Fitness Can Be Simple

The airwaves are constantly full of the same message: We’re supposed to get fit and stay fit. But what if we’re not sure how to do it exactly?  We’ve probably all seen people we know trying to walk to get thin… but most of them seem to carry as much extra weight as the rest of us.  Magazines with abnormally beautiful people adorning their covers pitch one plan after another to “lose belly fat” or “get a flat tummy in time for the beach.” Are they all saying the same thing?  And, if there’s such a big secret that is so readily accessible, why isn’t everyone in already back in shape?

All the extra pounds we have been carrying around have been getting a lot of press as of late.  The most recent study released in late July 2009 revealed that medical spending by obese Americans averages $1400 more per year per person over a non-obese person’s. That equals nearly $150 billion a year in extra medical costs that could be avoided if the obesity epidemic was halted.

What is anyone supposed to do to learn how to get in shape and lose weight without hurting themselves?  There always seems to be a magic pill or new exercise contraption that promises unbelievable results for little effort or incredibly little time on infomercials late at night and early in the morning. Do any of them work?

As with everything in life, one adage will certainly be true: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

One basic rule for weight loss is this: You have to burn more energy than you eat in order for your body to begin calling on its own reserves of fat for energy.  Therefore examining what you eat every day and your daily physical activity are in order.

Your diet may contain hidden sources of lots of calories.  Fast food, soda, pretzels, and snacks are sources of way too many calories.  It’s nearly impossible to make any noticeable progress when you regularly drink soda and eat lots of takeout.  Besides being too many calories, this is due to the chemical and hormonal responses our bodies have to various types of buy generic amoxil foods.  Sugars and simple carbohydrates that quickly break down into simple sugars trigger the release of insulin.  As a result our bodies quickly store extra calories as fat if our muscles do not require extra energy due to intense exercise.  Besides the obvious, are you aware that plain white rice falls into the simple carbohydrate category? Not that it is not healthy, buy ampicillin online but can quickly undermine a good effort because of its high glycemic index, insulin-releasing effect.

We need to eat the right mix of lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, and mountains of vegetables.

Here’s a quick guideline: When you prepare a plate of food, make your portions of lean protein and carbs equal in size and half of your meal. Make the other half of your meal all veggies.  Eat six small meals like this every day instead of three large ones.  This approximation approach will get you on a better path without the feeling of being starved. 

Once we have a healthy food combination integrated into our lives, losing the extra fat we’ve put on over the years still requires some effort.

Low impact cardio like walking will strengthen your heart gradually and is a great first step if you haven’t exercised in a long time.  Elliptical trainers also are great for low-impact cardio.  However, if you really want rapid buy cheap ampicillin weights” href=”http://my-get-in-shape-blog.com/114/getting-in-shape-lifting-weights/”>fat loss, and this may come as a surprise, you should work on building muscle.  And yes, this applies to you women reading this too.

Cardio exercises raise your metabolism while you’re performing the exercise buy ampicilin online and for a short time after.  For some people, this is all they will need to get back in shape.  There are mental health benefits to walking, running, and biking too, just for some time alone in a very busy world.  Getting results via low impact exercise can take longer, though, and there never seems to be enough time.  Nothing makes you want to exercise more than great progress.

So, why build muscle if you really want to burn fat quickly?  Muscles burn energy.  More muscle mass will make it easier to burn calories.  Additionally, it takes energy for your body to build and repair muscle, which breaks down during strength exercises.

Therefore, you burn energy during online viagra pharmacy your strength exercise routine, and you continue to burn energy above and beyond your base metabolic rate for a longer period afterward as muscles are repaired.  Also, when you force your body to repair and build muscle tissue, it releases its own growth hormone.  This may come as a surprise, but growth hormone is the best known fat burner.  Really!

There are only two ways to get growth hormone in your blood stream. The first is illegal, dangerous, expensive, stupid, and guaranteed to destroy your life before you know it. The other generic amoxil is natural, and a result of working out using the right routines.  The only caveat is that you actually have to work hard to see results.  You don’t have to spend 12 hours a week in the gym or that you have to run five miles a day.  With three workouts a week that may take 90 minutes at most, you can get great results surprisingly fast.

The growth hormone theory was actually even put to the test by a blogger at who has been recording his journey to get in shape lifting weights–and he’s 48!  His wife is doing it too, and she lost three inches off her waist in ten weeks.   The key to the routine’s success is in the intensity of the workout.  The intensity magnifies the impact on your body, and that triggers the release of all the right hormones that help burn fat and build muscle.

An intense workout lifting weights doesn’t mean you have to do 25 sets of exercises for each body part every day!  There is a big difference between intense workouts and overtraining!  Remember, too, that intensity is extremely relative.  What your body will perceive as an intense workout will differ significantly from everyone else’s!

The two elements of an intense workout are compound exercises and supersets. 

A compound exercise forces you to use a lot of muscles for each repetition.  Think about exercises like the dumbbell military press…  Most of your muscles get involved in stabilizing your body and the weights.  A pushup works similarly: Besides the very obvious chest and triceps at work, nearly every other muscle in your body is involved in each repetition.

A superset is simply a set of exercises performed consecutively with the absolute minimum rest possible between exercises.  Typically, supersets are only discussed in the context of working one muscle, as in supersets for shoulders.  Xiamen City Commercial Bank However, you can work every muscle in body by doing only one superset of eight to ten different exercises. 

If you have never done a full-body superset, you will be truly surprised at how fatigued you feel after only the first couple of exercises.  Repeating the superset three to five times will then spike the intensity level.  If you are in better shape, you can shorten the time between exercises and supersets to further increase the intensity of your workout. 

The intensity level your body feels is what triggers the biological mechanisms that make it try to adapt to new requirements you just imposed on it.   So you don’t have to work each muscle to “failure” to experience the natural release of growth hormone and its benefits, but you will feel fatigue!

But what if you want to start getting back in shape at home and don’t have weights?  Use your imagination to work your whole body!  For example, if you can’t do pushups, try them on a flight of stairs, or pushing off a wall, until you build enough strength to do them normally.  Get two one gallon jugs of water to use as dumbbells for bent-over rows or military presses.  You get the idea.

Beware of any companies trying to sell you the next magic potion for losing weight with no effort.  If you’ve read this far, you are realistic about losing weight and getting fit and are on the right track.

Congratulations!

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