You know how it goes, if you want to lose weight, you have to watch your food and get on with physical exercise. But just like dieting, exercising should be done following a few guidelines in order to be fully efficient and not put your health at risk.
To lose weight the principle is as simple as 1-2-3: increase the number of calories you burn and lessen the number of calories you consume. If you absorb less calories than you burn on a daily basis, then you will lose weight.
When dieting alone can make you lose up to two pounds a week with a healthy and balanced nutrition, adding physical exercise can rocket the weight you lose every week to twice or three times that. But just like reducing the number of calories you feed your body with, getting into a regular and efficient exercise routine that while make you lose over 5 pounds a week is a gradual process.
It is quite obvious that if you have never ran a mile in your life, going for a full marathon can be a bit of problem. So just take it easy. If you do things right, you will get in proper shape in no time.
First of all, you should go through a stretch out routine before and after every single physical exercise session. Try stretching out every muscle in your body. Start with your neck muscles and work your way down to your feet. You should hold you stretch your muscles longer when they are warm, just at the end of your exercise session.
Just after your session opening stretch, you should go through a short warm up session. A good warm up is a slow jog, run at a comfortable pace until you start feeling warm. Again, try warming all of your body, and that includes your upper body, so think of warming up your arms, shoulders and back too.
Then in order to be efficient in terms of weight loss, your session of exercise doesn’t have to be extremely intensive. What is really important is to stimulate your breathing and your heart beating rates, and to keep them at a fair pace for rather long period of time. Ideally, you should aim for an exercise with a steady intensity that will make your heart beat at 60% to 85% of its maximum. You should try keep that rhythm for at least 30 minutes.
Of course, if you really are not used to exercise, this is when the gradual work comes in. If you’re a completely sedentary, and have lived that way for some time, chances are you will not hold the rhythm for more than 5 minutes. It’s no problem. Give yourself a rest by walking slowly, catch your breath, and then go for another 5 minutes. If you are worn out at this point, then go for a cool down walk of 5 to 15 minutes, then stretch out. Repeat this every day, or every over day, for one week.
The following week, try going for 10 minutes, then 5 minutes. You can even do 3 times 5 minutes, or twice 10 minutes if you feel up to it! It’s your choice, as long as you increase the duration of your exercise session without ending up red as tomato and completely dehydrated. Once you reach 30 minutes of exercise in a row, don’t stop there, you can go up to 45 minutes or even an hour, it will only be beneficial for your health. Depending on the number of calories your diet provides, you can lose up to 6 pounds a week with only 30 minutes of mildly intensive exercise every day.
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