To be successful at losing weight you must incorporate exercise into your life. You can burn approximately 2500 calories a week through exercise. That is the weekly equivalent to 60 minutes of intense circuit training.
You must be consistent and determined to make exercise a habit. Many people don't follow through with exercise because they make excuses. Here are some tips to help you stay motivated and keep pushing yourself to exercise daily.
Get rid of excuses. How many of you make excuses for not exercising? Here are a few examples I have heard: "I'm too tired.", "My knees hurt.", "I don't have time.", and "I can't afford it." are a few. Does this sound like you?
Find something you love to do that will motivate you to continue exercising. I love going to Muay Thai Kickboxing, it is a difficult workout that works not only my mind but my heart and my entire body. Boxing is another great workout it is fun, and it works your total body and your heart. Run a marathon for a great cause. I participated in the Race for the Cure this year and I loved every minute of it. Not only was it a great workout for me but I was helping a great cause. I would love to have a Skinny Mom team this year. Strength train, find a partner and hit the weights. I just started strength training and I absolutely LOVE it! Strength training burns fat and builds muscle by boosting your metabolism and increasing the amount of caorie burning muscle. I'm not saying become a massive beast, I'm saying build, tone up, and burn fat.
Finding a partner to workout with will motivate you to make it to the gym or exercise in your home. This way you have someone to push you and you're less likely to back out when you know someone is waiting on you.
Exercise boosts your energy, builds your immune system, lifts depression, helps protect you from heart attacks, and it will extend your life. Most people who make exercise a part of their daily life can often eliminate prescription drugs for high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, and and minimize the symptoms of POCS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome).
Burning calories makes you lose fat. Combine healthy eating with consistent exercise and you are setting yourself up for success. Exercise helps maintain muscles to keep your metabolism moving. When you diet and remain inactive you will use up your muscles and your metabolism will slow down. You don't need to workout 1,2,3 hours a day. You can workout for 30 minutes but you must put 100% into a 30 minute workout for it to be effective.
Make time for exercise. Again stop the excuse, "I don't have time." There are 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. You can squeeze in 3 hours a week to workout. One way to do this is by taking your family calendar and write down all the activities for the week, once you have done this then you know what days and times you can workout. Write your days you plan to workout on the calendar in pen and consider this as important as an appointment with the doctor. It's time to start taking care of you! Sneak in quick exercises at your children's practices. I used to run around the soccer fields while my son practiced. You might even encourage other moms when they see your motivation to get fit. Do family activities on the weekend like a game of kickball or softball. Better yet while you're watching your favorite TV show get on the treadmill or stationary bike and you'll be amazed at how quick a half hour goes by.
Mix things up a bit. If you get bored easily mix it up. Changing your routine is good for your body. Your body will eventually get used to your workouts and you will stop seeing results. You have to change it up and keep your body guessing.
How do you get started? Simple, start out doing 10 minutes on the treadmill the next time add another 10 minutes until you are up to 40-60 minutes. Set a goal to work yourself up to more time. Take little steps each day but be faithful in working out.
Showing posts with label Excuses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Excuses. Show all posts
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tips and Tricks for Successful Weight Loss
Here are some helpful tips and tricks to help you reach your goals.
Step 1: You need to reach way down into your heart and soul and truly admit you have a weight problem. Don't deny it any longer and make the decision to lose weight. This will help you set your mind to your goals and really focus on the road ahead.
Step 2: Stop making excuses! Don't say I will workout tomorrow and I will eat better tomorrow. It's time to start eating healthy and living healthy today regardless of if it's convenient for you or not!
Step 3: Build a team. If you are part of my Skinny Mom Challenge you have reached this goal. Use your team as a way to support you and push you. This team is here to help you learn and everyone is struggling with the same issues you are. Also your family, friends, coworkers, trainers, exercise partner, and husbands can all be a part of your team. Having support will keep you on track and help you reach your goal.
Step 4: Clean out your pantry, office, car and wherever you stash food. If it's bad for you and you know it get rid of it! Don't leave foods that will tempt you and sabotage you from reaching your goals. These items will cause you to overeat. Replace bad foods with healthy choices like, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats and low-fat dairy foods.
Step 5: Set goals and realistic ones at that. Break your goals down into smaller goals. Here is what I did and this is what I encourage all of my Skinny Moms to do. My weight loss goal was to lose 43 pounds so I took 43 pounds and divided it by 2. The 2 is for 2 pounds of weight loss each week. This is a healthy and realistic goal to achieve. This told me it would take me 21.5 weeks to achieve my goal as long as I was 100% committed to reaching my goal. Then I divided my BIG goal into 4 little goals. I broke the numbers down and decided my fist 8 weeks I wanted to lose about 15 pounds. This way I wasn't focusing on the big number. If you focus on the total weight loss you will be more likely to give up because it seems so hard to reach.
Step 6: Make daily changes to reach your long term goals. You can do this by making little steps for example eat extra fruits and vegetables a day, try a different exercise routine, work out an extra 30 minutes a day, play a game with your kids that is active like kickball or ride bikes. Focus on the day to day tasks not the big picture!
Step 7: Set up you calories. The best way to learn what calories you should be consuming based on what you are trying to achieve is visit www.webmd.com. On this sight there is a BMI calculator and you can enter in your age, height, weight, gender, pant size, goal weight loss and what type of activity level you are working at currently. This site will tell you what your BMI is, your calories you should be eating and what it will take for you to lose up to 2 pounds per week. Once you have your calories stick to them! Don't eat less than what you are supposed to eat. Why? Because when you eat less your body believes you are starving yourself and it will go into an emergency mode and store all of your fat just so it can survive. Think of your calories as a checking account balance. Do you want to spend your money on foods that will not fill you up and that are unhealthy or would you rather feel satisfied. Don't waste your calories on drinks! Yes, there are calories in drinks and if you didn't know this then I suggest you start reading labels.
Step 8: Plan to be active at least 35-60 minutes a day. If you are going to only work out for 30-35 minutes then make sure it is a very intense workout so that you are effectively burning calories. You cannot lose weight just by eating healthy sorry, it's time to get off of the couch and start taking control of your life.
Step 9: Don't worry about setbacks! When I first began my weight loss journey my first couple of weeks I didn't see the scale move at all. I was discouraged at first because I didn't understand how I could be working out 6 days a week and the scale wasn't moving. Well what I wasn't paying attention to was my clothes were getting loser and I was losing inches! Just remember it's not always going to be an easy journey. You will cry and want to stop but you need to make sure you remember YOU CAN do this and YOU WILL! Never give up and remember you have friends and other challengers here to push you.
Step 10: JOURNAL! This is a big one and if you're like me I tend to hold a lot in. Don't! Let everything out in a journal because this will help eliminate stress and stress causes weight gain. Trust me I know three years of stress and depression and I packed on 43 pounds to show for it. I want to write in your journal as much as you can and I encourage you at least once a month to go back and read some of your past journal entries and see how far you have come. You won't believe it when you do. You will become so much stronger mentally just by releasing all that you have in your head and you'll notice things won't be seem so difficult.
Step 1: You need to reach way down into your heart and soul and truly admit you have a weight problem. Don't deny it any longer and make the decision to lose weight. This will help you set your mind to your goals and really focus on the road ahead.
Step 2: Stop making excuses! Don't say I will workout tomorrow and I will eat better tomorrow. It's time to start eating healthy and living healthy today regardless of if it's convenient for you or not!
Step 3: Build a team. If you are part of my Skinny Mom Challenge you have reached this goal. Use your team as a way to support you and push you. This team is here to help you learn and everyone is struggling with the same issues you are. Also your family, friends, coworkers, trainers, exercise partner, and husbands can all be a part of your team. Having support will keep you on track and help you reach your goal.
Step 4: Clean out your pantry, office, car and wherever you stash food. If it's bad for you and you know it get rid of it! Don't leave foods that will tempt you and sabotage you from reaching your goals. These items will cause you to overeat. Replace bad foods with healthy choices like, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats and low-fat dairy foods.
Step 5: Set goals and realistic ones at that. Break your goals down into smaller goals. Here is what I did and this is what I encourage all of my Skinny Moms to do. My weight loss goal was to lose 43 pounds so I took 43 pounds and divided it by 2. The 2 is for 2 pounds of weight loss each week. This is a healthy and realistic goal to achieve. This told me it would take me 21.5 weeks to achieve my goal as long as I was 100% committed to reaching my goal. Then I divided my BIG goal into 4 little goals. I broke the numbers down and decided my fist 8 weeks I wanted to lose about 15 pounds. This way I wasn't focusing on the big number. If you focus on the total weight loss you will be more likely to give up because it seems so hard to reach.
Step 6: Make daily changes to reach your long term goals. You can do this by making little steps for example eat extra fruits and vegetables a day, try a different exercise routine, work out an extra 30 minutes a day, play a game with your kids that is active like kickball or ride bikes. Focus on the day to day tasks not the big picture!
Step 7: Set up you calories. The best way to learn what calories you should be consuming based on what you are trying to achieve is visit www.webmd.com. On this sight there is a BMI calculator and you can enter in your age, height, weight, gender, pant size, goal weight loss and what type of activity level you are working at currently. This site will tell you what your BMI is, your calories you should be eating and what it will take for you to lose up to 2 pounds per week. Once you have your calories stick to them! Don't eat less than what you are supposed to eat. Why? Because when you eat less your body believes you are starving yourself and it will go into an emergency mode and store all of your fat just so it can survive. Think of your calories as a checking account balance. Do you want to spend your money on foods that will not fill you up and that are unhealthy or would you rather feel satisfied. Don't waste your calories on drinks! Yes, there are calories in drinks and if you didn't know this then I suggest you start reading labels.
Step 8: Plan to be active at least 35-60 minutes a day. If you are going to only work out for 30-35 minutes then make sure it is a very intense workout so that you are effectively burning calories. You cannot lose weight just by eating healthy sorry, it's time to get off of the couch and start taking control of your life.
Step 9: Don't worry about setbacks! When I first began my weight loss journey my first couple of weeks I didn't see the scale move at all. I was discouraged at first because I didn't understand how I could be working out 6 days a week and the scale wasn't moving. Well what I wasn't paying attention to was my clothes were getting loser and I was losing inches! Just remember it's not always going to be an easy journey. You will cry and want to stop but you need to make sure you remember YOU CAN do this and YOU WILL! Never give up and remember you have friends and other challengers here to push you.
Step 10: JOURNAL! This is a big one and if you're like me I tend to hold a lot in. Don't! Let everything out in a journal because this will help eliminate stress and stress causes weight gain. Trust me I know three years of stress and depression and I packed on 43 pounds to show for it. I want to write in your journal as much as you can and I encourage you at least once a month to go back and read some of your past journal entries and see how far you have come. You won't believe it when you do. You will become so much stronger mentally just by releasing all that you have in your head and you'll notice things won't be seem so difficult.
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