Stay Consistent
You have to stay consistent and workout regularly to reach your goal. Getting fit isn’t a matter of how long you workout, but doing it consistently over time. You can’t workout for three hours one day and skip the rest of the week. You have to break that time down throughout the week working out approximately 45 minutes every other day. That gives your muscles a chance to heal and make the changes that you’re hoping to achieve. Fitness is marathon not a sprint.
Make exercise part of your schedule.
Consistency includes being consistent with the time you workout. Consider a simple action like brushing your teeth. It’s probably part of your morning routine and evening routine, like taking a shower or going to bed or getting up at the same time. When you workout at the same time every day, it becomes habit and part of your daily routine that you do automatically. That’s often why people workout the first thing in the morning. There are fewer interruptions for them and it’s part of their morning routine. No matter what time you choose, stick with it.
Marathon style workouts won’t get you the results you want.
Going to the gym and performing a marathon of working out may make you sore the next day, but won’t get you the same results as someone who breaks down that time to several sessions. Exercise isn’t something you can catch up on all at once, like getting all the dishes done at once or finally cleaning out the closet. It’s more like eating. People normally eat regularly, rather than saving up all their calories for one day a week. Think about how you’d feel if you ate a whole week’s worth of food at once. It would make you sick, so will marathon exercising.
You lose everything you’ve gained between workouts.
When you exercise only occasionally, you may actually maintain, if you do it frequently enough, but you won’t advance or get fitter. It makes you lose momentum and ultimately lose some of the muscle mass you’ve gained. It’s actually dangerous and can increase the risk of injury that comes from overdoing all at once.
- Health benefits disappear the longer you avoid a workout. You start to lose muscle mass after a few days, which can put you at risk for the same serious conditions you hoped to avoid.
- Studies show injury rates increased after taking three days off from the gym. The rate of injuries didn’t increase with just a day or two away from working out.
- If you have problems working out because of your schedule, work with your personal trainer to find a solution. For instance, if you travel, the trainer can recommend a workout you can do in your hotel room.
- Put exercise at the top of your priority list. Staying healthy should be your top goal. Without good healthy, other goals are either harder to achieve or impossible.
Getting fit doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a long time. It requires you actually change years of negative habits and replace them with healthier ones. Because it isn’t something you do once and walk away, it means you have to stay motivated not only until you achieve your results, but also until you make it a habit so you achieve your goals permanently. While trainers can help you stay motivated, ultimately, it’s all up to you.
Not every trainer is a match for every person and not all trainers are equal when it comes to knowledge of both fitness and motivation. Finding the right trainer in Raleigh, NC is important to your progress. While I believe my background speaks for itself and my years of studies into what works and gets the quickest results, you have to determine what works best for you. Here are some things that I believe are important and should be part of your fitness program. Use this information to help you find a trainer.
If you’re like most people, when you think of hormones, you normally think of sex hormones like testosterone or estrogen. There are so many different hormones that affect the body and have an effect on your health. Hormones are just messengers that deliver instructions to the body’s cells. For instance, the hormone ghrelin tells your body it’s hungry, while the hormone leptin brings the message that it’s full. Hormones keep your body working properly when they’re functioning normally. They affect all processes, including heart rate and body temperature.
There’s a lot of reasons to workout. Of course, losing weight is often at the top of the list, just as building more energy and looking great. However, avoiding injury is also a reason. When you aren’t fit, sometimes simple tasks can cause injury. Turning the wrong way, lifting a child or simply trying to avoid a fall can cause an injury that causes pain, spasms and puts you on the couch for weeks. To avoid those problems, functional fitness workouts help. They develop synergy throughout the body.
Some of my clients in Raleigh find that they’re overweight because of a hormone imbalance. It may seem like your body is fighting you, but the truth is, you have a potential to turn it around and take control. You notice that I said you have a potential to turn it around. That’s because you may not be able to control all factors, but you can control many of them. It’s especially difficult for women going through menopause where hormone levels are consistently changing. You also might be quite surprised at the hormones that are probably giving you the biggest problems.
If you feel bloated, yet can’t go, fiber has always been the go to nutrient to get you going. However, fiber does many other things for the body, too. There are two types of fiber. The first is soluble fiber. It dissolves when mixed with water and creates a gel material that helps lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Insoluble fiber isn’t digested. It increases bulk and helps with constipation.
You probably already know that fat is healthy, but it also is higher in calories per gram compared to carbohydrates and protein. One gram of protein contains four calories, just as one gram of carbohydrates does. However, one gram of fat contains nine calories. While you don’t want to give up the health benefits of fat, choosing healthy low fat snacks in Raleigh can help you keep your calorie count lower and allow you to include healthy fat foods at other times, such as having an avocado with breakfast to keep you full to lunch.
Foods that are heart healthy contain nutrients that help maintain heart health. These include vitamins D, omega3 fatty acids, magnesium, CoQ10, folic acid and potassium. Dietary fiber is also important, since it helps lower blood cholesterol levels. While these nutrients are important for heart health, they’re also mandatory for overall good health, so adding them to your diet even if you don’t worry about heart problems can improve your well-being.
It’s hard to stay healthy working at a desk. You sometimes sit for hours and the only part of your body moving is your fingers. It’s not only uncomfortable after a long period, it’s hard on your body. In fact, one study shows that sitting continuously for over 50 minutes at a time can actually wipe out many of the benefits of working out. You need to get up every fifty minutes and move around, whether you’re working out or not. If you don’t workout, the effects of that time are even worse.