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How to develop an exercise routine


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I am a 36 year old female. I HATE exercising with a passion. This past year a I landed up losing quite a bit of weight w/o trying. I wasn't monitoring what I was eating and I did not have an exercise routine. I was just going about life and everyone kept mentioning to me how much weight I had lost. Weight loss does NOT come easy for me and I honestly think a low time in my life just caused me to not eat as much and I wasn't focused on my weight (obsessed really!) as I typically am.

 

Well, I want to maintain this weight loss and I would like to lose some more weight and have no clue where to start as far as exercise goes. I have been attempting HIIT for the past month on my stationary bike and I don't know if I am doing it correctly. I have exercised on and off over the years and find it hard to stay motivated, especially if I have to spend an exorbitant amount of time exercising when I am hard pressed for time on most days.

 

I also want to incorporate resistance training.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to start developing an exercise rountine? Any good links/books? I plan on working out at home.

 

I appreciate any input!

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The first thing to do before trying to develop your own routine is establishing your goals. You can have multiple goals, but they have to correlate. For example, fat loss and conditioning go well together, while fat loss and strength gain/muscle gain generally don't do well together unless you're a rank beginner.

 

Since I'm guessing that your main goal is fat loss, conditioning, and general health (based on your post), bodyweight only circuits are probably your best bet, seeing as you plan on training at home. I have personally used bodyweight circuits and sprints exclusively for fat loss with great success.

 

An example of such a circuit might be 5 rounds of: 35 push ups, 12 pull ups, 40 air squats, and 30 skips in place. This is done all as quickly as possible, but not at the expense of form, depth in squats/pushups, etc.

 

You might scale it down to 5 rounds of 10 push ups, 20 air squats, 20 skips in place, 20 mountain climbers. If you don't have a pullup bar, I suggest getting one. Even if you can't do pullups now, there are plenty of exercises you can do on a pullup bar that can help prepare you for actual pullups and still provide you with a great workout.

 

With any workout plan there are three things that need to be taken into account. Those things are frequency, volume, and intensity. You can only pick 2 to do at the same time. For example, if you train at high intensity at high frequency (every day) at a high volume (a lot of reps performed), you will be burnt out within a week or two and will have not gained anything except for mental fortitude and possibly an injury.

 

Personally, my favorite method of training is higher frequency and higher intensity. This allows me to keep my workouts short, but allows me to keep performance high while still feeling fairly fresh the next day. The same principle can be applied to your training. High frequency (training 4-5 days per week) will help you with fat loss efforts, and high intensity will improve your conditioning and workout effectiveness while allowing you to minimize the actual time spent training. Bodyweight circuits shouldn't take more than a half hour (on a bad day) and sprint training can take as little as 15 minutes.

 

I would personally set up something along the lines of:

 

Monday: Bodyweight circuit

Tuesday: Sprints

 

Wed: Recovery walk

 

Thursday: Bodyweight circuit

Friday: Sprints

 

Saturday: Recovery Walk

Sunday: off or recumbent bike

 

A final note on the bodyweight circuits: you can get creative. It doesn't always have to be regular pushups, or squats, or whatever. You can also do things like a Texas pushup (from standing, drop and do 1 pushup, stand up again, drop and do 2, stand up again, drop and do 3, etc. up through 10), lunges, jump squats, high knees, bench or chair dips, burpees, etc.

 

Try to do a different circuit every training session, and try to keep it balanced between upper body and lower body.

 

That's the best advice I can give you unless you want to join a gym and use traditional strength training methods.

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if you hate exercise then don't do too much.

 

I'm not talking about over training but doing a routine that's too consistent, too long (high intensity) etc etc.

 

Unless your an athlete that trains 8 hrs days, any type of exercise you do will burn very little calories. I think the highest amount of calories burned is in a session of aerobics/running/biking which roughly equals to 900-1000. But that's going at a high bpm.

 

Exercise also, when done too much, makes you hungry.

 

Its always better to watch your diet. Not restrictive but less calories.

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I am a 36 year old female. I HATE exercising with a passion. This past year a I landed up losing quite a bit of weight w/o trying. I wasn't monitoring what I was eating and I did not have an exercise routine. I was just going about life and everyone kept mentioning to me how much weight I had lost. Weight loss does NOT come easy for me and I honestly think a low time in my life just caused me to not eat as much and I wasn't focused on my weight (obsessed really!) as I typically am.

 

Well, I want to maintain this weight loss and I would like to lose some more weight and have no clue where to start as far as exercise goes. I have been attempting HIIT for the past month on my stationary bike and I don't know if I am doing it correctly. I have exercised on and off over the years and find it hard to stay motivated, especially if I have to spend an exorbitant amount of time exercising when I am hard pressed for time on most days.

 

I also want to incorporate resistance training.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to start developing an exercise rountine? Any good links/books? I plan on working out at home.

 

I appreciate any input!

 

Are you into sports at all? IMO that's the best way to exercise, because you are thinking of it as fun/play rather than "exercise". And it's a social thing, much easier to do it with 1 or more others.

 

I've gone from zero exercise 18-24 months ago, to 30-60 minutes 6 days a week, and I usually manage 90+ mins on a couple of those days. The main ways to get motivation for me were:

 

i) have a goal for your exercise, something you really want to achieve. For me, it's being in condition to do boxing/martial arts - if I am unfit I can't train or spar properly, so I have to do it. A secondary goal is to get an excellent physique. I'm not just aiming to get trim, but to train my body to the same standards as I try to train my mind. So whenever I feel lazy or too tired, I just think of these two goals, visualize looking good and being in fighting fit condition, and it becomes easier to get motivated.

 

ii) its much easier to continue than to get started. The time you are most likely to skip a session is before you start. How often do you get into 2 or 3 minutes, then stop? Or give up half way through? Very rarely. 98% of the time you just don't start in the first place. So I have a little trick - if I am not feeling like exercising that day, I'll just do 1 minute. After that minute I almost never stop, I'll only stop if I have a genuine higher priority e.g. work or some important personal business to attend to. Even then I usually manage to put in 20 mins or so.

 

iii) work out every day. That makes it a much stronger habit. If you only do say 3 days a week, the majority of days you are training yourself not to exercise. You need to make it a routine, burn it into your brain so it becomes a no-effort habit just like brushing your teeth

 

iv) keep it simple, keep it interesting. Hate running? Do swimming, or use a skipping rope instead, or play squash or something energetic. I do some basic boxing routines which to me is more interesting than pumping iron. I do bodyweight exercises so I don't have to take up space with equipment.

 

v) when you start skipping sessions, don't give up. Just start again from the beginning and build it back up. Everyone gets lazy and takes a step back from time to time, but the ones who give up there lose for good, the ones who get back into the saddle and ride on are the ones who get to their goals.

 

As for diet, just avoid the obvious - junk food, desserts, soda/fizzy drinks, crisps, chocolate and so on. Eat natural unprocessed foods, lots of fruit, and drink loads of water. Eat more often during the day, 5-6 light meals/snacks is better as it keeps your metabolism ticking over. Weight is lost 20% in the gym and 80% in the kitchen. It's a simple equation - you will have a natural calorie burn each day, that will go a bit higher if you work out each day. If you eat more than that, you won't lose weight. Just cut your calorie intake and increase your calorie burn and you will lose weight. The type of calories is not *that* important, the quantity is the main thing. If you find dieting hard, then each time you think of a high calorie "delicious" food, just imagine yourself bloating up and getting a huge belly, fat rolls, sweaty patches, cellulite, and men vomiting when the see you naked. You want to get a negative psychological association with high calorie foods, instead of the positive "tasty/delicious" reaction.

 

Regarding type of exercise, for fat burn/losing weight, continuous cardio is by far the best. Anything less than about 20 mins is almost worthless (although even 1 minute a day is good at the start to build up your exercise habit), you need to be doing about 30 and ideally 45 minutes a day eventually to lose serious weight. Continuous cardio (running, swimming, skipping etc) is best because you can keep it up for much longer. Whereas intense stuff you can only keep up for a short time, even pro boxers only go 3 minutes a round, and that's rarely flat out. Another way to help burn calories is put on muscle, the more muscle (compared to fat) the higher your natural rate of calorie burn, so once you tone up a bit, it will become easier to lose more and to keep it off. So do some basic strength stuff too. I'd say 30 mins cardio, and 15 mins strength exercises, is a good mix. Simple 30 minute swim or run each morning before work, and then 15 mins of pressups, situps/crunches, burpees, and squats, is easy and quick to do, and not too taxing on the body.

 

Good luck, it's definitely worth it, once you are in shape you will look and feel better, have more energy, be more positive, more proactive, and better in bed too!

Edited by Joe Normal
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