1.Combining Resistance and Cardio for Maximum Weight Loss Results
A combination of cardiovascular exercise (e.g running, walking, cycling) and resistance exercise (e.g swissball, weights) will achieve significantly better weight loss results then doing only cardiovascular exercise. For example, 3 cardio workouts, 1 swissball workout and 1 light handweight workout per week will achieve significantly better weight loss results then doing 5 cardio sessions per week. The naked trainer DVD 1 with its 30 minute swiss ball session and 30 minute hand weights session is a great way to add some resistance training to your weekly regime.
2.Goal Setting and Planning is ESSENTIAL
There is no point embarking on anything if you do not have a goal in mind, and if you fail to plan then you plan to fail. This is why the simple act of setting your goals, creating a weekly plan, and logging your progress improves your results ten fold.
3.An Easy Program Adhered to Will Always Beat a Hard Program That’s Never Followed
When creating your exercise plan it must be achievable and enjoyable. Someone who plans to do three moderate intensity workouts per week, and sticks at it, will get far better weight loss results then someone who plans to do seven, 1hr, high intensity workouts, but only actually averages one a week because they rarely have an hour to spare and they don’t enjoy the work outs.
4.The Myth About Exercise Intensity For Weight Loss
Short high intensity workouts (20-30 minutes) achieves as much, if not better weight loss results then the traditional longer, low intensity workouts (45min – 1hr). High intensity means HIGH INTENSITY though. The sweat should be pouring off you by the end of the 20-30 minutes.
5.Creating Exercise Variety to Achieve Better Results
Combining high intensity cardio exercise with resistance exercises is a great way to get maximum weight loss benefit from your workout and keep things interesting. For example, 5 minutes skipping, 10 press ups, 10 sit ups, 10 lunges, 4 times through.
6.What is a Healthy Weight Loss
You should aim to lose no more then 1/2kg per week. Any more then this and there is a very high chance that you will simply put it all back on plus more.
7.Best Time of Day to Exercise to Lose Weight
Exercising in the morning burns more calories then exercising at night, however the difference is so small that if you are someone that prefers exercising at night then you are better off sticking with your preferred evening training.
8.The Most Effective Food Tip
The best thing you can do to improve your diet is to keep a food diary and nominate a friend or family member to show it to every week. This simple process will force you to think a lot more about what you put in your mouth. Small monthly changes to your diet achieve far better long term benefits then drastic crash diets.
9.The Little Things Really Do Count
Do not under estimate the benefit of adding small activities to your every day life. All those things like, ‘take the stairs’ and ‘get off the bus a block early’ make a huge difference if done regularly. Join the ‘Gimme20’ group to receive a 1 minute exercise order via email once every couple of days.
It is common to hear people say that they have tried every different diet under the sun and nothing seems to work. When you delve deeper it is not uncommon to find that although they have tried the Atkins Diet, some crazy Oprah diet etc etc, they have not tried simply having a healthy balanced diet 7 days a week and exercising regularly.
There is no miracle diet that causes quick sustainable weight loss, and there is no miracle exercise that gives you a six pack in just three minutes a day. The only proven SUSTAINABLE weight loss program is a healthy balanced diet and regular exercise.
So set your weekly exercise plan on www.thenakedtrainer.net and log your exercise progress, and start getting into the habit of keeping a seven day food diary one week of every month. The simple act of writing down everything you eat forces to you think about what you are putting into your mouth. Nominate a friend of family member to check your food diary to keep you honest. This food diary is something that we will be adding to the site in the near future.
There are some really cool new goals being set on the site so I thought I would mention a few of them and highlight why the are great goals;
1. No caffeine – In the ‘rules of goals’ the one bad thing about this goal is that it is written in the negative instead of the positive. Other then this it is very clear and measureable. By cutting out the unnecessary daily routine that is caffeine you start to become more thoughtful of your health every time you resist a coffee or tea.
2. Replace oven Chips with Veges – Setting yourself small nutrition based goals like this are a far more effective way to improve your nutrition in comparison to those drastic diets that can never be maintained.
3. Walk in the rain – In the broader sense, this goal is all about knocking those lame excuses as to why you cant exercise on the head and just getting out there any doing it (at least that’s my take on Spunkrats goal but he may be just basing the goal on the joy of walking in the rain).
4. Drop 1 dress size – This goal is fantastic in that it is very achievable, completely measurable and there is huge reward when the goal is achieved. Awesome!
5. Paint my house – Setting an activity based goal that also doubles up as a round the house/flat chore is a brilliant way to get yourself thinking about the health benefits of typical daily activities. It also makes the chore more enjoyable because you are thinking about the health benefit you are achieving while you are doing it.
I won’t get too deep and spiritual on you but this is really important.
Try not to judge your health by the size of your biceps or how skinny your waist is. Body builders and cat walk models are amongst the unhealthiest groups of people in the world and are not what you should aspire towards. Instead try to become more aware of your physiological indicators.
How well do you sleep at night? As a general rule, people who exercise regularly and eat well sleep a lot better then sedentary junk food eaters.
How laboured is your breathing when you walk up stairs? It is not normal/healthy to be gasping for air after 2 flights of stairs. It might be time to get more active if this is you.
Do you find you are often tired during the day? If so this could be due to lack of sleep at night, poor diet, poor fitness, or most likely a combination of the three.
It is fine to keep track of external measurements such as your weight and waist measurement but remember that these are not the most important indicators of health. A quick fact to drive the message home – fit, active, overweight people have a lower incidence of heart disease then sedentary, unfit, thin people. Your inner health and fitness is more important then your outer appearance.
The title of this blog is not, or at least should not be regarded as oxymoronic.
We have unfortunately created an image of exercise as something that we all dread and herin lies one of the biggest contibutors to our highly sedentary lifestyles. About two years ago, having been exercising formally 5-6 days a week for over 20 years, I decided that I was no longer going to dread each exercise session, and count every second until the session was over. I decided instead, that I actually enjoyed the feeling of getting my heart and muscles working and that exercise was my favourite part of the day. Just like when I decided to give up my childhood belief that I didnt like fish the switch was instant.
There are millions of people out there who enjoy exercise, and through feeling guilty that we are not one of them, we sadly label them ‘health freaks’. Everyone knows the phrase "the power of positive thinking". It’s about time we aplied it to exercise and joined the millions who already enjoy exercise. If everyone was more positive about exercise then a lot of our health issues would be instantly resolved.
As I will continue to harp on about, the easiest way to start enjoying exercise is to create meaningful Goals and a clear Exercise Plan.
The Naked Trainer has recieved a super positive write up in the NZ Herald Online talking about the positive goals that we are trying to achieve, and the potential of the site. The writer also gets pretty amped about the ’Gimme20’ group. Check it out on the following link, under the article titled ‘Drop and Gimme20’.
Regardless of how much formal exercise you do, you still burn more overall calories from activities of daily living then you do from your formal exercise sessions. This is why you are constantly being told to; take the stairs; park an extra three blocks from work; sit on a Swiss Ball rather then a chair at work etc. These small things really do make a huge difference if they become part of your daily life.
On The Naked Trainer we have created a group called Gimme20, which is all about adding small 1 minute bursts of exercise to your day. Join the group and see what the buzz is about. As well as this I encourage you to formalise some of these activities (take the stairs, sit on Swiss Ball at work, walk to work, gardening, etc), add them to your weekly Naked Trainer plan, and make them part of your daily or weekly life.
Make sure the goal is something that you are genuinely motivated towards as opposed to something that other people tell you to aim for.
Write in the positive instead of the negative
‘Eat 5 servings of fruit and vege a day’ is a far more motivating goal then ‘eat less junk’.
The more detail the better
Where ever possible a goal should be measureable and have specific time frames. A goal of ‘lose 10kg’ with a time frame of six months is far easier to plan and track then the general goal of ‘lose weight’.
Aim high, but if the goal is long term then set short and medium term goals to keep you focused
If you want to ‘run a marathon’, but have done very little running up until now then set a short term goal of doing a 10km run, and a medium term goal of ‘run half marathon’.
Write down your goals (This is the most important)
The simple act of writing down your goals significantly increases your chance of success. It is important to continually revisit and review your goals in order to track your progress, and adjust if need be.
The Naked Trainer provides the perfect place to write down your goals, set target dates and create a plan in order to guarantee success. Every time you jump on to enter your weekly activity your goals will be there in the right hand column, providing you’re the encouragement to keep going.
On Sunday 16 teams from around the lower North Island commandeered the TSB Bank Arena at Queen’s Wharf for the annual Indoor-pendence Day Ultimate Frisbee tournament. This was a development tournament specifically aimed at newer players to the very social game of ultimate frisbee. Meaning it was ideal to re-assemble a rag-tag team to join in the fun.
