Tips for a Successful Workout Program

1. Exercise Daily.
3-4 times per week is fine if your goal is cardiovascular fitness, but weight loss is a different goal altogether. Research has shown that weight loss efforts are more successful if you exercise daily. Why? Read my previous post for one reason.

Make it a priority. The sooner you start building the habit, the better.

2. When you do cardiovascular exercise, make it brisk.
A leisurely stroll does burn energy (more so than sitting on the couch watching TV!) but if you are time-poor and need to make the most of your exercise minutes, aim for a slight amount of breathlessness. You should still be able to carry on a conversation but only between deeper-than-usual breaths. This breathlessness is an indicator that your heart rate is increased. The higher your heart rate, the harder your body is working and therefore the more calories you burn. As your fitness increases, you should find that you need to increase the pace/intensity of your exercise in order to achieve the same level of breathlessness.

3. Strength training 2-3 times per week.
This keeps your muscles stimulated and will encourage your body to maintain its muscle mass, and possibly even gain some. Remember - you want to lose fat, not muscle. Fat is dead weight - it is simply a form of energy storage utilised by your body. Muscle on the other hand is very much alive - the more muscle you have, the more energy you burn. And for the women out there who are worried they'll get bulky... you won't. I try to push myself hard in my strength sessions and have personal goals to increase my strength to lift heavier weights, and no one would ever describe me as bulky.

4. Change your program at least every 6 weeks.
Our bodies are amazing. They don't like to be stressed... so they adapt to cope with stresses better and more efficiently. So you need to keep changing your program in order to challenge your body to continue adapting. If you stick to the same routine for a long time, there will come a point where you hit a "plateau" which is another way of saying that your body has become efficient at doing whatever activities you are making it do, and so it doesn't need to adapt anymore.

5. Seek professional guidance.
You're probably thinking that now I'm just trying to make a sale. But that is far from the truth. One key element to a great training program is knowing how to do the exercises correctly and effectively. There is no point being able to do hundreds of chin ups, only to discover that this is because your arms are really strong and doing all the work and your back muscles are virtually doing nothing. Too often we focus on the end product (getting our chin up to the bar) rather than the process involved (activating the right muscles and getting them to work together as a team). Getting some sessions with a (good) personal trainer will set you up on the path to training success. And that trainer will also probably get a lot more effort out of you in a short session with him/her than you would get out of yourself in the same amount of time (which usually means more calories burnt during that time too!).

If finances are an issue, consider getting at least a few sessions to kickstart yourself, so that you can at least learn the correct technique and glean as much as you can from those session before you then try to go at it on your own. Or maybe request contributions towards sessions as birthday or Christmas gifts... after all, your personal health is one of the most valuable things your possess.

The same thing applies to group fitness classes, which are a service provided by most gyms at no additional cost. I know I work much harder during a Cycle class with an instructor urging me to push myself than just going for a cycle by myself in the cardio area of the gym (whilst watching a program on TV at the same time, which of course means I'm less focussed and don't work as hard).

6. Find something you enjoy!
If you hate running, then don't run. Simple as that. If you prefer the gym to the park, then by all means invest in a membership. In order to keep up an active lifestyle you need to find something you enjoy. Something that is able to get you up in the morning or out after a hard day's work (or during your lunch break). I don't try to cajole my husband into weekly aerobics classes, just like he'd never pressure me into joining him in a basketball game. Better yet, if you can find a friend or two that enjoy the same things you do, then you'll have a buddy to not only keep you accountable, but encourage you to keep going on days you feel like skipping a session.