If I have 15 minutes to spare for exercise, what is the best use of my time? Is there one ideal exercise?
We are all so busy with work, family and finding a moment or two for ourselves. With our lack of time, I’m a huge fan of getting the biggest bang for your buck and killing two birds with one stone when it comes to exercising (I use these phrases all of the time with my clients to remind them you don’t need hours to get a good workout). So if you have only 15 minutes, you can definitely come up with some fun and meaningful exercise to get you in shape and keep you in shape.
My top recommendation for a time crunch workout is interval training. It's simply alternating bursts of intense activity with intervals of lighter activity.
A super popular interval training workout is called Tabata. Tabata is a 4-minute interval training cycle of 20 seconds of high intensity exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated eight times. Take a one minute break and do it all over again!
Who can do Tabata? Everyone! It can be used for all abilities and levels of fitness. The fitter you are the more effort you put into the exercises right from the first set. If you want to pace yourself, that’s fine too. Build up slowly and get used to the exercise before increasing your effort levels.
So how effective can a Tabata workout be? Very! You will be amazed at how intense the workout will feel. The intervals tax both your aerobic and anaerobic energy systems and provide you with a total body workout unlike any other!
If I am consistently working out, does the food that I eat matter? (For me, exercise makes the difference. Food can make me thin, but can't make me fit...unfortunately, I'm better at eating well than moving a lot!)
I have seen lots of stats about the balance of food and exercise. If someone is interested in losing weight, you have to have both! For some the balance leans more toward managing food and others rather manage more of their exercise routine.
And if you goals are more about being healthy, you still have to have both! I remind clients that your organs (like your heart) are muscles. They have to be worked to get stronger and healthier. You can eat really great food and keep your body healthy to some extent, but if you’re not exercising you could be at risk for injury and illness. And…if you exercise like a fiend but eat like crap (yes, that’s the technical term :)), your body can also be at risk for disease and you won’t have to energy to function throughout the day.
Does the exercise matter? Or is the point just to move? I know that calorie counts of 'everyday activities' are often exaggerated, but walking up the stairs beats taking the escalator, and dancing with my kids in my kitchen is better than nothing, right?
Any movement is better than no movement. Some people can tolerate (physically and emotionally) more exercise than others. However, if weight loss is your goal, here’s a little research…..“between 150 and 250 minutes of exercise per week of moderate intensity physical activity is effective in preventing weight gain greater than 3% in most adults but will provide "only modest" weight loss." So American College of Sports Medicine has published new physical activity recommendations in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Overweight and obese individuals are more likely to lose weight and keep it off if they exercise for least 250 minutes per week. Exercising for more than 250 minutes per week has resulted in "significant" weight loss for these individuals.
My husband was trying to lose some weight starting January 1st (yup, the typical new years’ resolution) and had this “ah ha” moment when he was tracking his food and exercise (He was using MyFitnessPal to track his information and it was extremely helpful!). He said to his personal trainer wife, “Wow, it’s surprising how much exercise really does affect weight loss.” Rocket science I tell youJ. It is what it is, if you really want to lose weight and keep it off, you have to balance exercise and food.
How do you keep your clients realistic? Wanting to lose 10 lbs and tone up, while having a sweet tooth and a 20 min exercise window, probably takes longer than we think (or we'd like!). How do we stay real?
The real challenge for most of my weight loss desiring clients (and clients that want to be healthier) is being committed. I love to share with my clients some theory from my days as a corporate human resource and change management professional. In change management theory, people only change when something causes them enough pain to make them want to change. If someone can no longer fit in their clothes and has no budget for new jeans, that might be enough “pain” to get them committed to their exercise and diet goals. However, another person would just go out and buy a new wardrobe. As a trainer, I have to figure out what each client’s “pain threshold” is and find a way to help them to find that point of enough pain to help them make the choice to change. I can’t force anyone to follow a fitness routine – they have to decide for themselves. Then…I can help them get going.