Transform Your Body With Only Three Workouts a Week

I have been doing a lot of research into exercising to go hand in hand with my diet. Weight loss comes

mainly from cutting out calories so you can lose quite a significant amount without doing any exercise. However there are many benefits to exercising that make it something well worth doing:

1) Exercise will help speed up weight loss by burning a few extra calories.

2) Any exercise that turns fat into muscle will raise your resting metabolic rate meaning you burn more calories even when you are doing nothing as muscles require more calories than fat.*

3) Exercise that turns fat into muscle will make you look slimmer as muscle, although heavier than fat, is more compact.*

4) Exercise will help to prevent sagging skin from weight loss and stop you looking wobbly. Simply losing weight will not necessarily make you look better- especially not naked- exercise will.

5) Exercise has many health benefits and can help prevent diseases.

6) Exercise will make you feel happier.

7) Exercise will make you feel more positive about your whole weight loss journey and will keep you motivated with your diet too.

8) Exercise will make you physically stronger.

9) Exercises can be used to target certain problem areas so you can improve the way your body looks.

* Note fat cannot actually transform into muscle what I mean is exercises that increase your muscles will then make you burn fat so you are adding muscle and losing fat.

So with all that in mind it seems like exercise is definitely a good idea and something we should all be doing. Some people love exercise and even get addicted to it but for others it's a real struggle. I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle- I don't love it but I don't hate it and I always love it after I've done it if you know what I mean. For me the main problem is finding the time and the energy to get on and do it. I know everyone should be able to find 20-30 minutes to do a workout but for me the problem is when I have the time (on an evening when the kids have gone to bed) I don't have the energy. When I have the energy (during the day) I don't have the time as I've got all the kids with me. So the solution is I just have to suck it up and get on with it. Fortunately though I only have to workout 3 times a week!

Let me be clear I am talking about strength training not cardio. I believe cardio is over hyped when it comes to weight loss but at the same time I think you should still do some but this doesn't have to be in the form of a formal workout. I get my cardio from walking- usually with a double buggy. I certainly don't pay £50 a month to drive to the gym and then sit on a stationary bike and cycle no where. So for your cardio just do something active that you enjoy. Go for a swim, go for a walk somewhere nice on a weekend. Do some gardening, take the stairs instead of the lift, get off the bus a few stops early. You don't need to be doing formal cardio workouts unless you really want to.

New research suggests that while doing some cardio is good for you, doing any more than 30 minutes at a time could be bad for you and shorten your life expectancy. Many experts are now suggesting the best thing to do is a short intense blast of 10 minutes and then very low impact cardio the rest of the time through your everyday life.

Cardio doesn't really burn that many calories- if you are looking to create a good calorie deficit you are going to have to bite the bullet and cut back on what you're eating. Strength Training- i.e. lifting weights will usually burn even less calories than cardio but it will gradually turn your fat into muscle and this is what you want. Fat under your skin make you look wobbly, muscle under your skin makes you look firm and toned. Strength Training will transform your body- it will change the shape of it. The best bit of all this is that muscles require more calories than fat so someone with more muscle will burn more calories simply by being alive. There is another benefit.

Think about this common weight loss problem:

• To lose weight you cut your calorie intake;
• You lose weight
• Now that you have lost weight you need less calories
• To maintain your weight loss you have to slash your calories even further
• You are not getting the nutrients you need because you are eating so few calories
• You cannot keep up with the low calorie regime so you start eating more and put the weight back on

Now if part of your weight loss involves converting fat into muscle you will be able to eat more not less as you get fitter. You may find that you weigh a bit more with a toned body than you did with a skinny fat body (a body that is not toned) but you will still be in the same size clothing, or even in small clothing. This is because muscle is denser than fat. For this reason make sure you take measurements as well as weighing yourself. It's never good to feel bad about adding a couple of pounds so knowing at the same time you've lost a couple of inches will make you feel better.

OK so now you are convinced you should be strength training you'll be relieved to know you only have to squeeze in three workouts a week.

Some people may think this is not enough but I have done my research and I have discovered that for a beginner (which I'm guessing most of us probably are) this is the best way to get the quickest results.

You want to be lifting the heaviest weight you can lift and still have perfect form for about 8 reps. Lifting a light weight over and over again is long and boring and won't give you any real benefits. Don't worry about bulking up either. Professional body builders who actually want to bulk up have to do a lot of work, eat a LOT of food and probably take some dodgy 'supplements' to do so. If you are cutting back on calories through diet and following this program you will not bulk up.

For the best results you want to be doing a total body workout rather than isolating one body area and doing 'leg day', 'chest day' and so on.

You MUST leave a day's rest in between your total body workout as your muscles need to repair to create that toned look you are after. So good news- you have a day's rest in between each workout.

As you only need to workout three times a week for optimum results you might want to follow a schedule like this:

Monday- Total Boy Workout

Tuesday- Rest Day

Wednesday- Total Body Workout

Thursday- Rest Day

Friday- Total Body Workout

Saturday-Rest Day

Sunday- Rest Day

Now that looks totally doable!

Studies have shown that the best way to get fast results is to workout big muscles groups with 20-40 reps per workout and small muscle groups 10-20 reps per workout.

Big Muscle Groups

-Chest

-Back

-Quads

-Hamstrings

Small Muscle Groups

- Shoulders

- Biceps

- Triceps

- Abs

So with this in mind if you wanted to do 3 sets your reps would look like this:

Chest exercise- 7 reps x3 sets =21 reps

Back-7 reps x3 sets =21 reps

Quads- 7 reps x3 sets = 21 reps

Hamstrings- 7 reps x3 sets=21 reps

Shoulders- 5 reps x3 sets = 15 reps

Biceps- 5 reps x 3 =15 reps

Triceps- 5 reps x3 = 15 reps

Abs- 5 reps x3 =15 reps

Once you find you can do 12 reps on the big muscles and 7 reps on the small muscles up your weight.