Fitness Tips

Don’t Get Cold Feet: Get The Cold Facts About Exercise First

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Many people get into an exercise program with stars in their eyes. While ideals and goals are a must for fitness success, these can get in your way when these are based on misconceptions and mistakes.  You may, for example, get cold feet after your first few sessions because you expected to fall into the exercise habit but didn’t for one reason or another.

Every individual interested in picking up the exercise habit must then become acquainted on a deeper level, so to speak, with the cold, hard facts about exercise. Otherwise, you may get into it with unreasonable expectations and get out of it with disillusioned mind.

Exercise Will Always Involve Hard Work

True physical exercise will increase your heart rate, make your muscles burn with the effort, and demand your body to step up or fall behind. You will become tired, even exhausted, after a 30-minute workout especially when you’re into high-intensity interval training at a Mountainside Fitness gym.

Keep in mind, too that exercise will never be easy because if it’s easy, it will never be considered as exercise either. Exercise will challenge your mind and body, even push them to their limits until quitting seems the only remedy to get out of it. But when you conquer your limits, you have to continue working past your comfort zone and the cycle starts yet again.

Suffice it to say that as you become fitter, you have to work harder!  Otherwise, you will enter into a fitness plateau, which can be even harder to get out of when you have accomplished so much in the past.

Fortunately, exercise has its rewards and you will be motivated to go after them.  You will not only look and feel good about yourself but you will also have the mind and body to prove it!

Exercise Is Just One Aspect in an Active Lifestyle

Just because you’re in the gym exercising your heart out for an hour a day, perhaps 5 to 6 times a week, doesn’t mean that you have transformed from becoming a couch potato to an advocate of the active lifestyle. In other words, exercising is just one aspect of leading an active lifestyle and enjoying its fruits.

You have to consider your everyday activities during the remaining 23 hours of your day in determining whether, indeed, you lead an active lifestyle or not. You may want to add more movement to your day, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking or biking to your destination, and stretching regularly while at work. These non-exercise activities eventually add up to your active lifestyle so there’s no excuse to be a couch potato away from the gym.

But don’t count these everyday activities as exercise, too. While these are still considered as physical movements for an active lifestyle, these don’t meet the technical requirements for exercise – the movement should last for 10 continuous minutes and increase your heart rate to its aerobic level, and improve your lung capacity, among others.

Exercise Isn’t a Ticket to Bingeing

Many people on a weight loss program fail because of their misconception that the calories consumed in a binge can be burned off in a 6o-minute intense exercise session. This is hogwash because physical exercise doesn’t burn as much calories and fat as you may think! No, not even when the label on an exercise DVD claims that you can burn up to 800 calories in an hour.

The amount of calories burned in a 60-minute exercise session will depend on several factors including gender, weight and physical condition as well as the actual heart rate. For example, an hour of spinning may only burn 300-400 calories instead of the advertised 600-700 calories, a significant difference that will have an impact on actual weight loss results.

For this reason, exercising for 30-60 minutes every day isn’t an excuse to indulge in food with the expectation that the calories can be burned off later at the gym. While there are so-called cheat days in a week, it still isn’t a license to eat one more brownie, one more large ice cream, and one more hamburger.  Even on these days, eating in moderation is still the key to a successful fitness program.

Furthermore, a healthy diet and sensible lifestyle habits must accompany an appropriate exercise program so that you will see your desired body transformation. Think about it: When you’re in an Insanity program, you will need the right types and amounts of food as fuel for your body, as well as sufficient hours of sleep. You must also avoid the use of tobacco products, alcoholic drinks, and recreational drugs to ensure that your body is up to the Insanity challenge.

When you’re successful in your fitness plan, you must also remember that exercise is something that you may well do until you cannot do it anymore due to injuries or illness in your old age. But while you’re young and able, just go for it and enjoy a longer and happier life!