By Robert H. Cwik
If you belong to people whose favorite pastime is watching television, your only exercise is pressing the buttons on the remote, and your idea of walk is going from the living room to the kitchen to fetch another bottle of beer, your chances for shortening your own life or becoming decrepit too soon are big. Especially if you're over 40. Your next medical examination may be a shock for you, and may make you re-think the way you spend your free time. By the way, do you still like what you see in the mirror? Why not change it starting from today?
At this moment I hear you saying "I know I should do more exercise. I know I should change my diet. I know..." Let me tell you one thing here: no, you don't know! You don't know anything, and that's why you don't do anything, looking for excuses wherever possible.
How much do you need to change your lifestyle? To become fit and slender again? Not that much in fact. And once you start going to the gym, going to the swimming pool, or jogging in the park, you'll be sorry that you missed it for so many years. Especially when you start seeing the results. So, stop looking for excuses and find out what you can do for yourself.
The most difficult thing to do is to form a good habit, and unfortunately, for most people good habits are associated with effort, with doing something against themselves. Why is it so? Just because on the most basic level of our behavior we are looking for instant pleasure or escape from pain. Sitting in front of the TV-set doing nothing is pleasant, whereas getting up and run a mile is a painful effort. Now, we have to reverse the way we see things, and the results will start coming. Easier said than done? Not necessarily.
In one of my articles I have written about realistic goals for fat loss program. The same applies to doing any physical exercise, like jogging, joining a martial arts class, dancing class or weight lifting. The last one is my favorite, so I'll talk about it here.
The first step to do is to JOIN the gym. Yes, just go there and pay for your membership. Why? Because there is hardly a better motivator than a financial loss. Why pay when you don't want to go there? Before you go to your first training, however, buy yourself a notebook which will serve you as your training journal. Really, you must have a training journal.
Step number two: talk to the instructor! Don't even try to do any exercises on your own before you talk to the instructor and tell them about your goal of losing fat, becoming more endurable, stronger and better looking. The instructor will then select the exercises for you, and this will be the first thing to write in your training journal. Then the trainer will show you how to do each exercise, will tell you how many sets and repetitions to do, how long to rest, and all other important things. It may turn out that you'll do the first exercises without any weights at all. You'll also decide on your schedule then. Not everybody can go to the gym more often than twice a week. Even once a week, however, is better than not at all.
Step three: start exercising. Start doing the exercises first without the weights or with minimum weights to get the grip of the movement. If you start with weights, it may be difficult to make the movements correctly, and this can lead to unnecessary injuries. Note in your journal the number of sets and repetitions you did for each exercise, and with what weight. You'll gradually increase the weight with time.
Step four: re-design your diet. Now, many people frown on the sound of the word 'diet'. Again, in many people's minds this word is associated with tasteless food, eating things they don't like, and often starving. Nothing like that! Once you start going to the gym, you'll have to provide your body with nutrients that will help your muscle get firmer and bigger. You will have to eat! And you will eat quality food, dumping low quality and junk food altogether. Again, ask you gym instructor, and they'll be more than happy to help you with it.
Step five: keep a record. You already have your training journal where you note what exercises you do, how many sets and reps of each, and weights lifted. You should also write down your measurements, including first of all your weight and waist measurement. Observing weight may be a little tricky. You will lose fat, but at the same time you will build (or re-build) your muscles, and your weight may not change that much. The waist measurement will be the main indicator of your progress. Weigh yourself and measure your waist every other week and don't get frustrated at first if the change isn't too spectacular.
The above steps are easy to do. At the same time you must remember one important thing: doing exercise, going to the gym is not a race, and you don't go there to prove anything to anybody. The only person you compete with are you yourself, but don't overdo it. Start slowly and don't rush to heavier weights too quickly. Go with your own pace and follow the instructor's advice and soon you'll build not only a new healthy habit, but you'll start building a new you.
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