When you exercise, there are two reason why you do it. Either to get/stay in shape, or to gain muscle. Staying in shape is something you should make a daily routine to stay looking healthy. Many people start exercising or dieting just because they want to lose weight or fix their figure.

Losing weight is not really that difficult to do, it just requires patience. You will not lose weight overnight, unless you undergo liposuction. To lose weight it is a mixture of exercise and proper nutrition.

To begin your weight loss journey, start by eating properly. Cut out any unhealthy foods. Replace junk snacks with fruits and vegetables, replace white wheat with whole wheat, and replace red meats with lean meats. Eat more frequently, but in smaller proportions. Have many healthy snacks, this will help your digestion system and metabolism.

Every morning, do some cardio first thing when you wake up, before you eat. Your running should follow this pattern: 2 minutes jogging, 30 seconds sprinting, 2 minutes jogging, 30 seconds sprinting, and so on for 30 minutes. This will tap into your fat supply and burn it. Then do 15-30 minutes of an upper body work out, or lower body workout and alternate daily. Once you are done, drink anything with electrolytes to hydrate you (eg. Powerade) and have breakfast. A healthy breakfast.

Within just a few weeks, you will start to notice that you have lost an incredible amount of weight and made your figure more fit. Losing weight is easy to do, but maintaining it is the difficult part. You will need to change your lifestyle to a healthy one. Don’t lose all your effort by eating McDonald’s every day and thickening your coffee with sugar like it’s syrup. It’s okay to have fast food here and there, but making it a habit will be extremely detrimental to your lifestyle and all your hard work!

Putting sports into your lifestyle can be very beneficial. Apart from sports being good for your health, they also help you enjoy yourself, give you more discipline, teach you team work (if you are playing a team sport) and make you join a social group. 

It is easy to put sports into your lifestyle. Start off by looking for local community centres, and if they offer any drop-in sports dates. Register and drop in! If you are just picking up a sport, and want to learn, do not be shy about playing, a lot of the time many people are also new to the sport, or they were before they started attending the drop in games. 

Make a list of sports you are interested in and research the rules and everything you need to know about them. Figure out when the drop in days are, buy the equipment and start playing! Playing sports is one of the most fun activities you can participate in. You will find that you are making new friends with common interests, you are becoming more goal and team-work oriented, and best of all, you don’t even realize how good it is for your health! 

Take a sport like volleyball for instance. I go to a co-ed beach volleyball session weekly, and I have been doing it for almost 2 years now. I started off with basketball, and a friend I met while playing drop-in basketball told me to come on Wednesdays to beach volleyball and join him. So I did, and it was one of the best decisions I made. Apart from the fitness, and the fun, and all of the new people I met, I meet beautiful women almost every week! Just a little pointer

Putting sports into your lifestyle can make a huge positive change in your life, as it did with mine and most of my friends. You kill two birds with one stone, entertainment and exercise! Beats watching TV with an Abtronic strapped to your stomach, don’t you think?

A lot of people don’t hit the gym because of the time it takes up. In a day, you can wake up, go to work, come back, relax from a long day, eat dinner, watch some tv, fall asleep, wake up, and before you know it, it’s another day. Where does exercising fit into this schedule? Some people at the gym spend HOURS lifting weights and running the track, it may seem almost impossible to work out, but you can do it easily. Try some quick work outs! These work outs you can do first thing in the morning, before you sleep, or even on your lunch break at work!

Morning – 20 minutes, Every Day

When you just wake up, before you brush your teeth and before you eat, get some cardio going. Run up and down the stairs, go for a run/jog/walk outside, or go for a bike. Every other day, instead of cardio, do push ups, sit ups, crunches, chin ups, whatever. Work on toning your body every other day, and work on cardio every other day.

Lunch - 10 minutes, Every Day

Every day, make it a habit to walk or jog for ten minutes. I prefer to walk, because it sucks coming back to work all sweaty! I used to work at a research firm in downtown Toronto, about a 10 minute walk from the Eaton’s Centre (major shopping centre) where I would eat Subway for lunch. That made it habitual for me to walk 10 minutes there, and 10 minutes back every single day.

Evening – 10 Minutes, Every Day

At night, try to do some push ups or sit ups. This will keep your muscles working and in a good toned shape. You can do this when you return from work, or before you sleep, it doesn’t matter as long as you do it!

It’s not that difficult to fit exercising in your schedule if you just wake up 20 minutes earlier, and break up the 40 minutes into 3 different sections. I’m sure you can’t be so busy that you do not have 40 minutes spread throughout the day to look after your health!