Fitness

Physical fitness is a huge part of overall health. It might make you sore, especially when you're a beginner or changing up your workouts, but before long it makes your body feel better and it's good for your mental health too. Trying to change your life to become healthier without incorporating a physical fitness plan is really missing an important piece of the puzzle. If weight loss is your goal, you might've heard that a good diet is the most important aspect, which is true. Yes you can lose weight through diet alone, but to skip a physical fitness plan is to miss out. Not only will exercise burn calories so you lose weight faster, it'll build muscle to help your body burn more calories all the time. And I'm sure we've all heard about the many health benefits from the heart to the bones to reducing cancer risk to improving mental health. So many reasons to exercise!

So now you know that you should exercise, what do you do? There are SO many great options out there, the best thing is to find something you can enjoy and go with that. If you're really out of shape and everything is difficult and unenjoyable, pick something simple like walking to begin. Ideally you want to work hard enough to get your heart rate and breathing up for at least thirty minutes at least five days per week. If walking that long is too much right now, start with ten minutes and work your way up from there. If you push yourself past what's comfortable just a bit and stick with it, you'll be surprised how soon you'll be able walk at a quick pace for an entire hour!

 

So what is my own personal fitness plan? First some history. I've been a regular runner (who goes through occasional periods of not running very frequently) for well over a decade. Although it's been awhile, I've even run marathons in the past. After a long running streak, last year I went through a not-much-running phase and started doing Zumba. I'm not at all coordinated nor do I  possess any dance ability, but trust me when I say it's fun. I was also doing water aerobics and spending time on the elliptical during this phase. Are you noticing anything yet? Yeah, I'm all cardio, no strength. I have known I should and occasionally would try to work on building muscle, however it's hard for me and I haven't been good at sticking with it. So in May of this year I finally really committed to working on building my strength and bought the P90X3 program and started literally the day it arrived in the mail. Ninety days later and I'd certainly made great improvements to my overall strength! At that point, I took a break for a couple of weeks and then set and started my next goal which is where I'm at currently: another ninety days of P90X3 PLUS running at least three miles at least five days per week. I wanted to continue building my strength and get back into decent running shape. I'm twenty-five days into my new challenge and it's going great! It feels good to push yourself and see what you're physically capable of doing.

Does everyone need to do two workouts per day? No! That's just where I'm at right now. I have a long history of being active, so this is what I need to do to challenge myself and help boost my weight loss efforts. You need to find your own challenge and start setting personal goals. If you're a beginner, that goal might be to work up to waking a few miles daily. Maybe you can already walk a good distance, so your challenge could be to add in some short running intervals to your walks and gradually run more.
If walking and running aren't your thing, there are so many different home fitness workout DVDs you can buy. Or you can join a gym and try the fitness equipment there. Also signing up for a group class can be a really fun way to exercise.
The bottom line is to find something to do and get moving!