You Can Get Fit

1. Instead of a chair, sit on an exercise ball! The balance required great core stabilizer. You’ll ton and strengthen your ab muscles. It takes very little concentration saving your brain for work.

2. Resistance bands are great for toning legs and arms. They are cheap and available at most sports stores. Or you can make your own. Hook the bands to the legs of a desk or chair and do arm or leg reps while you’re sitting. When you are on the phone, switch hands. While typing at your computer or laptop, work your legs.

3. Walk. Walk as much as possible. ankle weights are optional for an added boost.

4. Take the stairs. Walk up two to three flights and down three or four. Then catch the elevator. Doing this gets your heart pumping, and releases endorphin's which both your body and brain will thank you for.

5. Parking. Parking further away provides a mini cardio session. Park in the furthest parking spot you can find. Either walk, run, or march up to the building.

6. Stretching. Stretching is important. Sitting for 8-9 hours a day can can cause many problems including; muscle stiffness, loss of flexibility, back and neck pain, restless legs, blood clots, and stiff joints. Stretching is the most important thing you can do for your muscles and joints. You should get up every hour or so and stretch. Easy stretches can be anything from reaching towards the ceiling with both arms, to touching toes. Give your back a good twist from side to side to stretch both the spine and abs. The ligaments in your abs can shorten due to sitting for long periods of time resulting in a “pot belly”, also known as “writer’s belly”. Finding time to Keeping fit can be challenging, but by doing a few simple things throughout your day can make all the difference.

You need to do more than go to the gym once in a while and cut back on the fast food to be fit. It isn't hard, but you need to put effort into it.

Drink water ! Drink eight eight ounce glasses of water each day. Don't drink fruit juices, soda, or even coffee (Rrriight). Drink some ice cold water. This will help you shed weight.

Do thirty minutes of cardio every day. If you're just starting go for walks or swim for your cardio. As you progress, start increasing the intensity of your workout. Jog or bike instead of walking. Then step it up and start running for half an hour.

You should do strength training every other day. Your body can handle cardio every day as it doesn't put a lot of stress on it. But with serious muscle building every day you're doing a small amount of damage to the muscles involved, that's what makes you sore afterwards. Building muscle is doing little bit of damage and your body repairs it. the muscles and strengthens it to prevent damage again. By doing strength training you replace fat with muscle. You then have to work harder to maintain that muscle. That's why you have to gradually increase the weight. If your body doesn't rest between workouts it won't have the time to repair itself. If you keep working out day after day, muscles could sustain serious damage, Making you worse off than when you started. Fitness isn't hard but it requires effort. Once you've achieved your goals you need to keep working out or your body will go back to where it was. It's easier to maintain fitness than to start at the beginning!

Working out with friends or a group is a great way to get fit. As a group, you are far more likely to maintain a schedule and work out more. Let me tell a story:

I had been putting off getting fit for one reason or another for years. and I was finally ready to stop making excuses. So I asked some friends if they wanted to get together and get in shape. I figured it would easier and more effective if I did it with others.

We began with a journal. In our journal we put our goals. Though each of us had different goals, we had one similar goal run a 5K in the next couple months. We also recorded our starting weight and measurements. We continued weighing and measuring every couple of weeks and recording it to see our progress. We wrote down the foods we ate and we to recorded our workouts. This made it easier to keep things organized and see exactly what were doing and where we were going.

Next, we decided what we were going to do. We aerobic classes so we looked for what our gym offered. There were a couple options but we decided to run three days a week together at the local track.

We knew we needed to add strength training. We found a personal trainer video on line and put together a weight training routine for us.

We also needed to watch our diet. We decided that we would eat good for six days a week and have a cheat day each week. We cut down on fried foods, fatty foods and all the other foods that were not good for us. All of us added more fruits and vegetables to our diet.

I could not wait to see the results! I knew that we could make great strides in getting in great shape.