I am willing to bet that every year, millions of people decide that they are- “finally going to get into shape this time” or that they will – “lose this belly fat before the summer hits” or any number of similar statements. Here are my top five actions that you can take to get a great start.
Health And Fitness Tips That Will Change Your Life
Develop a drinking habit
One of the easiest things to get started with a healthy lifestyle is to start drinking plenty of water. Most people don’t drink enough and are never optimally hydrated. If your body has been restricted of water for a long period of time, it will adapt to its environment, meaning that its functions will slow down, not only making you feel lethargic but will also hinder the effectiveness of any exercise that you do, i.e., if you are aiming to reduce body fat with exercise, each exercise session will not be half as effective as it could be were you correctly hydrated.
The best way to start this is to acquire a two litre water bottle, fill this up every morning and carry it with you every day, make this as important as your house keys, wallet or phone, sip from this all day and make sure that you have finished the full bottle by the end of the day. This will become a habit and will set you up for success.
A simple plan
A lack of planning is often responsible for the failure of long term health, fitness and weight loss aspirations. It’s great to have motivation and drive to get started, but not knowing how to channel this could result in this valuable motivation diminishing.
The best thing you can do to plan your fitness journey is to treat it as just that, a journey. Where do you want to go? How are you going to get there and what are you going to need to make this possible?
If you take ten minutes out, sit down with your bottle of water and make some notes on what you plan to achieve and how you are going to do it, you will not believe how much this will help. Sure, this may sound pointless at first, but it is actually highly productive and effective as you will see.
Think about – Why you want to do this, how, when, where you will exercise, how you will eat. Think about anything that is relevant and jot it down. Once you have your thoughts on paper, you can look at making your plan. Try to plan for at least six months into the future.
Start with quick, easy but effective workouts.
Quick, simple exercise sessions are a great start; you can even begin a routine from the comfort of your own home. It’s important for a beginner to work on the development of a regular exercise habit as well as the actual exercise choice, but how do you choose the right exercise plan?
One of the most effective ways to get started is to use a method called circuit training. This way you are incorporating a sound mixture of cardio training and resistance training. This is good for several reasons but the main one being that you are working towards burning fat whilst also toning muscle. A lot of beginners neglect the resistance part of fitness opting instead for a straight up cardio routine. By adding a muscle toning element to your cardio session, you will be working on developing muscle which in turn will aid in fat loss efficiency.
Try this without any rest between exercises –
- Jog on the spot for 20 seconds
- Perform 20 seconds of pushups/ pushups on knees
- Jog on the spot for 20 seconds
- Perform 20 seconds worth of body weight squats
- Jog on the spot for 20 seconds
- Perform 20 seconds of tricep dips on a chair
- Jog on the spot for 20 seconds
- Perform shoulder press for 20 seconds using a band, set of dumbells, bottles of water for resistance.
- Jog on the spot for 20 seconds
- Perform 20 seconds of squats
- Jog on the spot for 20 seconds
Have one minute rest and repeat three times. This is an example of an eleven minute workout. There are thousands of ways to change this up, so be creative, but make sure you work towards making it a habit.
Learn to cook healthy meals
A major factor in any fitness endeavour is diet. If you can cook healthy meals, you have a big advantage over most. Cooking is an invaluable skill that can be developed over a lifetime. The best way to start developing this skill is to learn one healthy recipe at a time. Here is an easy way to implement this idea with longevity in mind –
- Pick a meal time that suites you. Ideally this should be the same time every week.
- Think of one of your favourite foods and google this along with a keyword such as “healthy”, “low fat” or “Low sugar” etc.
- Pick an idea that looks good and cook it. If it works out, you have a healthy recipe in the bank, do the same thing at the same time every week with different food ideas
You will be surprised how easy and fun this can be. You will also be working to develop a great understanding of healthy food, what works and what doesn’t.
Stay consistent
The most important thing to understand when it comes to getting started with good lifelong health and fitness is that to achieve this status, you need to stay consistent with your efforts. This may sound simple and obvious but in practice, it always seems to be the one caveat that puts an end to a health and fitness venture that could have lasted a lifetime.
Remember-
Whatever diet that you choose to follow, make sure it is something that you can see yourself doing for a long time, not just a few weeks.
With your exercise efforts, make sure that you stick to a regular routine.
It may seem hard at first but the longer that you stick to your plan, the easier it will become until it becomes a habit that is tough to break.
About the author: Based in Shropshire, James Atkinson is a certified fitness coach who has been actively involved in the health and fitness arena for over twenty years. Previously he served in the British Army as part of an airborne unit of 9 Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers. He has written several fitness books including; Fitness & Exercise Motivation, Home Workout For Beginners, Home Workout Circuit Training, Marathon Training & Distance Running Tips, Jim’s Weight Training Guide, Superset Style!, Jim’s Weight Training & Bodybuilding Workout Plan and Fitness For Women Of Any Age. His latest book, Health & Fitness Tips That Will Change Your Life(published by JBA Publishing 14th October 2017 RRP £9.99 paperback and £3.99 ebook) is available to purchase from Amazon. For more information please visit: https://jimshealthandmuscle.com