I was speaking to a friend yesterday who was doing the LA Fitness 10kg challenge and, through a lot of hard work and dedication, he has managed to go from 160kg to 130kg in four months. I asked him what the key motivations were that caused him to decide to make his health his number one priority. The first event that gave him the nessesary kick was when he had to ask for the seat belt extension when flying on a plane, the second was when he realised that he was in the catagory of "morbidly obese", and the third was the embarrasment from breaking into a heavy sweat after the lightest of physical exertion. If you currently have an unhealthy lifestyle, what daily limitations would create sufficient motivation for you to turn things around and make your health your number one priority? If you have already past this point then you need to set this as one of your Naked Trainer Goals.
The New Years resolution has almost become a bit of a joke these days. So many people fail to achieve their resolution that there is now an expectation of failure, rather then a genuine commitment to achieve. One of the biggest issues is that people aim too high and then if they havent achieved it by the end of January then they give up. If you achieve your resolution in the first month then the chance of maintaining that result, and building on it improves signficantly. For example:
Rather then aiming to quit smoking, it is far more achieveable to aim to reduce the number of ciggarettes you smoke per day by 1. This is relatively easy, so when you achieve it, you are motivated to continue, and reduce it further.
On the weight loss side of things, rather then aiming to lose 10kg in four or five months, set a goal to lose 2kg in one month. Then when you achieve it you can set the same goal for the next month.
On the exercise side of things, rather then aiming to go from no exercise, to exercising 7 times a week, set a goal to exercise (walk/jog etc) once a week. When you have achieved this in the first month then increase it slightly for February.
You get the gist. Now come up with your first achieveable goal, log it into your naked trainer goals, and make sure you achieve it by the end of the month.
Horleys Supplyment and Avanti Plus bikes have now joined ASICS and LA Fitness as support brands to help fund new feature developments on The Naked Trainer. These are four incredible health and fitness brands that are clearly very commited to helping their customers achieve their health and fitness goals, hence their decision to back The Naked Trainer, and support its goal of helping people to acheive their health goals.
ASICS and LA Fitness have come on board as official supports of The Naked Trainer and are helping to fund the development of new features to the site. This is hugely beneficial in ensuring that the site and it's benefits continue to grow, as well as providing a big vote of support from a couple of major brands.
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.
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.
