#1 Move Your Body
It’s more important for complete health and fitness to be active daily. That means walking and standing more than sitting. Grab a pedometer, you can purchase one for just a few dollars, and start walking. Try to take a minimum of 10,000 steps each day.

#2 Find an Activity You Love
Do you enjoy golf? Tennis? What about swimming or riding your bike? Rock climbing? Dancing and yoga are great too. Make a list of activities you enjoy or might like to try. Sign up for a class. Join a gym or get outside and start having fun.

#3 Find a Friend
Often exercise and activity is more enjoyable when you share them with a friend. Buddy up with someone, or join a group, and motivate each other to become more active.

Social networking can be motivating too. Consider reaching out to others who are facing the same challenges and striving toward the same goals.

One of the surest ways to achieve weight loss success is to create goals and to follow a plan.

Unlike standard weight training methods, the bands work your smaller muscles that the other techniques cannot address. They also target your muscles from different angles working each muscle with a long range of motion. Resistance bands are not often used to build huge muscles, but by the unique way they work, they can give your muscles an all-over great, low-impact workout.

Resistance bands do not depend on gravity to be effective. As such, there is much less stress on your joints and muscles. If you avoided strength training in the past due to bad joints, resistance bands can be your ticket to strong, lean muscles.

The bands are very easy to use by even the novice and are not as intimidating as weights and strength training machines can be. During a resistance band workout, the bands can be adapted to perform dozens of different exercises for the entire body.

If you are a seasoned strength trainer, most of the strength exercises with which you are familiar, can be completed using resistance bands. Basic moves such as lateral raises, chest presses, tricep extensions, squats, crunches and lunges are all taken up a notch with the added benefit of resistance.

Some exercises can be done stand alone using the weight of your own body as the support. Others are done by fastening the band to a secure object such as a door or the frame of a large exercise machine.

When purchasing a resistance band, consider buying a couple instead of just one. A quality set will come with bands of varying degrees/ranges of resistance. This is very important as each type of exercise needs a different resistance. Typically, high repetition exercise use lower resistance bands and low repetition routines rely on high resistance.

Make sure to go for bands that are described as “heavy duty.” Sure you can find some cheap ones out there but often their material stretches out rather quickly and some have been known to snap (which as you can imagine can be quite dangerous).

See what owners are saying about the handles that come with the bands. Good handles can make the exercises comfortable and more effective. If at all possible, purchase as many handles as you have bands. This is especially important if you plan to use a variety of bands during one workout session. Having to switch the handles mid-routine will break your stride and make your workout less effective.

Before you begin any resistance band workout, keep these things in mind. Always check for worn spots or tears in the band – if you find any, do not use it. To limit damage to new bands, avoid using them on asphalt or cement as these surfaces can easily damage the latex.

Always make sure the band is completely secure before performing an exercise. Pull on it a few times to make sure it can hold your weight and will not snap back at you when you begin the exercise.

Pull the bands in a slow and controlled fashion to make the most of the resistance the band is offering. Don’t stretch the band more than two times its normal length. If you need a longer band, consider linking two or more together.

Resistance bands are a great alternative to weights and other strength training equipment. An added bonus is that they are relatively inexpensive. You can get a single, high quality resistance band for as little as $15.00 and a full set may only cost you $30.00. Compared to pricey free weights or expensive full size machines, the value resistance bands provide is unsurpassed.

Another great feature is portability. You can take resistance bands with you wherever you choose to work out and you can easily store them out of the way when not in use. They come in all sorts of styles and colors so take your pick!

Yoga has many benefits including:

Strength Training – Yoga builds muscle. When you perform yoga poses you hold those poses for an extended period of time. This works the muscle groups. It breaks them down so they can build back up stronger and bigger than before.

Fat Burning – Yoga also burns fat which in turn allows you to show off those amazing muscles you’ve been building. The endurance it takes to make it through a yoga class, and to hold those intermediate and advanced poses, take a lot of strength balance and calories.

Stress Busting – Cortisol, that damaging stress hormone, can have a negative effect on y our body’s metabolism, digestion, sleep, hormone levels and many other elements that are directly connected with your ability to lose weight. Yoga is an amazing stress buster. It requires you to be focused and calm. It helps you distress and find mental clarity.

If you’ve ever been curious about yoga and are trying to lose weight, consider taking a beginner course. You can visit a local yoga studio, purchase or borrow a yoga DVD or you can even find online classes that stream directly to your computer or laptop. Your options are unlimited so check it out.

The Best Exercise Rule of Thumb to Live By

Move your body every day.  Now, I’m not talking about “exercise” but rather about moving your body.

Climb stairs
Walk to the coffee shop
Take a walk during lunch
Take breaks from your desk and walk for a few minutes
Stand when you’re on the phone.
Stand when you work if possible

Simply changing your life from sedentary to active can make a huge difference with your fitness, health and your weight loss goals. You may find that the traditional definition of exercise isn’t required to lose weight. You’ll know you’re active when you walk 10,000 or more steps each day.

And when you do “exercise” it’ll be because you enjoy it, because it makes you feel good and because it’s good for you – not because you have to if you want to lose weight. Try fitness programs like yoga, dancing, swimming, cycling anything that you enjoy.

Start small with your exercise regimen and then build it up; do longer sessions, add more sessions,  or increase intensity levels. Do what’s right and comfortable for YOU and then take it a step further when you’re ready. Trust your instincts, listen to your body… it will let you know if you’re doing too much or too little.

And above all, don’t forget to talk to your health care provider and see what he/she recommends. If you are affected by any kind of medical condition, it’s imperative that you know whether or not any exercise will interfere with your condition or medications and jeopardize your health!

However, if you’re like many then exercise is a four letter word. It’s inconvenient, it’s painful, and it’s hard – sometimes it’s really hard.

What I’ve discovered though, is that starting small and doing shorter exercise sessions has helped me get a regimen going without killing myself and finding excuses not to.

Here’s Why Starting Small Helps You Get Started Exercising

#1 It makes exercise manageable. You know with 100% certainty that you can exercise for five or ten minutes. You can exercise for five minutes each day for a week. The next week you know that you accomplished your goal and will likely feel comfortable adding a few minutes to your workout. Each week you can add more time to your workout until you’re working out every day for twenty, thirty, forty or even sixty minutes.

#2 It helps you create a habit.  One of the challenges to exercising is that you’re adding a new element to your daily routine. Sometimes it feels like there’s no room for it. You live a busy life, right?

When you start small you can ease into the habit. Instead of trying to find an hour of time each day, you know you can find five or ten minutes. As you become accustomed to exercising and you gradually increase your time you’ll find it’s easier to make room for those additional minutes.

#3 It makes it less painful. When you jump on the treadmill straight away and try to work out for an hour – it’s probably going to hurt. It’s going to be uncomfortable. And you’ll want to quit. However, when you start small you won’t feel the same degree of discomfort. You can ease your body into exercising.

Starting small is powerful. You’ll notice the gradual change in your body, health, energy and weight. And best of all you’ll do it at a pace that fits your needs, lifestyle and goals. Think small and take those first steps!

As the name infers, stability balls require you to stabilize your body while performing your workout moves. This adds an extra dimension to the most basic of exercises. Imagine improving your coordination while doing shoulder presses? An exercise ball does just that.

By performing exercises on a stability ball, you have no choice but to engage your core muscles – if you don’t – you will fall off the ball. The more time spent on the ball, the stronger your core becomes. A strong core body gives you better balance, coordination, posture, and even agility.

Stability balls are appropriate for individuals at all levels of fitness and experience. The exercises you can perform on them range from very basic to quite intense. Some of the more popular moves on the stability ball include crunches, push-ups, shoulder presses, lunges, back extensions and bent-over rows.

Functionally, exercise balls are great because they allow you to get off the cold, hard floor while working out and don’t require the use of a bench or other heavy, expensive, space-hogging equipment. When you are done exercising, roll the ball out of the way into a corner. If you like to switch up where you exercise, the ball is very easy to take with you.

The benefits of the stability ball aren’t limited to your official workout session. Using exercise balls in place of everyday chairs is becoming more and more popular; not only within the home but in offices and even in the classroom.

By using the ball as a chair, you again are forced to stabilize your core. It won’t feel like you are exercising but engaging your muscles in this way can make a big difference over time. This technique is especially helpful for those recovering from back injuries or who suffer from chronic back pain.

When selecting a balance ball, there are a few things to consider. The most important is size. They typically range from 45 – 85 cm. Pick a size according to these height guidelines:

• Under 5’ = 45 cm
• 5’ 1” – 5’ 8” = 55 cm
• 5’ 9” – 6’ 2” = 65 cm
• 6’ 3” – 6’ 7” = 75 cm
• Above 6’ 8” = 85 cm

The number one priority when using the ball is safety. Carefully review ratings and reviews on the ball you are considering ensure it does not have a history of bursting.

Pay particular attention to the installation instructions that come with the ball. Some balls lose air relatively quickly so be sure to re-inflate it as needed. If the pump that came with the ball is inadequate, it will be worth investing in a good quality ball or bike pump.

Before starting any exercises, be sure to review the exercise instructions and guidelines that came with your purchase. If the information is sparse or confusing, be sure to consult books on the topic or refer to authority exercise websites. Videos are a great way to learn proper technique.

An exercise ball is one of the best values in exercise accessories on the market. They are available online, at sporting good stories, and even at your local discount store.

Here’s a model exercise program you can use to spend less time in the gym due to the extended calorie burn you see after each workout. For this example program you will be working out three days a week for approximately one hour each time. Assuming you don’t want to work out on the weekends let’s say the workout days are Monday, Wednesday, Friday. On these days you will be doing strength training for 45 minutes followed by 15 minutes of high intensity cardio.

For strength training you will want to primarily focus on full body exercises that incorporate multiple muscle groups and multiple joints. These types of exercises are better known as “compound” exercises. Some examples of compound exercises you can do are: bench press, squats, deadlifts, lunges, rows, and push-ups. There are many more but that is a good list for starters. Pick four of those and that is your strength routine. This type of program allows your body rest in between each workout while still burning calories on those days of rest.

Your cardio is going to be short and sweet. By sweet I mean, high intensity. High Intensity is the most effective and efficient way to improve cardiovascular function and increase the body’s metabolism boosting fat loss. What would you consider hard: sprinting, running, light jog? Your answer is going to be your high intensity exercise that you will be doing for one minute in combination with one minute of rest repeated for the 15 minute duration of your cardio time.

Combining both strength training and high intensity cardio is a proven way to efficiently burn more fat for up to 72 hours after a workout. If you cannot dedicate 3 days a week to exercise than you are not ready to see results!

Before we start going over what you can actually do to start harnessing these fat loss hormones you need to understand the foundation of weight loss and how it works within our bodies.  It all starts with our metabolism, the rate at which our metabolism is able to metabolize calories determines how many calories we need to maintain our current weight, or how much you need to exercise to increase the number of calories your metabolism is capable of burning in a period of time. If that was too confusing let’s break this down to “calories in vs. calories out.” If the number of calories you burn (out) is greater than the number you consume (in) then you will experience weight loss.

Now that you know a little bit about the metabolism and  “calories in vs. calories out,” let’s go over how you can manipulate this to activate more of the body’s natural fat burning hormones. To do this we are breaking it up into the two groups mentioned above, and that would be “calories in” or how much we consume, and “calories out” or how many calories we burn daily.

“Calories in” is just as, or more important than “calories out,” so do not take this section lightly as most do and tend not to see results. “Calories in” being the foods you consume throughout the day needs to be put at the top of the priority list to guarantee that you see results.  To make things as simple as possible, if you follow this one rule –  every meal must consist of a lean protein, a complex carbohydrate, and one serving of fruit and vegetables, and doing so, you are guaranteed to see results as long as you are not over indulging. Try six meals a day, but cut the carbs out of the last two meals.

“Calories out,” requires exercise and/or going to the gym and working out. Let’s talk about how you can cut your time at the gym and see better results. Do you think you would see better results if you did sprints for ten minutes or walked for an hour? Most people would say walk for an hour, but the answer is actually the sprints for ten minutes. The sudden metabolic spike leads to an immediate release in fat metabolizing hormones to convert fat into fuel. Intensive, frequent, short workouts and/or interval training, will boost your metabolism and burn more calories.

Learning how to control your calories and metabolism will get those fat burning hormones into action. Getting a personal trainer and discussing your diet with a health professional, can get you off on the right foot and on a healthy, fat burning, weight loss regimen.

Well, the answer is yes, these weight loss feats are really possible and we’re going to talk about what they are doing and you aren’t. Truth be told, they probably spend as much time as you do in the gym or maybe even less. If you’re starting to feel bad, don’t! With a few simple tweaks you will understand and have the ability to duplicate their results starting today.

The first thing that you are probably doing and they are not, is spending time on the elliptical or walking on a treadmill. So let me  now introduce you to a concept called “high intensity”. High Intensity workouts are exercising at a higher rate of exertion that will burn more body fat in a shorter period of time than exercising at a lower rate of exertion for a period of time. Why is this? The fat burning process does not begin until our body’s core temperature is hot enough. Walking on a treadmill is such a low intensity exercise that our body temperature never rises enough to experience full fat burning effects.

Here’s how you can overcome this in your routine: start doing intervals on the treadmill to see increased results. Start by going at a jog for one minute than a walk for one, and so on for about twenty minutes. Over time as your endurance and fitness increase, you will be able to increase the speed and decrease the rest time to continue seeing results.

The second thing celebrities are doing that you and most others are not, is actually sticking to their diet plans. Your diet and how well you implement it will have a major impact on your weight loss efforts. People consistently tend to think that since they are working out and that their metabolism is burning faster that they can still eat whatever they want. This is completely untrue, our bodies need the proper amounts of lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and fruits for the body to regulate and maintain a healthy weight. A good example of foods to stay away from would be anything that is processed. Processed foods are not well recognized by our bodies and therefore they hold very little nutritional value and often contain high amounts of fat and sodium which are counterproductive to weight loss. In other words, you must watch and regulate what you eat!

Two points to remember here are, first, do not waste an hour on the treadmill when you could be spending twenty minutes on the treadmill seeing better results. Second, diet is the key and if you ignore it you will not succeed in meeting your weight loss goals.

Before we jump into our list, it must first be made clear that these five things must be done in combination with proper exercise and diet. What you’ll learn are ways you can get that extra edge for faster results than your typical program. Call it shortcuts if you want, but these are healthy and all natural short term techniques that anyone can benefit from safely.

#1 Add Those Veggies
Try adding some sort of vegetable to every meal that you eat throughout the day. As simple as it sounds, most of us are not getting nearly enough vegetables in our diets and your metabolism suffers because of it. Vegetables are known as zero calorie or negative calorie foods because they contain equal to or less calories than it takes for your body to digest them.

#2 Don’t Forget Fruit
Fruits are a tasty addition to a meal or snack that is a sure metabolism booster. However, unlike vegetables fruits should not be eaten with every meal. It is suggested that fruits are consumed earlier in the day to decrease insulin spikes later at night.

#3 The One Meal Allowed Before Bed
This tip only applies to those who are actively doing strength training at least three times a week. A low calorie protein shake with no fat is a great way to be sure your body does not go into a catabolic state overnight. Catabolic means your body does not have sufficient nutrients to feed itself so it metabolizes lean muscle tissue and preserves fat in an attempt to prepare for starvation.

#4 Do Intervals Instead
If you are doing your regular cardio exercise but spending over 35 minutes, than your missing out. Start doing intervals for 20 or 30 minutes. How do intervals work? Start with something that is high intensity for you like a jog on the treadmill. Do this for one minute, then slow down to a walk for a minute, then back to a jog. Repeat this for 10 or so intervals, one interval being duration of high intensity with a duration of low intensity.

#5 Start Decreasing Your Rest Time
When you’re doing strength training workouts start paying attention to the amount of time you spend resting in between sets. Start tracking this time and gradually see how much you can decrease it in a reasonable fashion. Your body must metabolically adapt to this change in activity and in turn increase fat metabolic consumption.

These five strategies can go a long way to helping you lose those few unwanted pounds before your wedding.  Be smart and do it in a healthy fashion, and then go enjoy your honeymoon!