Everybody needs their own specific selection of exercises on their weight loss quest. The body builder needs to gain muscle weight, and yet lose fat. The marathon runner needs to build endurance. The overweight person needs to find a healthy way to lose weight, and or, to look better. They want to look and feel more fit. It takes different forms and amounts of exercise to achieve these different goals. Everyone needs a different exercise program to fit their own goals.
Do you want to lose weight? It’s simple, just use 3500 less calories than you consume, and you will lose one pound. So, eat less, burn more and you lose weight. Getting a clear image of your fitness and weight loss goals is an important first step. What do you really want? Break up your different goals and select individual exercise programs to fit the different parts of your overall goals best.
You need to personalize your own exercise program. Here are the three basic phases of an exercise program.
Phase 1: Get Your Heart Rate Inside Certain “Target Zones”
If you’ve been researching exercise programs for weight loss, you have probably also heard of aerobic exercise and know that it is essential to weight loss. Achieving a heart rate of 50 to 85 % of your maximum heart rate puts you in the “Target Zone.” This can be achieved easily by doing aerobics. In this zone, the body is getting enough oxygen to burn fat, and it requires more energy than you have normally in your circular system, so you are at the level where the most fat is burned to get the energy required.
Go to higher heart rate, and your body will grab energy closer to muscles being used by breaking down muscle tissue and not so much of the fat. If you go to a lower heart rate, then your body doesn’t need to break up fat cells for energy, as it gets enough from your blood sugar. That is, unless you continue the milder exercise for a long time, then it runs out of the blood sugar and does burn fat. Which is why you can lose weight just by walking, as long as you do it long enough. But that takes time, many hours in fact.
So shoot for the 50% to 85% max heart rate. Experts recommend a total of 150 minutes (about 2 hours and 30 minutes) of exercise a week. But, if the mere idea of exercising that much overwhelms you, you are in luck, as the experts suggest starting with 50 minutes of exercise per week. The 50 minutes can be broken down to 3 sessions of around 17 minutes each or 4 sessions of 12 ½ minutes.
Now, for the fun part, choose an aerobic exercise for phase 1.
Types of Aerobic Exercise:
Dancing
Beginning Zumba DVD
Aerobics class
Brisk walking
Rollerblading
Bicycle riding
Slow jogs or mild treadmill
Phase 2: Kick it up a notch
Because these are individualized exercise programs for weight loss, you can choose when you’re ready to move on to the next phase. People can easily slip into this second phase by adding more time to their exercise programs for weight loss and choosing a plan that incorporates moderate intensity workouts. For example, you can choose to an exercise from the following list and workout 30 minutes a day, 3 times a week.
Types of Moderate Intensity Exercise:
Outdoor tennis
Water aerobics
Advanced Zumba dance program
Swimming
Bike riding with hills or uneven ground
Stationary bikes with varied cadence
Running on the treadmill
Phase 3: Choose a more intense interval training program 30 minutes, 5 times a week.
Types of Exercise:
Bursts of walking and running outside
Bicycling with long uphill stretches
TurboFire intense interval training
Cardio and weight training intervals
Bursts of speed on the treadmill every 2 minutes
If you break up your goals when starting exercise programs for weight loss, it will make it easier for you to not feel overwhelmed. Since experts say any activity is a good start, you can be confident that you are doing yourself a great service just by walking more. Get started today!
Not enough time for exercise? We have a 7 minute workout routine for busy people.
