Can you help me with a good exercise regimen?

In My Humble Opinion
1

One I can do in my living room?

Now that I am eating much healthier I know I need to excerise more. But all exercise bores me. I never get the “fun” aspect.

What I would ideally like is three days of cardio and two days of strength training. I went to a personal trainer for seven sessions who gave me a lot of good ideas , but a lot of his stuff, required gym equipment, and whenever I asked for recommendations on how to do stuff at home he kind of demurred, telling me I should sign up for more classes. Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t have that kind of money!

Right now I do exercise and do some of everything, but I have no routine. I’d like to spend thirty minutes every morning. I’m not a big fan of the gym, I hate leaving the house in the cold wintery mornings here, so I’d rather do stuff at home.

As far as equipment, I have two 1.5 lb wrist weights, which I wear when I do my cardio stuff, and a band pull and a hula hoop. I don’t like DVDs, I’d rather just play some music and work out on my own. I don’t want to buy a lot of equipment. I know just working out daily makes a big difference. I also have two ten pound weights somewhere in the house…they will need to be located.

2

Two words: martial arts. Fun and fitness in one ass-kicking package.

3

ExRx includes bodyweight versions of each exercise if possible. Read the whole site , lots of good stuff.

Focus on major muscle groups(chest, back, shoulders, quads, hamstrings, calves, abdominals/core and arms-biceps and triceps).

4

Search on the internet for CrossFit type workouts, often called WODs. You can do those with no equipment or just the exercises that use equipment you have. I waslooking at one of them last night that I got to through a Pinterest link.

The nice thing about these is that you can do a different one every single time if you want.

5

To start, build habits, not muscles. Decide on a routine you will absolutely do. Something so easy and fun that you won’t look for excuses to stop it: something you can do after 14-hours at the office, if you oversleep, if it’s cold/hot/raining outside. If that means all you do is walk to the corner of your street, turn around and walk back, that’s fine, as long as you fulfill your plan every day.

Once you get to the point that “exercising” is as automatic and non-negotiable as brushing your teeth, then worry about escalating what you do ever so slowly. If you start skipping days and finding excuses, back off to an easier level. But keep building slowly forward.

What you do next week doesn’t matter nearly so much as what you are doing in six months. If you push to hard, you’ll always come up with excuses and never build habits.

6

Jumping rope is cheap and is one of the best cardio workouts you can do. So are situps and pushups. Running, too… if you can get out side. If not perhaps you might try searching for an inexpensive (within your budget) stationary bike.

7

This is an awesome website…and waaaaay too much for me to read. Seriously? I work 40 hours and I go back to school 3/4 of full-time. I don’t really know anyone who has time to read all of that. :slight_smile: Thank you for linking to it, I do appreciate it.

The cross fit sounds much better. I can do that. :slight_smile:

8

Here’s what DEFINITELY works for me. Change how you think and FEEL about exercise.

You said, “Exercise is boring.” Try to realize that however we feel about anything is due to how we think ABOUT the thing. And how we FEEL about anything is going to determine how well we do it, or whether we keep at it.

Exercise is NOT boring OR exciting. But YOU can determine how you will feel about it, by determining how you THINK about it. This is SO key to succeeding with exercise (or anything, for that matter).

Here’s a way to change how you FEEL about exercise. Start thinking ONLY of the benefits of exercising. Think of how great it is for your health. Think of how much it will improve you appearance. Exercise has also been found to increase one’s intellectual clarity and thinking.

Imagine in your mind how GOOD you will look if you really get into exercising. Imagine how good you will FEEL about yourself. Imagine the compliments you’ll get.

Then also, go onto youtube and look at various exercise videos.

But primarily, get to where you easily experience GOOD, inspiring FEELINGS when you think about exercising.

Btw, it takes REPETITION to create a feeling about anything. And this is exactly why advertisers REPEATEDLY show ads for their products. They KNOW that the repeated ads are stimulating changes in how you think and FEEL about their products. And they KNOW that if they can get you FEELING excited, you will jump thru hoops to buy their product.

The same goes for exercise. If you will make the effort to get excited about exercising you will GLADLY do it, and look forward to it. And then, your good results are practically guaranteed.

If you get to where you LOVE exercising you WILL discover new and different ways to do it, to keep excited about it, and keep doing it. It’s simply the way we are. We WANT to do what we’ve learned to feel good about (even if it’s something that’s not good for us, btw).

9

I love the Wii Fit package. It doesn’t have heavy cardio, but more than enough to stay trim and healthy, and it really is fun. Plus, the yoga and strength exercises are excellent for a regular person who’s just trying to do “regular” exercise.

10

In my opinion, your best bet for sticking with something is finding something you enjoy doing that can become a passion on its own. It would mostly likely be a sport. Do any interest you? If you like solo sports, what about tennis or running?

11

Two things:

  1. If you hate exercise, don’t do it. You will never stick with something you hate doing. Try sports or martial arts or walking or yoga or other physical stuff (For example: gardening, yup - gardening, burns a surprisingly large number of calories).

  2. If you don’t have/want gear, there’s a lot of ‘body weight’ excercises - push ups, sit ups, burpees, squats, lunges, planks, etc that are very effective. Pilates is also great.

Also - Good luck!!

12

I do a lot of things. I do garden, I bike, I walk a lot, I swim. But the fact is, none of these really make you lose weight. They don’t. I am a fairly active girl but I’m still fat. It’s not enough exercise.

I play racquetball with my SO, and we enjoy that, and I am even getting sort of less-than-shitty.

When I was working with the personal trainer, I got an idea of the intensity of exercise I need. While I do exercise, I don’t build it up to that intensity. And I don’t do any strength training at all (well, now I do.)

13

From one zaftig girl to another, my experience is that weight loss happens in the kitchen. No amount of exercise makes me lose weight without also watching what I eat.

14

Turning on some music and bouncing on a mini trampoline can be fun.

15

I had to look up zaftig. I may use that term from now on. No, in the last five years I have seriously redone my entire diet. I eat so much healthier now, and I tracked my calories for a long time, and I always come in well under the recommended amount.

But I’m still not losing weight. It’s clear to me that I need to get moving as well.

16

It sounds like you get plenty of exercise. Diet is most likely the issue here. You may not be eating as healthy as you think.

17

I’ve actually thought about posting my food here, but I don’t want to get lectured and humiliated like people do around here. People are absolutely mean, and sometimes you just have a sensitive skin.

But really - I eat almost the same breakfast and lunch every day. My snacks are 85% fruit and veggies, and like I said, I always come in well under the calorie intake.

It’s very hard to lose weight once you are already zaftig. It’s easier to keep it off in the first place, but I can’t go back 20 years in time and tell my younger self to shape up.

18

I find prescribed exercise pretty boring too, and I am too cheap to pay for much equipment, so here’s what I did:

I bought a step (for step aerobics). I hate watching the videos too, because I get bored. So I just watched them enough to learn the moves. Once I had different “sets” learned (which did not take long, they’re all just variations on a simple theme), I started watching TV while I did 30-45 minutes of step, 3 to 5 times per week. I found step to be really good for slimming the butt and thighs. And, of course, we all like to watch TV. :slight_smile:

19

If you are already swimming/biking/walking, look at doing HIIT (high intensity interval training). You could do it with sprints in your walking, or bursts on the bike. It increases metabolism and fat burning.

For strength training, maybe take a look at You Are Your Own Gym - it is both a book and an iPod app.

20

A good set of dumbbells at reasonable weights (say 5, 8, 10, 12 15) can be really helpful. There’s a bunch of good dumbbell books at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=dumbbell