How to start an exercise routine – for fat loss or good health

Today, everybody's talking about exercising. We're completely inundated with advertisements and infomercials all claiming they have the best products and programs for you to maximize your exercise results. Who do you trust? I'm going to take you through a different approach. With my method you don't have to buy anything, you can use whatever resources you already have, and what's best of all, you can start immediately.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Talk to people – Take a good look around at the people you interact with on a regular basis. Look beyond that for people you may see, but never talk to. For example, there may be a man who jogs past your house every morning as you leave your house for work. There may be a physically fit woman whom you’ve seen at the grocery store on several occasions. Find people who are physically fit and talk to them. Ask them what they do for exercise, how often they do it, how long they do it, how they got started. Most importantly, ask them if they have any suggestions for you to get started. You’re going to find that there’s a wealth of information from the people you have access to. Most of the information is right there, available to you, including specific procedures and plans for you to get started. Most importantly, it’s highly inspirational. You’re going to hear stories about people who were just like you are when they got started. You’re going to see that exercise isn’t just for athletes and Olympians, it’s for everyone.
2. Start small – No matter what it is you’re trying to accomplish in life, you have to start small. The task you allot for yourself must be manageable or else you’re setting yourself up for failure even before you start. Whatever the reason you plan to get in shape, whether it’s to lose weight, build endurance, improve your respiratory function, improve circulation, you may think you need to bombard yourself with strenuous labor to get any benefit. If that’s the case, you’re being too hard on yourself. People who get very little exercise are often hard on themselves, and their reason for wanting to start an exercise program is often because there is something they want to improve about their physical attributes. Blasting yourself into exhaustion is a sure fire way to make your attempt unpleasant. First off, you’re going to feel a lack of energy the next day because you’re still recovering. Secondly, the next time you go to exercise, you may still feel drained from overtraining during your last workout. Then you’ll have to skip your workout, and skipping your workout can be disastrous unless you’re already in the stage where you’re addicted to the adrenaline and endorphins that result from intense workouts. Start small by doing low intensity exercises like walking, biking on a relatively flat area, or wading around in the shallow end of a swimming pool. By doing these lower intensity activities you’re giving your body the chance it needs to adjust to the upcoming physical training.
3. Keep it simple – I don’t care if you were the gold medalist in the long jump, Summer Olympics, 1972, once you get out of shape it’s going to be a tough haul getting back into the swing of things. So what do you do when you want to accomplish something, maybe go to school, read books, do research on the internet, buy magazines, schematics, make charts, graphs, buy equipment and devices, make routines and schedules. If you did you’d certainly become an expert on the subject, but would that mean you’re really accomplishing any of the tasks that will help you achieve your goal. What you’ll do with that approach is make the plan you decide to follow so complicated that you’re going to forget why you made the plan in the first place. Not to mention carrying out that plan is going to be so long, complicated, and arduous the whole ordeal will leave an unpleasant impression in your mind. At that point, all your positive thoughts about the benefits of exercise are going to turn into distaste and unwillingness just as a child’s thoughts about taking out the garbage or sweeping the floor. Suddenly thumb exercises on the TV remote will seem like an attractive way out. Self-discipline is going to be your ultimate hurdle in the beginning, so we need to keep it as simple and easy as possible in the beginning. I’ll give you two workout plans and you tell me which one you’re more likely to stick to. Plan One: 5 jumping jacks, 5 crunches, 3 pushups, 5 cherry pickers, 10 leg lifts, running in place for 2 minutes Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Plan Two: 15 minutes on the treadmill Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I’m not saying Plan One wouldn’t have health benefits, but anyone trying to start an exercise plan would have to be crazy to start with something like that. 15 minutes on the treadmill, on the other hand, doesn’t take any brainwork. There’s no memorizing, no planning, and no confusion. Just get in and walk briskly or else walk fast for 15 minutes three days a week. If it’s too easy add on time or do it more days per week, and before long what you thought was going to be work turns out to actually be fun. What’s even better is the longer you stick to your routine the more fun it becomes, and you are training your body to develop an addiction to your exercise routine.
4. Visualize – Have you ever seen one of those stands at an amusement park where a kid puts his face in the hole and from the front you see the body of a muscle bound man and the face of a child? If your answer is yes, have you ever thought about what that child was doing there? Maybe you have, but I’m going to tell you anyway. That kid was dreaming. He was identifying with some kind of physical characteristics that he admired, and was aspiring to develop those traits when he grows up. So are all of those kids going to grow up with vein popping musculature? Of course not. Why? Because maybe they prioritized different goals, or maybe they didn’t focus enough on that goal to make it a reality. But suppose they did. Imagine if they spent their teen years running marathons and pumping iron so that by the time they reached adulthood they’d be ready to win the next Mr. Universe title. Thus is the methodology of a champion. They visualize their goal and work day after day, week after week, year after year on achieving it. If you plan to get in shape this is what you also must do. You must visualize yourself the way you desire and work toward it. If you want to achieve it you must never let your mental image of your goal escape you. That mental image is your reward. Visualizing it will give you the strength to work day after day, week after week, year after year, until you achieve it.
5. Accept exercise as a part of life – How is it that people who lead sedentary lifestyles come to live day by day with little or no exercise. Easily, by telling themselves that physical activity is difficult, unenjoyable, boring, too time consuming. This creates an overall negative mental impression of exercising that overpowers any realization of benefit that could come from engaging in such activities. Individuals who adopt that kind of mindset begin to structure their lives around avoidance of anything physical. For example, they’d rather take an elevator up one floor instead of walking two flights of stairs or driving a car down to the corner store instead of walking. People have the option to do that, and that’s their prerogative, but after a period of that sort of behavior they’ll soon accept inactivity as a part of life. If our goal is to begin an exercise program that we can stick to, we must do exactly the opposite. First, we have to dwell on the benefits of exercising. Then we have to remind ourselves that exercise isn’t unenjoyable. This can be a challenge, because in the beginning your body won’t be used to the exercise. It will take longer to warm up, you’ll feel more sluggish, you’ll feel more out of breath. It will probably feel more like work than play. Do whatever you can to make it fun. You can bring a friend if you have any friend who would be willing to help, listen to the radio while you exercise, in some cases you can even watch TV while you exercise, listen to music you enjoy. There are plenty of ways you can make your workout more enjoyable. Once you’re used to exercising you’ll find that your body warms up faster, your muscles will be more responsive, and you’ll feel great while you’re exercising. At this point you’ll begin to look forward to your workouts and you’ll wonder why you never did them before, because it’s become a part of your life. A part you realize your life needs to make it whole.
6. Don’t expect instant results – Exercising is a continuous process. If you want to stay in shape you can expect to be doing it the rest of your life. Considering the duration of that sort of commitment we have to look at our overall progress in terms of the bigger picture. That means initially our body is just getting used to the stimulus. For the first couple months of regular workouts you’ll find the most noticeable improvements will be in your endurance. Your endurance gains should come fast. During weeks two through four you should be able to achieve significantly longer workouts which will dramatically improve your cardiovascular system by sustaining your heart rate in aerobic phase for longer periods of time. During weeks four through eight you should begin to feel like your workouts are less laborious and it should begin to feel more natural. Warm up time is reduced and all around stamina is increased. During weeks eight through 12 you should see some noticeable development in muscle tone, but these features will mostly be detectible in areas where you have less body fat. For example the calves and fronts of thighs. You’re going to notice these muscles harden and become leaner. Use these noticeable gains as reinforcement to stick to your program, because it’s going to get better and better from here. If your goal is fat loss, during weeks 12 to 16 you’re going to see some thinning of your face and outer extremities. Those are the areas where fat loss is most noticeable because there is usually less fat there in the first place. Around the mid section, buttocks, hips, waist, belly fat is going to linger the longest. I can’t stress how much you’re going to need to exercise your patience if you want to achieve the long-term fat loss that comes from consistent exercise. Mainly, because no one can tell you exactly how fast you’re going to shed pounds. I can guarantee that if you work hard over the next year, in one year you’re going to be able to look at yourself with great satisfaction for what you accomplished over that year. You’re going to look and feel like a new person, and it all starts with the decisions you make here, today.
7. Throw on a pair of shorts and get to it – The best way to kick off your exercise program is to get started! This has to begin one way or another, even it if means some brisk walking while you’re saving up for your bike or exercise machine or whatever you planned to use for your routine. No one has ever gotten in shape by sitting around, so you have get out there and do it as early as today. One of the biggest pitfalls people can get into is the multitude of excuses they can make about why they have to wait for this or that before they can get on their routine. To get the best handle on the process you need to endure to achieve your goals, get started now!