What Should I Be Doing?

So what should I be doing?  

When it comes to working out, too many times, the program we are following is not appropriate for what our goals and expectations are.  The routine may have turned stale a long time ago, but we are still doing the same tired routine from yesteryear.  Maybe we want to drop a couple of pounds (or 20), so we park a little further away at the grocery store or take the stairs at work.  Yard work and household chores will also help, but one thing we haven’t addressed is what we are putting into our bodies.

But how do we get there?  Hiring a qualified professional will probably save you a lot of time and aggravation.  But, significantly limiting or eliminating sugary drinks (fruit juice included) altogether is a great start.  Try to employ the 80/20 Rule with food.  Get 80% of your calories from high-quality natural whole foods (try to avoid foods with a lot of ingredients, i.e. things you can’t pronounce—companies can hide all kinds of stuff in there!)  The other 20% of the time you can have fun with food—but within reason.  You don’t want to sabotage all of the hard work you are putting in. 

When it comes to wellness and decreasing our incidents of disease, the previously mentioned strategies will indeed help in decreasing our risk factors.  But if we have specific fitness goals and expectations, we need specific strategies to combat those areas.  Fitness is essentially a state of super-wellness.  When a person is fit, wellness is an added benefit.  If our goal is weight loss, we have to make sure we are taking in fewer calories than we are burning up.  If our goal is to “tone up”, we have to challenge the muscles at the appropriate level.  Just because you make your muscles sore does not guarantee that you are being effective.  You may be overtraining a specific area and neglecting others.  And only doing cardio probably won’t be the most efficient way to lose the body fat you desire and keep it off long-term.

Try to change your fitness routine every 4-6 weeks.  Your body will adapt to what you are doing and then just go into maintenance mode.  Do a combination of muscle strengthening movements (push-ups, squats, dead lifts, etc.) and interval-based cardio (moderate speed with vigorous spurts mixed in) at least 3-4 days per week.  Drink plenty of water and get 7-8 hours of quality sleep every night (turn off the TV!). 

So, let’s go; you can do this!

This blog was written by Advantage Personal Training.  
To learn more, contact Calvin at 860-691-1616