at exercise. It may sound counter intuitive, but inefficiency is what we are after. To use the tired old cliche, you need to shock the body!
How can you incorporate variety into your fitness routine if you are not very knowledgeable about exercise? Simple, start with a brainstorming list and keep adding to it. Create a grab bag of sorts for exercise options that you are familiar with and could do easily. Here is a start:
wrestling little people (just kidding, they would probably crush me)
You need this sort of variety to keep the weight loss and fitness gains moving forward. Adaption is the enemy of fat loss so address it constantly. Ideally you would never do the exact same workout twice, ever! That is difficulty without a professional assisting you in your goals. There are lots of great videos and books you can purchase now that have high quality fat loss info in them. I would highly recommend spending some money on quality information as it will only help you achieve your goals faster. In the past I have used Personal Trainers, DVD's and many books to achieve my goals. Youtube.com is also a great resource for fat loss workout ideas, I it every day.
He makes a very good point especially in the last sentence about variety and weight loss. Why is it that when someone decides to lose weight they pick one activity and stick with it and nothing else? Whether it is walking, jogging, biking, "doing the machines" people choose an activity and stick to it. Now I admire their initiative to at least get up and begin a weight loss program, and frankly anything is better than nothing from a health perspective but you need to incorporate variety if you want to lose weight and improve your fitness level! Not only will doing the same activity all the time make you bored and complacent, turning it into a chore, but your body will adapt faster than you think. Once the adaptation process begins, your body becomes more and more calorie efficient at that activity. Bottom line, the more jogging, for example, you do the less fat you burn while jogging! How is that for unfair!
Well, there is a way around this adaptation process and keeping your body a fat burning machine. It is by using variety that you can keep your body guessing and inefficient at exercise. It may sound counter intuitive, but inefficiency is what we are after. To use the tired old cliche, you need to shock the body!
How can you incorporate variety into your fitness routine if you are not very knowledgeable about exercise? Simple, start with a brainstorming list and keep adding to it. Create a grab bag of sorts for exercise options that you are familiar with and could do easily. Here is a start:
As you can see the list is pretty endless and will lean towards the types of activities you enjoy. My general list is:
You need this sort of variety to keep the weight loss and fitness gains moving forward. Adaption is the enemy of fat loss so address it constantly. Ideally you would never do the exact same workout twice, ever! That is difficulty without a professional assisting you in your goals. There are lots of great videos and books you can purchase now that have high quality fat loss info in them. I would highly recommend spending some money on quality information as it will only help you achieve your goals faster. In the past I have used Personal Trainers, DVD's and many books to achieve my goals. Youtube.com is also a great resource for fat loss workout ideas, I it every day.
Here is a great video for a fat loss workout:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hE-xmegqDV4