Chapter 4: Exercise

It is a proven fact that exercise is one of the strongest tools in the aid of weight loss, in combination with healthy eating habits. Every muscle burns calories, so the more you work them, the more calories you will burn.

Deep breathing relaxes the body and soothes stress levels and will give you an increase in energy to use throughout the day.

Deep breathing is an exercise that should be practiced throughout the day especially in the mornings and at night to obtain emotional balance, especially if the day has been stressful and there is a need to be calm, cool and collected.

Either standing or lying down – whichever's more comfortable and convenient for you. Take in a slow, deep breath through the nose over a count of 5 seconds. Try to fill your lungs with as much air as possible. Then, hold your breath for a count of 5 seconds, then breathe out through your mouth slowly over a count of 5 seconds. Repeat several times.

Walking is a wonderful, easy exercise that anyone can do anywhere and should be utilized on a daily basis. Remember when going into the office for the day to park your car a certain distance to add more minutes to walking, also don't take the elevator, make an excuse to walk everywhere you go. However, to be more beneficial, you should be in the habit of doing it regularly. Maybe you could even buy a pet dog so you have a reason to go for a daily walk.

Try incorporating walking into your schedule early in the morning, during lunch, even if you work in an office make sure you bring a pair of tennis shoes so you can walk around the parking lot after eating a light lunch, take time and make the effort to get some walking in during the evening hours as well.

How to do it

Time should be taken to do a few stretches before walking, to loosen up the muscles and get the blood flowing to them while inhaling deeply and releasing long fluid breaths which will prepare your body for the exercise you have planned for it. Try starting with a modest goal, like 10-15 minutes at a leisurely pace. Then you can gradually extend the duration and speed. When going for a walk, try to find a path that contains one or two gentle slopes.

· You should walk with you back straight, shoulders back, head and chin upright looking straight ahead.

· Your weight should roll forward, heels touching the ground first as you walk, swinging your arms.

· You should ease into walking doing a little bit at a time, then eventually walking further and for longer intervals.

· Stay hydrated - Be sure to drink at least 4-6 glasses of water after each 20 minute exercise session to replenish all the water lost during exercise.

· Walk on soft ground or purchase quality walking shoes.

Walking each day will give you the emotional and physical confidence to continue to do this exercise even when you may not feel up to it starting out. You'll enjoy the overall benefits such as helping you to sleep better, reducing stress, toning muscles and not to mention that body releases endorphines when exercising, causing one to want to continue exercising, it is almost like a drug, an addiction to exercising, but a healthy addiction.

Remember, it's more important walking for a longer period of time than speed. Walking at a moderate, comfortable pace will yield longer workouts and less soreness – leading to more calories burnt overall.

The word aerobic means "in the presence of oxygen." Aerobic exercise is any activity that requires the body to use a large amount of muscle groups, which causes a person to breath more heavily, creating more oxygen in the body while increasing circulation and heart rate.

Aerobic exercise utilizes oxygen as the major fuel source for sustained activity. Generally, aerobic exercises are those activities that require the use of large muscle groups, cause an elevation of the heart rate to between 60 and 80 percent, are continuous, and are of anywhere between 15 to 60 minutes in duration. A person who is considered aerobically fit can work for longer periods, more vigorously and recovers much faster.

Aerobic exercises fall into two categories:

A. Low Impact – Includes cycling, stair climbing, walking, elliptical biking, skiing, swimming and rowing. Anyone in reasonably good health can participate in low impact exercise. Walking briskly actually burns just as many calories as jogging over the same distance but poses much less risk for injury.

B. High Impact – Includes tennis, basketball, running, football and racquetball. These types of activities should only be performed every other day since high impact exercise provides quite an impact on the joints. If you are elderly, overweight or not physically fit you should do them even less frequently.

Walking has been an easy going popular way of exercising because it requires little effort and isn't strenuous. Walking only an extra 20 minutes each day burns off roughly 7 pounds of fat from the body per year.

While running or jogging, an individual covers a greater distance in a shorter span of time over walking. This causes more calories to be burnt.

Choreographed dance such as hip hop is a fun and exciting way of losing weight and having a great time while burning those unwanted calories. It also helps to tone up most of the bodies muscles and improves flexibility.

Step aerobics combines a step and aerobic exercise that forces the body to burn more calories and also influences tightening of the lower body, providing a high quality high calorie fun form of exercise which is highly motivating. The step platform used is typically about six inches high.

Water aerobics is a hybrid of swimming and standard aerobics. It utilizes the resistance of water to elevate the heart rate.

Swimming burns more calories than running or jogging because the resistance of the water forces one to use more energy in the different movements and you are generally using more muscles of the body at the same time.

Stationary cycling is another great form of fun aerobic exercise because it can done on a continuous basis like with swimming and step aerobics while strengthening muscles and building endurance and flexebility.

Another great aerobic exercisie is rope jumping, so long as it is performed continuously for at least 10-15 minutes at a slow to moderate pace.

In order to successfully achieve affective weight loss you need to perform some form of exercise on a daily basis to remain active while eating healthier foods packed with the proper nutrients. Aerobic exercises are good for weight loss as they use more calories generally than most other activities and increase your metabolic rate that causes more calories to be burnt by your body. Typically, aerobics will only burn body fat during the actual workout itself so you need to have the determination to exercise daily and for longer periods.

Cardiovascular exercise is one of the most effective ways of burning a plethora of calories while losing that extra body fat, boosting your metabolism and raising the heart rate to 65-90% of maximum.

Cardio is considered one of the most important components of fitness. Cardiovascular exercises maximise oxygen intake by involving large muscle groups over a sustained period of time. The most popular forms of cardio exercise are: rowing, stair climbing, treadmill running, skating, cycling, dancing, elliptical trainers, boxing, and many more.

Mornings are the best time for maximum fat loss with cardio exercise, before you eat breakfast. When you wake up, your blood sugar levels are very low which means that during and after exercise your body will use stored body fat as it's fuel source.

· Promotes weight loss
· Reduces the risk of heart disease
· Increases fat burning rate
· Increases lung capacity
· Helps prevent diabetes
· Speeds up metabolism
· Reduces blood pressure
· Strengthens the immune and cardiovascular systems
· Reduces stress

Many claim weight training to be the ultimate exercise on the fact that it stimulates the metabolism to burn fat at a faster rate for up to 24 hours after a workout. Also, the lean muscle mass created from weight training also causes the body to burn more calories each day.

Weight training tones and firms your figure, while minimising any muscle mass lost that results from prolonged yo-yo dieting and, together with cardio or aerobic exercise, aids in boosting the body’s metabolism when the calorie intake is slightly reduced.

Usually Weight training takes place at local gyms because of the variety of equipment they provide and personal training programs are wonderful for people who need to get going on the right path of fitness. Also, if you have the room and purchase your own fitness/weight equipment you are ahead of the game, there aren't any worries of having to drive in icy, stormy weather to work out in someone else's gym and you can conveniently workout whenever you desire.

There are many types of exercise equipment that are related to weight training that aid in achieving a healthy body that include electronic devices that keep track of the amount of calories burned, elapsed time and other information you may find useful.

Treadmills are an alternative to actually going outside and walking or jogging, for people who like the convenience of not leaving the house I suppose. A treadmill is composed of a belt on which a person may jog or walk within the same perimeter. Some have electric motors while the others are mechanically powered (you must walk in order to start it).

To be an aid to weight loss, you should use a treadmill at least 3 times per week for no less than 15 minutes each session. The great thing with treadmills is that you can start off slowly and then build up to jogging speed, and then to a run as your fitness improves. By using all the large muscles in the legs, the treadmill helps you to burn major fat calories.

Elliptical trainers are exercise machines resembling a stationary bike but which also acts as a stair climber at the same time. Standing comfortably in an upright position, you are able to stride reverse or forward while putting all the leg muscles to good use.

Using an elliptical trainer, you will burn more calories than either an exercise bike or treadmill. You recieve a great cardio workout that will elevate your heart rate without the associated stress on your joints that jogging or running give. This is good for those who are overweight and may be prone to sore knees and ankles.

There are 2 main different types of exercise bikes, upright and recumbent. Recumbent exercise bikes have bucket seats and have the pedals in front of you rather than under you like the upright bikes that are similar to normal bicycles.

Upright bikes are great for strengthening and toning the thighs while the recumbent bikes are great for toning your butt. They both provide an excellent opportunity to strengthen the cardiovascular system and allow a person to watch television at the same time.

Recumbent bikes provide support to folks that experience lower back pain and offers overweight people comfortable seating arrangement (bucket seats) than the traditional upright bicycles.

Rowers are wonderful alternatives to actually rowing in a boat and provide the same effect in toning the upper body and thoracic area and people also have the option of choosing between two types of rowing machines, the hydraulic machines, which utilize a piston, providing stronger resistance, and cable-driven machines which spin a flywheel upon pulling, closely replicating actual boat rowing action.

Physical advantages for using rowing machines are that they provide a total body workout, strengthen the oblique muscles of the abs, define the shoulders, neck and back and improve flexibility.

Steppers provide great workouts for the cardiovascular system and all lower muscles of the body, especially the hips, thighs and buttocks and ranks as one of the best workouts for everyone at all different fitness levels and ages. Steppers are available both as simple step-benches or as computerized hydraulic steppers.