Step 3 - Weight Loss Exercise

If you don't exercise at the moment, then it's important that you start to include some form of exercise into your daily life if you want to get fit and stay fit. Exercise has many health benefits. Regular exercise will strengthen your heart and lungs. It helps to preserve lean body mass (muscle) and regulates your metabolism to help you burn more calories. It will also strengthen your bones and core abdominal muscles to give you a good posture and help to keep you looking younger for longer. Exercise releases endorphins, the bodies’ natural hormone that makes you feel happy and fulfilled. It also helps to reduce stress, which is a major contributor to many modern day illnesses. Some other benefits are that it improves the immune system to help protect against many diseases including cardiovascular disease, strokes, hypertension, diabetes and osteoporosis.

It is recommended that you do at least 30 minutes exercise everyday. By exercise, I mean a physical activity that increases your heart rate and breathing rate. That activity could be anything from gardening to free climbing. The choice is yours. But what ever you decide to do, make sure it's something you enjoy doing.

Cardiovascular (CV or Aerobic) exercise is important for strengthening your heart and lungs. For every ones benefit and to save confusion throughout the rest of this lesson, I will now refer to this type of training as CV.

Any exercise that increases your heart rate to between 60 and 90% of its maximum for a sustained period is sufficient. To get an idea of your maximum heart rate, subtract your current age from 220. So if you are 40 years old, your maximum heart rate should be in the region of 180 beats per minute (BPM). This is only a guideline to work with. You should really go by how you feel and not necessarily your heart rate. A good general test is the ‘Talk Test’. When you are in your Aerobic training zone you should be able to hold a normal conversation without being too short of breath. If you can’t do this comfortably, then ease off. The higher the intensity and the longer the duration of the exercise the more your heart and lungs are worked. 30 minutes per day is considered to be a minimum requirement. Cardiovascular fitness is defined as, the ability of the lungs to provide oxygen to the blood and the heart to transfer the oxygenated blood to the cells of the body. It can be measured by the ability of the body to sustain an activity for an extended period of time. This is the main type of exercise you would do to reduce body fat in combination with a healthy balanced eating plan.

Resistance exercise or training with weights is performed at a lower intensity. This type of exercise uses specific movements with weights (or another way of applying resistance such as bands) to target specific muscles in order to tone, strengthen or grow them. The main benefit of weight training is that it helps to reduce the depletion of lean body mass (muscle), which is unfortunately a natural part of the ageing process. Maintaining our lean body mass helps to keep us healthy by adding strength to our skeleton and burning more calories. So the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn. In short more muscle equals a faster metabolism, which equals less body fat.

Flexibility exercise or stretching enhances the ability to move joints through the full range of motion. Flexibility is very important to help muscles recover after exercise and also to prevent injury. As we get older, mobility gradually decreases, especially if we don’t use it. So it’s important to keep flexible so that we maintain full use of our joints. Even everyday movements that we take for granted when we are younger, such as getting up from an armchair or getting in and out of the bath can become more difficult as the years pass. Regular flexibility training will help to maintain full joint movement to slow down the aging process.

Now there are a whole range of activities, sports and exercise that you can do, but you need to pick the right ones to compliment your goals. For example, if your goal is to run a marathon, its pointless spending time in the gym just training with weights. The opposite is also true; to become a power lifter you wouldn’t spend hours every night pounding the streets to improve your physical strength. Remember the term, ‘Fit for what you do!’

Let’s pick an example that most people can relate to. If your goal were to achieve a slim toned body for your next summer beach holiday then your exercise program would include a combination of Aerobic exercise to burn excess body fat and improve your overall cardiovascular fitness. A weight-training program specified at building & toning lean muscle & a flexibility-training program to help reduce injury and aid muscle recovery.

Depending upon your current circumstances and physical condition, this may take longer for some people than others. So be prepared. Realize exactly where you are.

In order to get the best results from your Cardiovascular let’s look at a sample exercise program that you try in your own home that would compliment the above example. The following exercise program will help to improve overall fitness levels and physical appearance by toning muscles and targeting fat loss.