Pace Yourself

February 9, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

From LOSING IT! With Jillian Michaels
Thursday, February 09, 2012

Pace Yourself

Believe it or not, your muscles do not get stronger during your workout; it’s after the workout that they grow and develop. Intense strength training places huge demands on your muscles. To adapt to those demands, your muscles need adequate recovery time to rebuild and get stronger. As important as it is to stay the course and not get lazy, it’s just as important to know when to cut yourself a break so you don’t burn out, and your body has a chance to process all of the work you’re doing.

Do not train a muscle group more than twice a week, and make sure it rests between training sessions. I want you to have at least two days in between training the same muscle groups. When you work a muscle, the muscle fibers tear. Given the proper rest and discovery, your muscle fibers will repair themselves and grow leaner and stronger. But if you train the muscle too soon and impede its recovery, you can damage the muscle and break it down.

Additionally, you should never exercise intensely for more than two hours at a time. When you hear some buff celebrity talking about how he trained six hours straight a day to get ready for his latest action movie, he’s talking a load of embellished bull that makes the ordinary person feel totally inferior. We have lives, we can’t possibly do that! However, spending that much time working out is not only impossible, it would be counterproductive, as it would throw the body into a state of overtraining and make it more prone to metabolize its own lean muscle tissue for energy.

Living Smart Girl ~ A Healthy Way to an Organic You ~

Sheila

Join our Fitness Challenge ~

http://livingsmartgirl.myvi.net

Wrap Yourself Skinny ~ It Works

http://livingsmartgirls.myitworks.com

Sited and Blogged ~

http://www.sitedandblogged.com

Sprinkle Me Crazy ~

http://www.sprinklemecrazy.com

Filed Under: fitness over 40, fitness tips, jillian michaels Tagged With: exercise, fitness tips, jillian michael, muscles

Bad Fitness Habits You Need To Break

February 3, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Being a fitness minded gal I see and hear about so many bad habits and bad choices that people do these days that can affect
their long term health. If you’re guilty of any one of these, it’s time to make a change.

Running on ‘E’ Before a Workout

The old theory used to be that you should train on an empty stomach in order to burn more fat. There are conflicting studies on whether this is true, but I’m in the camp that believes you should give your body fuel before you push it to the max. In fact, your body needs some glucose (blood sugar) for fuel in addition to what it can use from fat stores when you’re working out. If you don’t have any blood sugar available, your body can eat it’s own muscle tissue to get glycogen for fuel once it runs out of available blood sugar or glycogen stores. Low blood sugar will also make you tired and sluggish — and maybe even dizzy — during your training session.

Most studies show that working out on an empty stomach will make you perform worse and keep you from having an intense workout. I suggest you eat something 45 minutes to an hour before training — you’ll have more energy and endurance to work harder, burn more calories, and improve your muscle tone. Quick healthy low-fat yogurt with berries, a banana, or spread a few tablespoons of natural almond butter on apple slices. These are quick, healthy snacks that will provide your body with the fuel it needs for a hard-core workout.

Skipping Your Stretches

We were taught years ago to sit or stand and stretch one muscle group at a time before we train. Contrary to popular belief, that type of stretching is best saved for AFTER your workout, when your muscles are warmed up. To warm up the right way, perform 5-10 minutes of cardio (jog, elliptical, stationary bike, jump rope or jumping jacks etc.), then some form of dynamic stretching.

Stick with me here — dynamic stretching is basically stretching with motion, so your body gets a chance to warm up the muscles slowly and in a functional way. Think arm circles, leg swings and so on, but be sure not to bounce the stretch as you risk injury when you ballistic stretch. One of my favorite methods of dynamic stretching is butt kicks — here’s how you do ‘em:

Butt Kicks

Purpose: To stretch your quads.
The stretch: This can be done walking or jogging. As you walk or jog, exaggerate the knee bend so that you are trying to kick yourself in the butt. You want your knee to point straight to the ground as your heel comes toward your butt. Keep your arms pumping in the normal running motion.
Key point: The higher you get your heel and the more you keep your knee toward the ground (instead of coming up in front of you with hip flexion), the more of a quad stretch you’ll get.

Avoiding Strength Training

Don’t get me wrong, cardio is GREAT for your body. It gets your heart rate up, burns a lot of calories, and works a lot of muscles. But it’s not the most effective way to burn the MOST calories. I’m a huge advocate of high-intensity circuit training and I use cardio intervals in my circuits in my online workouts and in my DVDs. A circuit is a series of exercises performed one after the other (about four to five) with little or no rest in between. For example, if you’re doing push-ups, you’re incorporating your shoulders, triceps, chest, and abs, and then you can go straight from your push-up set into a set of lunges. You’ve changed the muscle groups you’re working, but you haven’t stopped exercising.

Then you add high-intensity training (HIT) into the mix by throwing an intense cardio interval into your resistance-training circuits. For example, you add a minute of jumping rope, sprinting, or doing jumping jacks to jack up your heart rate and burn a ton of calories, and then you go back into the resistance-training sets. This way, you maximize BOTH your time and your calorie burn. When a set of these moves are done, you go back to the beginning and do them again before moving on to the next circuit.

A typical circuit-training workout will get your heart rate up and impact a variety of muscles — not just one body part. Then, you can constantly switch up your circuits to hit different areas of the body. Ladies, don’t be afraid to add free weights into your routine! I hate it when women are hesitant to use weights because they’re afraid of bulking up. Lifting weights is a critical way to boost your fat-burning potential and you won’t bulk up unless you are lifting EXTREMELY heavy weights and eating far more calories than you are burning. I recommend you start with a weight you can lift with good form for 12 to 16 repetitions.

Getting Stuck in a Workout Rut

Often people have a routine that they do in the gym every time they go. This is bad for many reasons, most importantly of which your body will stop progressing. You see, your body adapts to the stimulus you subject it to. If you don’t constantly change up your workout then you cheat your body of opportunities to get more fit. Think about it, you haven’t trained in months and you do 20 squats. Well, the next day you’ll be sore, but if you do 20 squats for 10 days in a row, by day 10 you won’t be sore. That’s because your body has adapted to it.

So, make sure that at least every two you weeks you change your routine. Try changing the types of exercises you are doing and playing with the amount of sets, reps, and weights you are lifting. Also, try adding new classes to your regimen like a spin class at Flywheel, boxing, CrossFit, bar method, dance, yoga, kettlebells etc. By training in different ways, your body becomes more efficient, well rounded, and less prone to injury. Break out of your comfort zone and try something new.

Phoning It In

The intensity of your workout is crucial to burn fat. If you want results you need to give it your all. You give what you get! Forget about the “target fat burning zone”. As I mentioned earlier, to get results fast intensity is key.

Get your heart rate up and working at 85 percent of your maximum. To calculate your maximum heart rate, if you’re a woman, subtract your age from 220. If you’re a man, subtract your age from 226. That number is your maximum heart rate in beats per minute. The ONLY time I give you permission to decrease the intensity is if you feel that you’re working too hard to maintain proper form, which is a sure path to injury.

Not Knowing Your Limits

On the flipside of underperforming, is pushing yourself too hard. You always need to understand and be aware of your limitations. Injuring yourself can put you out of the game for weeks! Make sure to take the time to use proper form. If it’s a really hard one, try a modification of the exercise.

If you injure a part of your body, you can still work around the injury (after consulting a doctor!), but there are some key points to remember. Generally speaking, if you have sustained an injury in your upper body, such as a rotator-cuff injury or torn biceps, for example, you can most likely do high-intensity, lower-body cardio like running, step, jump rope, elliptical, spinning, and so on. You can also continue to do exercises for your lower body, such as lunges, squats, leg presses, or dead lifts.

If your injury is in your lower extremities — knees, ankles, feet, shins, or calves — try low-impact forms of cardio such as swimming, recumbent biking, rowing, and shadow boxing with light weights in each hand. Again, generally speaking, you can also continue to do resistance-training moves for your upper body, such as back, chest, abs, and arm exercises.

Article from Jillian Michaels .com

Filed Under: fitness tips, jillian michaels Tagged With: bad fitness habits, breaking bad habits, jillian michaels

Weight Lifting for Women

February 2, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

When you think of women lifting weights what is the first thing to come to mind? For me it used to be the image of a huge muscular looking woman that looks to much like a man. Ewwww… that is not the kind of “buff” I am looking for. Well, it took me a few years to realize that just because that is the look for some, it doesn’t have to be the look for me. I want to be long and lean, with nice muscle definition. Found a great article to share ~from FitnessBlackandWhite.com

Some women who go to the gym to workout want to get ripped and/or buff — just like the guys. This is probably not the type of feminine look that most women are going for though. Usually, the goal of weight lifting for women is to get a nice “womanly” figure while slimming down and firming up. For women to get this look instead of a more masculine look, it takes a different approach to lifting weights than what you are most likely used to. In fact, chances are that even most personal trainers are not teaching the proper techniques for women to get this look because they don’t realize how.

In my opinion women should look like women and men should look like, well — men. What is sad is that many women who go to the gym will actually pay an instructor to train them to get a nice feminine look and to get in shape. My guess is that the majority of these professional trainers are giving horrible advice about weight lifting for women.

Weight Lifting For Women

When approaching a workout, men and women have much different goals and much different thoughts in their mind as to what they want to achieve. Many times, a man is going to workout to get buff, ripped or strong — generally speaking.

Women, on the other hand, seem to want to get slim, firm and fit without looking manly — the Bond Girl look.

Because of these differences in goals there are some key items that a woman should keep in mind in regards to weight lifting and working out.

Do not do any “forced” reps
Do not lift to “feel the burn”
Do take longer rests

These three items all relate to an effect that weight lifting for women should not create — fatigue in the muscle and therefore muscle growth.

Bad Advice For Women Lifting Weights

Probably the #1 most commonly taught piece of bad advice for women who want to lift weights has to do with the amount of sets, reps and weight. I would be surprised if the majority of women don’t think that they need to lift light weights as many times as possible to get that slim and toned look. Forget lifting a little heavier and with less reps because that builds muscle mass. Right? Wrong.

The best way way to build muscle mass (for women or men) is to lift a high volume of reps and to focus on volume. Meaning, you could be doing around 4-5 sets at 10-15 reps.

In order to do so many reps of so many sets, you’re naturally going to have to use a lighter weight. Also, many times you are going to be quite exhausted by the end of your set. You may have to really push yourself or your personal trainer may be pushing you to get in those last 2-3 reps. All of this is the opposite of what you should do to avoid adding size.

Weight Lifting For Women To Get A Feminine Look

Now that we know what not to do, here are a few key points on how weight lifting for women can create a nice, feminine look.

Basically you want to do “strength training” workouts. I know, it sounds funny because women don’t necessarily want to get stronger because it seems that your muscles need to grow in size to get stronger but they don’t.

When I am training for definition and less for muscle mass, I actually increase the weight and lift fewer reps.

Doing this makes your muscles more dense but does not make them any larger — which I think is a good thing for a woman.

An Example Strength Training Workout For Women

The overall amount of reps that you will do is going to be a bit less than you’re probably used to. The common (and bad) set and rep scheme given to women lifting weights is 3 sets of 10 reps. Usually this is done fairly quickly too — all bad.

Instead of doing a total of 30 reps per exercise, you’ll be doing a total of 20 reps. Also, you’ll be spacing out the reps so that your muscle can recover from one exercise to the next — this prevents muscle fatigue and therefore growth in the muscle size.

Day 1 – Chest & Back
Day 2 – Shoulders & Arms
Day 3 – Abs
Day 4 – Chest & Back
Day 5 – Shoulders & Arms
Day 6 – Abs
Day 7 – Rest

You should pick two exercises that you like for each muscle group and you should do 4 sets of 5 reps for each exercise and rest about 1-2 minutes between each set.

I have started my toning plan about a year ago. Slow go for me because of life.. (yeah, no excuse!) Well, I had a photo shoot last spring and was pleased with parts of my body but knew I had a long way to go still. Unfortunately I slacked off for a few months, but am now back at it hard. I just got a home gym and am so excited as that will now bring me to my next fitness level. Woot Woot!!

Here are some of my pics I was happy with. I may not be ready for a fitness competition, but am happy with what I have achieved!

Filed Under: fitness over 40, fitness tips Tagged With: weight lifting for women, weights, womens fitness

Tis the Season for STRESS

December 13, 2011 By admin 22 Comments

Stress stopping you from achieving your goals?

I’m sure you’ve heard of the “fight-or-flight” response, and you probably know that it’s the way your body reacts to danger or stress. But do you know what’s behind the fight-or-flight response? It’s actually hormones.

When you’re faced with danger, your adrenal glands release three hormones: norepinephrine, epinephrine (also known as adrenaline), and cortisol. Norepinephrine and epinephrine cause several changes to help you survive the danger, including a pause in insulin release so you have lots of blood sugar available for energy, an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and a suspension of your appetite. After the danger has passed, cortisol tells the body to stop producing norepinephrine and epinephrine and stimulates your appetite again.

This response evolved to help people deal with short-term survival situations, like an attack by a predator. The trouble is, it occurs in response to all stressors, including the deadlines pummeling you at work and the traffic that drives you crazy. All that stress results in excess cortisol being built up in the blood. That cortisol just hangs around, causing lots of trouble: It turns young fat cells into mature fat cells that stick with you forever, and increases your cravings for high-fat, high-carb foods.

When you give in to those cravings, your body releases a cascade of rewarding brain chemicals that can set up an addictive relationship with food — you stress, you eat. If you don’t consciously control the pattern, you can become physically and psychologically dependent on that release to manage stress. In fact, people who self-medicate with food tend to have hair-trigger epinephrine reactions and chronically high levels of cortisol.

You can help yourself keep cortisol in check by limiting caffeine intake to 200 mg a day; avoiding simple carbs, processed foods, and refined grains; and getting plenty of high-quality protein. It’s also crucial that you find stress-relief techniques that work for you. If you can tame your stress response and lower cortisol levels, you’ll have a much easier time losing weight.

JILLIAN’S TIP OF THE DAY

Learning to Love Yourself

You rock! Don’t believe it? Well, you should because it’s true. Stop and think about all of your strengths, and then get some paper and a pen and write yourself a love letter. Make a list of all the admirable things about yourself, all the things worth loving, everything that makes you special. If you get stuck, imagine that you are your own best friend and think about all of the things that friend might say to you about why you’re such a wonderful person.

From Jillian Michaels.

Filed Under: fitness tips, jillian michaels Tagged With: fitness, fitness tips, jillian michaels, stress

Indoor Exercises and Motivational Tips

October 21, 2011 By admin 28 Comments

Just because the weather turns colder, the holiday’s are near and the days are shorter doesn’t mean you should just plop on the couch, eat junk food or sleep all day. GET UP, GET HEALTHY, GET FIT!! (didn’t mean to yell.. hehe)

I found these great tips from a personal fitness trainer and wellness guru Linda Gisburne.

TIPS TO STAY MOTIVED

1. Fall Fashion- Think about how great you will look in all of that fall fashion if you stick to your routine. Skinny jeans are still in-so stick with those squats and lunges!

2. Money Saver- Exercising gets the body warmed up, meaning the more time you spend working up a sweat, the less you pay for heat!

3. Eat Up- Want a slice of your mother’s famous meatloaf? Some leftover Halloween candy? Keeping up with your workout routine lets you enjoy holiday treats without guilt.

4. Resolution Overhaul- Ditch the “I will lose x amount of pounds” resolutions and instead venture to check out a new fitness class or try different fruits or vegetables.

INDOOR EXERCISES

Remember that working out doesn’t have to mean spending hours in the gym. Here are some simple moves that you can do anywhere:

1. Squats –Sit back and down like you are sitting to a chair. Lower down until your legs are at a 90 degree angle, or slightly lower, push into the ground with your feet, and stand back up. Do as many as you can in 30 seconds

2. Jumping Jacks –Do as many as you can in 30 seconds.

3. Decelerated Pushup –Get into a plank position. Bending your arms, keeping your elbows near your body and your body stiff like a board, slowly lower yourself down towards the floor. As you lower down, imagine pulling yourself down to the floor. Touch the floor with your chest, tummy and knees at the SAME TIME. Get back up and start over. Repeat for 30 seconds.

4. Uncurl V-Sit –Sit on a mat or the floor with your knees pulled into your chest and your feet flat on the floor. Tuck your fingers behind your knees and gently pull your chest towards the knees curling into a ball. Lift the chest and begin to uncurl yourself down toward the floor, keeping your chest up the entire time. Once your arms are fully extended, fingers still tucked behind the knees, pull yourself back into the starting position. Do as many as you can in 30 seconds

5. Star Jumps -Like jumping jacks only your arms make a “T” shape instead of going over head. Do as many as you can in 30 seconds.

Filed Under: fitness tips Tagged With: exercises, indoor exercises, Linda Gisburne, motivational tips

Tighten Your Backside ~ Deadlift Style

October 20, 2011 By admin 23 Comments

From LOSING IT! With Jillian Michaels
Thursday, October 20, 2011

Tighten Your Backside

So you think you need a machine to work your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back, huh? Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t think so. He relied on stiff-legged dead lifts, which produce killer glutes if done properly. Dead lifts were cool in the seventies and eighties, but modern machines made them seem a little too low-tech to be effective. But this classic exercise of the bodybuilding era is worth a second look.

Working the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back in a free-form position means that the rest of your body has to work a little harder to support itself during the exercise. And that provides bonuses, such as improved coordination and balance. It also burns more calories.

Want to give this dead lift a try? Here’s how to do it:

Stand with your feet slightly closer than shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent, or “soft.” Hold a barbell in your hands, or dumbbells in each hand, in front of your thighs, with your palms facing your legs. Keep your back straight and your shoulders pulled back.
Bend your torso forward slowly, lowering the bar or dumbbells toward the floor. Keep your knees slightly bent and your back flat through the entire movement. Lower the bar until your torso is almost parallel to the floor. From this position, focus on your hamstrings and exhale while slowly lifting your body and the weights back to the starting position. Repeat.

Adhering to proper form is extremely important during this move; otherwise, you can injure your lower back. To prevent injury, keep your eyes focused forward. This helps keep your back in the correct position. Don’t round your shoulders or bend your knees too much, and be careful not to use too much weight.

Filed Under: fitness tips, jillian michaels Tagged With: deadlifts, exercise tips, fitness tips, tighten your backside

Shape Up Your Shoulders

October 13, 2011 By admin 22 Comments

From LOSING IT! With Jillian Michaels
Thursday, October 13, 2011

Your Other Backside

Shoulder exercises are a popular part of resistance workouts. Working out while facing a mirror, many people train what they can see — the front and middle heads of the three-part deltoid muscle. But the rear head of the deltoid needs attention too. Otherwise, you’ll have unbalanced strength in your shoulders, which can set you up for a rotator cuff injury.

Let’s take some time to target the backs of your shoulders with bent-over shoulder raises. Here’s how:

Sit on the edge of a chair or workout bench with a dumbbell in each hand and your feet shoulder-width apart. Bend forward at the waist so that your upper body is parallel with the floor. Let your arms hang straight down under your chest, with your palms facing inward towards each other. Exhale and raise the dumbbells, pulling your arms apart, up and out, until they are parallel with the ﬂoor. Hold for a beat.
Inhale and slowly lower your arms back to the starting position; repeat. Keep a slight bend in your elbows throughout the entire movement. Be careful not to lift your torso when you raise the weights.

Filed Under: fitness tips Tagged With: fitness tips, jillian michaels, shape up your shoulders, shoulder exercises

Do I Workout If I Am Sore??

October 13, 2011 By admin 23 Comments

That is a very good question, and Jillian has a great answer ~

You should NOT train a muscle that’s sore. The reason for this is that your body interprets exercise as stress; it’s during the recovery time when the real work is being done. Think of exercise as the architect and recovery as the builder. If you work a muscle too soon after a training session, therefore, you will just break it down.

Also, you shouldn’t be sore for more than two days after a workout; if you are, you may have a slight injury or muscle strain. If this is the case, take it easy and give that muscle time to heal before training it again.

Filed Under: fitness tips Tagged With: jillian michaels, sore muscles, workouts when sore

Workout Without The Gym

October 11, 2011 By admin 12 Comments

The No-Gym Workout

Whether it’s the expense of joining a gym or just the atmosphere you don’t like, you don’t need to be a member of a health club to get in a good workout.

By Dennis Thompson Jr.

Medically reviewed by Pat F. Bass III, MD, MPH

You would really like to get fit, but you can’t afford an expensive membership at some fancy gym. Maybe money’s not the real issue — you’re just afraid of all those tanned and toned people judging you as you go through your workout routine.

Don’t use these as excuses not to exercise, says Julie Ann McCarthy, a physical therapist in San Francisco and a spokeswoman for the American Physical Therapy Association. There are a lot of exercises you can do around your house or in your neighborhood that don’t require a gym for a good workout.

“Some people think they need to go to the gym or spend a lot of money on fancy equipment to get a good workout, and that’s definitely not the case,” McCarthy says.

Workout Guidelines for Fitness

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommends that adults include a certain amount of physical exercise in their weekly routine as one means of staying healthy.

Keep in mind that all of the regular walking, standing, and lifting you normally do in your daily life does not constitute a workout, according to HHS. Even including some short-burst exertions like climbing a few flights of stairs or lifting a heavy box or two won’t help improve your overall health.

Instead, you need to engage in what the HHS describes as health-enhancing activity — exercises and workouts that go beyond your normal daily activity. The specific recommendations for adults involve:

At least 2 hours and 30 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic workouts, such as brisk walking, or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic workouts like running or jogging
For even better results, about 5 hours a week of moderate workouts or 2 hours and 30 minutes of vigorous workouts
On top of these aerobic activities, strength-training workouts at least twice a week that involve all major muscle groups

You should spread these exercises throughout the week, mixing up your routine often to keep your body guessing and work out different muscle sets at different intensities.

Workout at Home: How to Skip the Gym

You don’t need a gym to do any of these activities:

Get up and move. Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise can be as simple as marching in place while you watch television. You also can take a long, quick-paced walk through your neighborhood. “Walking is one of the best forms of exercise,” McCarthy says. “It’s low-impact, so it’s easy for the joints to take. There are fewer compressive and shear forces going through your ankles, knees, and hips.”
Jumping jacks. People ready to pursue a high-intensity aerobic workout can get more advanced. “I would start off with something like jumping jacks, then jog, then run,” McCarthy says. “With any type of aerobic activity, you want to build up the intensity so you’ll enjoy it.” Biking or swimming also are good activities, but involve getting a bike or having access to a pool. However, you’ll see better benefits if you mix up your aerobic exercises, as different workouts target different muscle groups.
Sports. Competitive sports also can provide different levels of physical exertion, be it the long walk of a round of golf or the heart-pumping scramble of basketball.

Strength-training exercises also can be accomplished without spending money on weights or a gym membership:

Do some squats. Lunges and squats can give your lower body a solid strength-training workout by using your own weight as the resistance. “The best exercise you can do is a squat,” McCarthy says. “Put a chair behind you and act like you’re going to sit down, but don’t. It’s an exercise that works so many lower-body muscles — quads, hamstrings, and glutes.”
Makeshift weights. Use water bottles, cans of soup, or heavier items as resistance for bicep curls and straight-arm raises that work your shoulders.
The old basic-training standby. Push-ups will work your chest muscles, biceps, triceps, and back muscles. “You don’t want to go too far down,” McCarthy says. “You only want to go so your elbow and forearm are at a 90-degree angle.”
Work those abs. To work your abs, do the plank exercise. Get into the starting position of the typical push-up, but place your hands and elbows on the floor. Straighten your legs, lifting your knees off the floor and making a straight line from your shoulders to hips to heels, holding yourself up with your abs. “You want to go to fatigue,” McCarthy says. “When you lose form, the exercise is over.” You can repeat three to four times. She tells people to stay away from sit-ups, as it is hard to work the right muscles and people often will end up with a sore neck or back. The plank exercise also targets the deeper abdominal muscles that are essential to balance and posture, while sit-ups target more superficial ab muscles.

If you think you need to join a health club to get your exercise, you’re wrong. These simple steps will keep you in shape.

Filed Under: fitness tips Tagged With: easy workout, no gym workout, workout at home

Fitness Tips for Motivation that Really Work

October 10, 2011 By admin 9 Comments

Fitness motivation is extremely hard for many people to keep up. There’s no doubt that getting yourself to exercise takes a great deal of will power, as well as finding the time. You may not have thought of asking yourself the following question, so consider it now. Do you think you’ll ever find ways to get motivated to exercise if you don’t search for them? The reason why it’s an important question is that it reveals a great deal about your approach. The fact is, you can find many reasons not to begin, but it’s really a choice you are free to make. Getting started is usually the most difficult step, but there’s always a way to do it if you really want to. You can use the following three fitness tips to help you get motivated.

The fact is, people differ in terms of what motivates them, in the area of fitness or any other area. It can be very useful to think about what you hope to gain by exercising and writing this down. If you have never done something like that, writing things down, then you will be surprised at all the things that start popping into your mind when you write. Writing an idea down on paper, or even on a computer screen, can clarify it for you. Something else you should write down are all the goals you would like to reach with your fitness plan. It’s best to make these goals you feel you have a real chance of achieving.

A lot about sticking with any fitness program, or healthy living program, is all about making new habits of living. It’s been shown that creating new habits in your everyday life takes approximately three weeks. Knowing this, you can begin your fitness program with the intention of staying with it for a mere three weeks. Or, make it just one lousy month! Don’t just exercise when you feel like it, but include it as part of your everyday routine. The trick is to get yourself used to working out at a particular time every day, and after a month, you may find it’s already a comfortable part of your routine.

Your body needs a little time to remake itself, so don’t make the mistake of looking for an immediate transformation. In various ways, people have unrealistic expectations about what’s possible. When their unrealistic expectations aren’t met, these people are likely to give up. You’re much better off starting off slowly. If you have many smaller goals, it’s easier to work your way up to the bigger goals. Then just take it slow and one step at a time. You can only do so much at one time, so relax. As you get faster and stronger, you’ll be able to do more intense workouts, but this will come naturally.

You can use these fitness tips for motivation to affect the most startling personal transformation, ever. So get started as soon as you can, preferably today, and then keep taking a little action every day.

Want more great fitness tips? Follow Living Smart Girl daily, or visit our sister site Fitness-Love.