Four Weeks to A Fitter You - Part 1: Get with the Program!

This four week mini-series is going to cover everything you need to start a basic fitness program. Follow these suggestions and in four weeks you'll be fitter, stronger, and on your way to a healthy new body.

Today, I'd like to cover how you can ease into an exercise program to create a manageable plan for long-term success and preventing short-term burnout.

The first step is easy and can be accomplished throughout the day. All I want you to do is make sure you walk 10,000 steps per day for the next week. That means that by the end of your day, you should have accumulated 10,000 or more steps at any point that day. For most people this equates to about an hour and a half of total walking during that 24 hour period. If you'd like a more accurate count on your steps, you can purchase a pedometer that will keep track of your steps for you. You can even find some for less than $1.99 at PedometersUSA.

If you're looking for a more structured plan, I recommend walking for 30 minutes at lunch and another 30 minutes after dinner. This will also have the added benefit of aiding in digestion and making you more aware of what you are eating before your walks. As for the other 30 minutes, just try to be more active during the day by taking the stairs, walking whenever possible and staying active.

In Part 2, you'll learn some simple ways to get better results without spending any more time working out. Stay tuned!

Four Weeks to a Fitter You - Part 2: Up the Intensity!

The first step in your Shape Up program was to start walking 10,000 steps every day.  Hopefully, you've hit this goal (or come close) for the last several days. Starting today, we're going to start to turn up the intensity a bit.  By increasing the intensity, you'll burn more calories (both during and after exercise) and you'll also get your heart rate up a bit higher, which will begin to increase your fitness level.

Here's some simple ways to up the ante during your daily walking stints.

1. Pick up the pace.  For example, walking briskly burns about 30% more calories than walking at a moderate pace.

2. Build some hills or stairs into your daily treks.   Walking up an incline will get your heart rate up quickly and can burn twice the calories of walking the same distance on level ground.

3. Add some load.  Wearing a weighted vest--or even carrying a backpack--is a safe and convenient way to increase the intensity of any exercise, including walking.  (See this post for more on what to look for in a weighted vest.)

For the rest of this week, continue with your goal of 10,000 steps a day, but try to find ways to add some intensity to some portion of your daily walking.

In part 3, we'll start strengthening and toning some major muscle groups with simple resistance exercises that even a beginner can do, without any special equipment.

Four Weeks to a Fitter You - Part 3: Viva la Resistance!

For the last week, you've been adding more activity to your daily routine--enough to log a minimum of 10,000 steps (about 90 minutes total of walking) throughout the day.  In Part 2 of this 7 part program, we talked about ways to increase the intensity of your walking routine. Today, we're going to add another powerful element: resistance training.

Resistance training will make you stronger, reshape your body, and give your metabolism a boost.  Although resistance training often involves the use of weights or other types of special equipment, you can begin to see the benefits of resistance training using nothing more than the weight of your own body.

Here is a simple, introductory routine of five simple resistance exercises that will target all of the major muscles in your body. Starting this week, do these exercises every other day in addition to your daily 10,000 steps. Click on any exercise for complete instructions on how to perform the exercise correctly and effectively. (If you're ready for more advanced resistance exercises, browse through the dozens of other exercises outlined in the Fitness archive.)

Lower body
Deadlift, with or without handheld weights
Walking lunges, with or without handheld weights

Upper body
Incline push ups

Core/Abs
Reverse crunch
The plank

In part 4 of the program, you'll learn how you can take your 10,000 steps of walking to the next level and really turn up the heat on your metabolism!

Four Weeks to a Fitter You - Part 4: Add in Interval Training

After 1 or 2 weeks of hitting your daily 10,000 steps, you're now ready to take your workout to the next level!

That means we need to give the body a little shock and spice things up a bit. Here's what I want you to do to increase the fat burning effect of these walks. Every 5 minutes during your 30 or 60 minute walks I want you to throw in a 30-60 second sprint, stair step-ups, or jumping jacks.

This is easier than it sounds. All you have to do is set your stop watch to 5 minutes or just keep and eye on your watch and every time 5 minutes passes I want you to do about one minute of intense interval work.

Here's what it looks like in action for a 30 minute interval walk:

5 minute warm-up walking
30-60 second intense sprint
4 minutes brisk walking
30-60 second intense sprint
4 minutes brisk walking
30-60 second intense sprint
4 minutes brisk walking
30-60 second intense sprint
4 minutes brisk walking
30-60 second intense sprint
4 minutes brisk walking

The first time you try this workout you will be shocked at how fast 30 minutes passes. By the time you let your heart rate come down from the previous sprint you are ready to go again!

Start out slow and see how you feel after completing the first few intense intervals. You will be able to adjust your pace and intensity level to compensate for your current fitness level or energy levels for that day.

Try this one today!

In Part 5 of the program, I will show you why just exercising for a couple hours of week isn't going to get you to your goals. The real secret is in the details…

Four Weeks to a Fitter You - Part 5: Your Results are in the Details

Now that you've started easing into your fitness program, it's time to give you a few more tips. These hints should push your weight loss results to the next level.

Sometimes you may get into a groove and your exercises begin to feel fairly easy to complete. Once this happens, you're going to want to increase the intensity of your workout routine to keep the results coming.

Too many people wonder why they have stopped seeing results from their exercise program. Most of the time, they have overlooked the exact reason why exercising worked so well for them in the first place.

When you add a new stimulus to your body, whether it be more weight, reps, or new exercises, you force your body to change and keep up with the new demand. This simply means that once your weights begin to feel a little light, you're going to want to increase the resistance. The same applies for your walks or cardiovascular work. You may want to increase the time of each session, or up your intensity while still keeping the length of your workout the same.

Here is a list of 5 great ways to challenge and shock your body into increasing your metabolic rate, toning and defining your muscles, and shrinking your waist line:

1. Compete most of your exercises standing:
You've probably been sitting most of the day and by getting up on your feet you will burn more calories and work far more muscle fiber while you workout.

2. Stick with multi-joint, compound exercises like presses and pulls: (explained in Part 3)
These exercises work more muscle groups, burn more calories, engage your core, and most of the movements resemble real world activities.

3. Add interval training into your workouts: (demonstrated in Part 4)
Short bursts of intensity will help you to take your workouts to the next level by burning more calories and elevating your metabolism.

4. To force your body to change, you need to give it a reason to:
This means that every time the weights, walks, or any of your exercises begin to feel less challenging, take them up a notch. Add a few more reps, increase the time, or add more weight.

5. Spend less time resting between sets and aim to complete more work in less time:
When you first started working out you probably didn't recover as quickly and your heart rate didn't come down as fast. Now that you are improving your fitness level, you will find that your body is in better shape and needs less time to recover between exercises. Take advantage of that and move more quickly through your fitness routine.

Hopefully this list gives you a better idea of how you can take your results to the next level and keep your weight loss coming!

In Part 6 of the program, I will walk you through exactly what to do when you hit a stumbling block on your road to losing weight and shaping up.

Four Weeks to a Fitter You - Part 6: Bust through Plateaus

We all hit stumbling blocks from time to time on our road to losing weight and shaping up. This means that in order to keep the results coming, we need to know what to do when we find ourselves suddenly plateauing in terms of weight loss.

The first thing you need to realize is that you will likely be adding some lean muscle as a result of your workout program. This is a necessary element to increasing your metabolic rate and achieving long-term healthy weight maintenance. It's also one of the reasons why you may not see the number on the scale go down quite as quickly as the weeks progress. The amount of muscle you add will be gradual and will be very lean and dense. It's also great for adding a more toned and defined look to your body.

The second thing you should know is that everyone plateaus. When you are first starting out on an exercise program, your results may come quickly, but eventually your body adapts to the new stimulus and your results will start to slow. Most of the time we can appreciate how smart and efficient our mind and body tries to be, but when it comes to burning calories this efficiency backfires on us.

Now that you know what to be aware of, you can be ready for these plateaus. You'll be armed and ready to get to work on busting through these roadblocks.

Here's how to do it:
1. Be proactive and switch up your workout routines every 4-6 weeks
With this approach your body won't have time to adapt to your exercise or repetition selection.
2. Don't do the same exercises everyday
Your program should have varying exercises, cardiovascular routines, and repetition ranges to keep your body guessing
3. Alternate high, low, and medium repetition ranges for maximum results
You can engage in a program that has you completing 15 repetitions per exercise for 4 weeks and then 8 reps the next program. You could also have alternating days of 6-8, 10-12, and 15 repetitions per set. This will also allow you to work your muscles and energy systems in different ways leading to greater results.
4. Keep a success journal that outlines what you are doing to lose weight
Use this journal to see what seems to work the best for you in burning off the fat. You may find that lower reps and higher weights lead to better results for you. There are many different scenarios and instead of just guessing, your journal will display what really worked best. You'll still want to vary your routines, but now you know you can keep the lower reps for most 4 week programs and just switch up the exercises.
5. Include walking, longer cardiovascular days, and interval sessions
If you are currently just doing sprints, try some longer 45 minute walks, jogs, or steady-state cardio workouts. Likewise, if you are mostly doing 45-60 minute long, slow, jogs try some 30 second sprints or hill climbs. After a 10 minute warm-up, you'll only need 5-8 sprints starting out, which means you can complete this shorter interval workout in less than 30 minutes.
6. Take 1-2 days off per week to let your body rest so that you can be fresh for the next day's workout
Your muscle tissue breaks down from workout induced stress and needs some time to rebuild and become stronger. A day or two off a week that only includes some light walking and stretching will do your body good.
7. Realize that you're not going to hit a home run every week in terms of body fat loss. Don't worry. Hitting a bunch of singles adds up too.

Plateaus are not to be feared, but rather they serve as an indicator that it's time to move on to bigger and better things. Stay positive and keep after your goals!

In Part 7 of the program, I will wrap up this mini-series with a special write-up on what the most successful people do to keep weight off for life.

Four Weeks to a Fitter You - Part 7: The New You – Only Better!

Expect Success!

Prior planning leads to higher levels of compliance. Greater levels of compliance lead to better results and the cycle continues. Short term weight loss goals are great, but what type of lifestyle are you hoping to create for yourself? These are some of the thoughts you should have swirling around in your mind as you are dedicating yourself to your goals of shaping up.

Too many people succumb to the yo-yo dieting effect and leave themselves open to repeating their mistakes of the past. They do this either because of a lack of education, poor information, or the fact that they only want to go half-way with their plan to lose weight. In order to get the most out of your weight loss program, you should incorporate both a healthy diet plan, as well as a well balanced exercise program.

You have to really want this change and you definitely need to be thinking of this in terms of a long-term solution. You didn't gain all this weight overnight and you aren't going to lose it all overnight (no matter what magic potion comes onto the market), but you can certainly lose every unwanted ounce of body fat if you follow proven and healthy techniques. Never stop investing in your education and continually update your knowledge by reading reputable health and fitness sources.

Use your high levels of motivation now to set up a nutrition, exercise, and healthy lifestyle journal that not only outlines the steps you will take to "clean up your act," but also to keep yourself accountable for your actions. True success lies in checks and balances. If you dive in too fast without a plan, sure you'll lose weight, but more than likely you'll sacrifice long-term success for short term victories. You don't want to lose the weight while jeopardizing your metabolism. Likewise, you don't want to start out doing too much, too soon. Allow you body to ease into your walking and exercises by starting out with shorter workouts and just 1 or 2 sets the first few weeks out.

A sample week may look like this:

Monday: 30 minute lunch time walk + 30 minute walk after dinner
Tuesday: 20-30 minute AM strength training + 30 minute PM walk
Wednesday: 30 minute lunch time walk + 30 minute walk after dinner
Thursday: 20-30 minute AM strength training + 30 minute PM walk
Friday: 30 minute lunch time walk + 30 minute walk after dinner
Saturday: 20-30 minute AM strength training + 30 minute fun activity
Sunday: 30-60 minute light walk and staying active

You can always add some hills or short sprint intervals into your walks to make them more challenging as you progress. The same goes for the strength training. You'll start out with body weight exercises and then progress to dumbbells or other forms of resistance to keep your results coming.

Make sure this time is different. Set up a plan, take one step at a time, take each day at a time, and deliver on your goals of developing a healthy lifestyle.

The rest will fall into place…