Is Your Health and Fitness Optional?

Is Your Health and Fitness Optional?

It’s that time of the year when people start the new year motivated and on a mission.  It becomes mid to late January and then….    Some have already quit.  Some are about to quit or are thinking about quitting.  Some are still going strong.  Some didn’t start recently and are still on a break from a long time ago.  Some have never even attempted to start.  Chances are, you are at one of those stages.  Hopefully the still going strong stage.  But if not, there is still hope and no matter where you are, it’s not too late!

health and fitness quitting

This is the time of year (well, really all year) people quit on their health and fitness.  For every great success story out there, I see 9 others who quit.  While yes, some just give up, most are due to life getting in the way.  Some valid reasons, some not.  But the end result is the same –  throw in the towel and lose any results or momentum you had.   The one thing I can say without a doubt though is that the one out of ten that I see who stick with it, ALWAYS gets results.  No matter what.  If you keep moving forward and stick with it you will get results.  You can’t do the right thing and get the wrong results.  It really is simple math and logic.

But the majority still quits.  Why does this happen?  It is exercise warfare.  The exercise devil is going to give you every reason not to continue with your diet and exercise.  In your faith journey, you will have spiritual warfare.  Satan will do everything he can to keep you from living the life God calls you to live.  The same with exercise.  He will do everything to keep you from exercising.  Because he knows it’s good for you.  And often times we listen to him and justify quitting. 

I see so many reasons for people quitting on their health and fitness and quitting their workouts.  Such as illness, injury, work issues, schedule changes, finances, kids activities, travel, lack of motivation, lost interest, burnout, laziness, and so on. These are all real things, and happen to everyone, myself included.  And the ones that are valid excuses make it very easy for us to justify quitting.  “It’s not our fault”

excuses don't burn calories

But remember – EXCUSES DON’T BURN CALORIES.  Valid or not, any excuse or reason not to exercise still ends in not exercising….

The key to success with your health and fitness is the priority shift.  How are you going to let events like these effect you?  Exercise shouldn’t be optional.  There are things in your life that aren’t optional, like your faith, your spouse, your kids, and your work.  None of which work well if you are not healthy.  Your body and your health is a constant moving product.  It is either moving towards a better place, or moving to a worse place.  Rarely does it stay the same.  If you exercise and eat good most of the time, your body and health will move forward.  If you do not exercise and you eat junk all the time, your body and health will go backwards. 

You have to prioritize things.  I have 4 kids, I am a business owner, I coach multiple youth sports, work 10 hours per day, sleep only about 5-6 hours per night, etc.  Life gets in the way.  Trust me I get it.  But….I don’t let it keep me from taking care of myself.  When life gets in the way, I adjust.  Not exercising is not an option for me.  It is going to happen regularly, regardless of what life throws at me.  Some times may be tougher than others, but quitting is never an option.  I may miss a day or two here and there when life throws me a curve ball, but I never completely quit and miss weeks and months at a time.  When life is difficult, my relationship with God, my marriage, my parenting, my work, and my health and fitness continue on.  Other things may get put to the side or put on hold, but those things continue on.  Especially my exercise, because the other top priority things in my life are effected by my health and fitness.

The theme this year is consistency.  Be standing at the end of the year.  Regardless of what life throws at you!  Life may knock you down a time or two.  You may miss exercise days here and there and mess up on your diet.  But get back at it.  Never totally give up. 

When you get sick or travel or take off work for any reason, when those missed work days are over, you don’t just quit work because life got in the way, you go back to work when the event is over.  But for some reason when we miss our exercise or mess up on our diet, we quit totally or let one day turn into a week or one week turn into a month or even several months.  The exercise devil says to us, “well you were doing good, but now you totally blew it, so what’s the point?  Just quit.”  And we listen to him and quit.  Fight the good fight!  Don’t give up.  Get back at it. 

 

health and fitness clock

 

Remember, it’s never to late to do the right thing.  This can apply to everything in life.  Especially your health and fitness.  Have you missed workouts lately?  No problem, just get back at it.  The longer you wait, the further from your goals you will be.  There is no better time than now to start.  And when life gets in the way, and it absolutely will, work through it and don’t quit.  Think about the top 3 or 4 things that you spend the most time and money on?  This will tell you what your top priorities are.  Is your health one of them?  Do you think it should be?  Invest in a better future for yourself by making exercise and eating better part of your life from this day forward.

To easily get started and lay the groundwork for your health and fitness routine, message me about our 60 Day Total Body Transformation – which can be done in person at Hoover Fitness or remotely if you do not live in the area. 

Need help with the weight training? –  Check out my Virtual Trainer

Need help with the diet?  Try the easy to follow Calorie-Budgeting system

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST and get FREE weekly tips and advice that we guarantee will help you on your health and fitness journey!

New Year’s Fitness Resolutions – How To Easily Make This Year You Stick With It!

New Year’s Fitness Resolutions – How To Easily Make This Year You Stick With It!

As you already know, this is the time of year people start diet and exercise routines with the best of intentions, and then usually anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months later, something happens and they quit…. Then try again at some point in the year or the next January, and so on.  The on and off again roller coaster of results.

If the previous paragraph describes you, then I have good news – you can easily get off that roller coaster and get results this year.  This can be the year you stick to your new year’s fitness resolutions!

How???  One simple word – CONSISTENCY

consistency

I have worked with thousands of people over the past 20 years and I have found that the number one thing in common with all the people who have achieved the best results, more than the best routine, or hardest worker, or who sacrificed the most, and so on, is that the people with the best results were the ones who were consistent.  The ones who consistently do their workouts and who consistently eat decent (while still cheating!). 

If you want to make this the year that you stick to your new year’s fitness resolutions, you have to make exercising regularly your top priority, even over your diet.

Priority Shift

priorities

Start with a priority shift.  Remember, if you eat bad all the time and you don’t exercise, you will go backwards in your health and weight.  The key is to make exercise a priority.  You are going to cheat on your diet at some point, and I totally encourage you to cheat.   If you don’t, you are ultimately setting yourself up for failure because if you don’t intentionally cheat, you will do it at some point and then throw in the towel completely.  So, start with exercise consistency as the most important part of your health and fitness journey.   Your diet will come and go, but if your exercise is consistent, then you will always be either moving forward or staying the same, instead of going backwards.  See when you place all of your results on your diet and don’t exercise, when you fail on your diet, you go backwards with your results because then you aren’t dieting or exercising.  If exercise is consistent, then when you are eating good and exercising, you will be moving forward and when you are eating bad, you will at least not go backwards because your exercise will keep you moving forward. 

Your Default Settings

computer - default settings

Back to the priority shift.  You have to change your default settings with exercise.  You have to make it like your job.  Let’s say you work Monday through Friday 9am-5pm.  Your default settings with your job is that you go to work to work every day Monday through Friday, except for when you call in sick or take time off intentionally.  You don’t wake up on Monday morning and say to yourself, “I think I’ll go to work today.”  You already have work planned.  It’s your default setting.  You need exercise and diet to be the same.  You have days you workout and eat good as your normal default setting and it’s already in your routine to workout and eat good that day – unless you get sick or decide to take a day off or decide to cheat on your diet.  Then after the intentional day off, you are back on your plan.  With work, we don’t miss a few days due to sickness or vacation and then say “well I missed so much work, the damage is done, I’ll just quit working…”  But for some reason we do that with our workouts and diet.  So, if and when, you miss, the key is getting back on your plan. 

Don’t Aim for Perfection

dartboard bullseye

Remember, you don’t have to be perfect with your routine.  You don’t have to eat good all the time.  You just have to never completely quit!  I cheat on my diet very regularly.  Probably more than most people.  The difference is that I never totally quit.  Most weeks I exercise 5 days per week and take 2 days off and cheat on my diet at least 3 or 4 times per week.  But there are some weeks where life happens, or I travel, or holidays, etc. where I miss some workouts and I cheat more than normal.  But after these weeks, I don’t quit, I just continue back to my normal default settings. 

If you stay consistent, you will not only get results, you will keep them!  Our bodies are designed to where you have to exercise and eat good (not great) most (not all) of the time. No one gets a pass.  But for some reason we think our health is optional.  As we all know, when we quit for months or years at a time, our bodies don’t just freeze and pick up where we left off. 

So, make this the year you are consistent.  Instead of trying to do great and then quitting, try to do good without quitting.  Instead of 100% perfect diet and then quitting, try to eat good 80% of the time and bad 20% of the time, but doing this consistent without quitting.  And never give up on your exercise –  it takes the pressure off the diet! 

Final Thoughts

I have used these principles and many more listed in my book, Calorie Budgeting 101, to get and maintain results myself and help thousands of others over the years, so I know without a doubt it works! 

To easily get started and lay the groundwork for your routine, message me about our 6 Week Total Body Transformation – which can be done in person at Hoover Fitness or remotely if you don’t live in the area. 

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST and get FREE weekly tips and advice that we guarantee will help you on your health and fitness journey!

6 Ways to Make This the Year You Reach Your Health and Fitness Goals

6 Ways to Make This the Year You Reach Your Health and Fitness Goals

No more New Years Resolutions that end up in failure within the first month!  These 6 tips will get you off that year after year roller coaster of failed attempts and set you up for success to  reach your health and fitness goals now and in the long run.

 

Have the Right Mindset

health and fitness goals be smart

To reach your health and fitness goals, you need to have the right mindset.  You want to set yourself up for success, not failure.  Most of the time, people approach their diet and exercise the wrong way and they set themselves up for failure.  So what is the right mindset?  Think big-picture, and think GOOD, not great.  Most people think that they have to get all of their desired results NOW, and then when they don’t see them, they quit and then go backwards and even further away from their goals.  You have to think big-picture. 

You have to think long term.  Remember, diet and exercise have to be a part of your life forever, so you might as well think of it in the long term.  Our bodies are designed to be taken care of and if you don’t exercise and you don’t eat right, then you will go backwards.  So, yes it is a life-sentence, but it doesn’t have to be a bad one.  Your goal is to do good, not great, and do it for a long time.  Most people try to do everything perfect.  They go from doing no exercise and eating terrible to going crazy with their exercise and going on some super-strict diet.  It’s too far from what you were doing and it’s too much to sustain, so you quit and then you are back to not exercising, not eating good, and you start going backwards.  (this is the roller-coaster of losing 10lbs, then quitting and gaining 20lbs, then starting back and losing 10lbs, then quitting and gaining another 20lbs, etc., on and off for years and years).  It’s all mindset!  Think progressive changes.  Think GOOD instead of great.  Start exercising regularly and start making easy changes in your diet that will help you improve without total deprivation, which causes you to quit. 

I can’t express how important this mindset thing is.  I have spent 25 years teaching people how to be a normal person and still get results and how to avoid the pitfalls that cause people to quit.  I have created a system that allows you to enjoy life while getting results.  This is a system for the person who wants results and still wants to enjoy life.  I could write several more pages explaining this, and I have… For a quick and easy read showing you exactly how you can get real results while still enjoying life, check out my book, Calorie Budgeting 101.

 

Consistency

health and fitness goals train track

I have worked with thousands of people over the past 25 years and I have found that the number one thing in common with all the people who reach their health and fitness goals, more than the best routine, or hardest worker, or who sacrificed the most, and so on, is that the people who reached their health and fitness goals were the ones who were consistent.  The ones who consistently do their workouts and who consistently eat decent (while still cheating!). 

While it is important what you are doing for your workouts, cardio, and diet, it is even more important that whatever you do, you do it consistently.  The best program in the world will not work if you do not do it.  So make consistency your top priority and then worry about what you are doing. 

Commit to not quitting for an entire year.  I don’t mean never missing a workout or never cheating on your diet.  What I mean is commit to not quitting completely.  Miss days here and there, go on vacation, take sick time, etc., but just like you do with your job, when the missed time is over, get back to work!

 

Pick the Right Workout Program

health and fitness goals pushups

To reach your health and fitness goals, you need to choose the right workout program.  You need to choose a workout program that is safe, efficient, and effective, and one that is sustainable for a long time.

Most of us are super busy, so time is of the essence.  Look for workouts that are 45 minutes or less and cover pretty much every body part.  This way time is not wasted and you won’t miss working any specific areas of your body.  My workouts at Hoover Fitness and via my Virtual Personal Trainer are all 45 minutes or less and cover every body part.  We also superset exercises and do combination exercises which make them very efficient. 

It will be very difficult to reach your health and fitness goals if you get injured.  But, you can get in great workouts that produce great results and great strength gains without getting injured.  In our programs at Hoover Fitness and via my Virtual Personal Trainer, no one ever gets injured.  The reason being is because the moves are designed for the individual and can be adjusted to their limitations and also because we use dumbbells instead of bars and racks.  The benefit of dumbbells is that they conform to your body’s movements, whereas a bar requires more that you conform to it. 

There are lots of great programs out there.  I recommend finding something to follow that uses dumbbells, is not competition based, and that works multiple body parts per workout.   Find a workout program that is safe, efficient, and effective, and also that can be adjusted to your improvements and advances throughout the year. 

 

Do Cardio in Addition to Weight Training

health and fitness goals cardio equipment

The 3 main components in your health and fitness are to workout, eat better, and do cardio.  If you haven’t gotten results in the past, there is a good chance it is because you left out one of these three, and usually it is cardio. 

Cardio not only will help you with your heart health, stamina, and health in general, it will also help you burn fat and tone up.  In addition to those benefits, cardio will help you have better endurance for your strength training workouts, thus enabling you to get more out of those workouts. 

And most importantly, working out regularly and doing cardio regularly take the pressure off of the diet.  Your diet will never be perfect, so the more you can be consistent with your workouts and cardio, the less your diet failures will effect you. 

My advice is always to work hard for 15-20 minutes.  If you are working hard enough, 15 minutes on a regular basis is plenty.  Often times people walk or do something easy for 45 minutes or an hour and get nothing really from it.  Their mind tells them that they are working hard because they went so long, but the reality is that there is a reason they were able to go so long –  it was easy.   My best advice that I can give for cardio is that it is not how far you go or how long you go, it’s how hard you work. 

As for what to do for your cardio, pretty much anything that causes your heart rate to increase and stay increased for 15-20 minutes will suffice.  If you are at home, this could be a jog or run outside, up and down stairs, riding a bicycle, etc.  At a gym, you can use the treadmill, an elliptical machine, a stairstepper, an exercise bike, or any other equipment in the cardio area. 

Get out of your comfort zone and be miserable, but only for a short amount of time, like 15 minutes.  Not only will you get better results, it will be better for your joints and keep you from racking up chronic injuries that accrue over time when you just keep rolling up that odometer. 

Have a Realistic Diet

health and fitness goals man eating

You can’t reach your health and fitness goals by going on some crazy, miserable fad diet.  You need to have a realistic diet.  Start simple and with small changes.  People fail on their diets because they change too much too fast and deprive themselves of everything and then they quit.  And when they quit, they quit everything, including their exercise. 

Commit to exercising, then the pressure should be off the diet.  Your diet will come and go, but your exercise can be consistent. 

Find ways to cut calories without being miserable.  One way to do this is to take something that you normally eat and replace it with something that you like that has less calories.  Then it becomes relative to what you normally eat, not relative to what the actual food item is.

Skip a meal.  Yes, skip a meal. This is by far the easiest way to cut calories.  The bottom line is your calories in vs. calories out.  You have already increased the calories out by your exercise, so find ways to reduce the calories in.  The bigger the deficit is each day, the faster you get results.  You don’t have to eat 5 times per day, and you don’t have to eat breakfast.  Never eat because you think you have to. 

Avoid snacking.  Grab a cup of coffee or a piece of gum.  Cut out those snacks and you have cut out those calories.

Drink lots of water.  Water will make you feel more full and also help your body operate better with your exercise.  Shoot for 64-100 ounces per day.

I could go on and on about the diet and what to do and what not to do to keep you from quitting, but for the sake of simplicity in getting started, just implement these few diet tips.  For a lot more easy diet tips and help with the mental side of all this, read my latest eBook, Calorie Budgeting 101.  It is a quick read and the ultimate diet guide for the person who wants results and still wants to eat the foods they love and enjoy life. 

 

Take Supplements

You get aftermarket accessories for your car.  You get the best equipment for sports and hobbies.  But yet when it comes to health and fitness, people hold back on getting “extras” that can boost performance and help achieve health and fitness goals easier. 

If you take the right things, then you can get even better results with little to no extra effort, which is always a good thing to keep you going and keep you happy. 

Think of taking supplements like an athlete having the best gear.  A baseball player having the best bat and cleats and then taking supplements to get the most out of his training.  Or like If you get into running, and you wanted to get serious about it, you wouldn’t just start running without doing anything else.  You would probably start by getting good running shoes and then taking supplements for your performance. 

There are a lot of quality supplements out there that can help you get results in the gym and with your diet.  While there are a lot of great supplements on the market today, I am going to talk about the supplements that I take and recommend professionally.  As always, do your own research.  But if you want my professional opinion, then I would advise these. 

As for workout performance supplements, I personally take and professionally recommend Prestige Labs products. If you are looking for something to help you lose weight and burn body fat without having to do anything other than take a product, then take a look at the Prestige Heat and the Prestige Crush.  These are two of the most popular products we sell in our weight loss workout programs.  Check out all of their amazing products by clicking HERE.

As for health-type supplements, I recommend Juice Plus+ fruits and vegetable capsules.  I have personally been taking Juice Plus+ for almost 20 years and it is a great way to get real, whole food nutrition without having to eat a ton of calories.  The recommended amount of fruits and vegetables is 7-13 servings of raw fruits and vegetables per day.  If you eat this amount, then you will reap amazing health benefits, including heart health, feeling better, better immune system, and much more.  The problem is that it is impossible to physically eat that amount.  Plus the cost and the calories would be way too high.  Juice Plus+ gets you this amount of fruits and vegetables daily, in a capsule!  learn more at by clicking HERE

 

Final Thoughts

health and fitness goals finish line

Make this the year that you stick with it.  The year that you get results and keep them.  The year that you make exercise a priority in your life.  January is the time to get started.  Motivation is usually very high in January, so use that motivation to get started.  But have the right mindset, be consistent, pick the right workout program, do cardio in addition to weight training, have a realistic diet, and take supplements, so you will be able to make this the year.  Realize that health and fitness is not optional and that to get results you have to do the things things that are needed on a regular basis.  If you make the right decisions with your health and fitness, you will be able to get results and keep getting them for a long time.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST and get FREE weekly tips and advice that we guarantee will help you on your health and fitness journey!

Are You Being Led By Your Symptoms?

Are You Being Led By Your Symptoms?

When you wake up each day, is what you do dictated by how you feel?  Do you not exercise because you don’t feel good?  Do you sleep until you feel well enough to get out of bed? Is your productivity at work determined by how you feel and how much energy you have that day?  Do you stay at home because you don’t have enough energy to get out and do the things that you really want to do? If you said yes to any of these questions or anything similar then you are letting how you feel dictate your life. 

 

 

It’s time to take control of your life and lead.  I see it all too often – people do what they do based off of how they feel.  People don’t exercise because they don’t feel up to it.  They let their symptoms and the way they feel prevent them from exercise and the benefits of exercise.  They have a million excuses as to why they can’t, most of which are based off of an illness or an injury.  They let the injury or illness lead and dictate their life.  If you think you can’t exercise because of a limiting factor then you are incorrect.  Everyone can do something.  All you have to do to get results is do more than you currently do, so literally everyone can get results.  Everyone has a ceiling that they can work towards.

Well, if you take control of your exercise and diet and your health, you can dictate the terms.  You may have to take a step back to take two steps forward, but trust me, you will never feel better until you do.  You will just be managing symptoms and never doing what you want and living how you really want to.  Start exercising!  Don’t wait until you feel better. Exercising is one of the things that makes you feel better.   So if exercise is makes you feel better and your plan is to wait until you feel better to start exercising, then you will likely never feel better by waiting.   In addition to exercising, also try to  make diet improvements such as budgeting your calories and eating more fruits and vegetables, (Click here to learn how to budget your calories and here to learn how to eat more fruits and veggies), start drinking more water  (a lot more!),  get more sleep, and reduce stress.  Do these things – even when you don’t feel like it!

 

 

When you invest some time and effort taking control of your health and fitness, you will feel much better.  When you feel better, you dictate the terms of your life.  You take the lead.  You decide what you want to do each day based on other things besides the way you feel.  Don’t be a slave to your symptoms any longer.  Take control.  Feel better, live better!

Need help with the weight training? –  Check out my Virtual Trainer

Need help with the diet?  Try the easy to follow Calorie-Budgeting system

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST and get FREE weekly tips and advice that we guarantee will help you on your health and fitness journey!

5 Great Non-Running Cardio Ideas

5 Great Non-Running Cardio Ideas

I want to do cardio but I cannot run.  What do I do?  In this post I will give you some good non-running cardio ideas, and how to do them effectively!

You will hear me say over and over that running is the best form of cardio because it is efficient and yields the best results in the shortest amount of time.  When I talk about running though, I mean 15-30 minutes of running, not hours of running per day or marathon running, etc.  That gets into running for sport, which has as many negatives as it does positives.  I mean running at a high intensity level for 15-30 minutes 4 or 5 days per week.  This gives you maximum output and keeps your odometer low, thus keeping you from chronic injury.  But, back to the original point of how to get in good cardio without running????

I recommend doing other options for  15-30 minutes at a high pace and high intensity.  Remember, 15 minutes is enough time, if you are working hard enough.  If you can go a whole hour, then you are not working hard enough.  I also recommend doing a progressive plan. Pick a time between15 and 30 minutes and increase the level or speed every minute or every few minutes.  Try to avoid going fast one minute and then resting one minute.  The goal is 15-30 minutes straight of working hard.  You can rest when you are finished…

So, let’s take a look at some non-running cardio ideas.

 

1. The Stair Stepper

One of my favorite non-running cardio ideas is the Stair Stepper.  I recommend the stair stepper as one of the next best options to running for cardio.  One of the best things about running on a treadmill is that you are at the mercy of the belt speed, which means that in order to slow down, you have to push a button, so as long as you don’t jump off or reduce the speed, you cannot slow down (like you can when running outside).  Well, the same is true with a stair stepper.  Most are designed to where you have to keep moving or else it will sink to the floor.  So, like the treadmill, you have to adjust the level to make it easier, you can’t just simply slow down.  One thing to note is that in order to make a stair stepper effective, you have to use your legs.  I often see people leaning on top of the stepper and taking all the pressure off of their legs.  Don’t do that!!  You can hold on, but just make sure that you are using your legs to step and you are staying upright. 

2.  The Fan Bike

I also recommend the Fan Bike as the one of the next best options to running for cardio.  The great thing about the fan bike is that it has arms and legs movements that can be done simultaneously or individually.  I find the best way to work hard on the Fan Bike is to do intervals of each movement.  I do one minute of just peddling without holding onto the arm handles, then one minute of just moving the arm handles back n forth without moving the pedals, and then one minute of doing both together.   Another good option is to just do the arms and legs together the entire time and push through it at a good pace continually. 

 

3.  The Elliptical

The elliptical is a tricky animal.  The tricky thing with the elliptical is that you can make it easy and simply “ride it” instead of working hard.  I see this all the time.  People log hours and hours on it with little or no results. So, make sure you have it moving at an uncomfortable or miserable pace with speed and resistance.  Start medium and increase every few minutes.  Try to work progressive, increasing every few minutes without stopping or resting until you are finished.  A good way to ensure that you are working hard on the elliptical is to make sure that you stay level.  Imagine there is a ceiling 1 inch above your head and you cannot hit it.  If you do this, your legs will be on fire!  When you go up and down with the motion of the elliptical, you take away a lot of the resistance.  Staying level will prevent that.

 

4.  The Upright Bike and Recumbent Bike

Both of these can be good cardio ideas and be very effective if done right.  You have to have the right combination of speed and resistance.  Don’t make it too hard to pedal.  But also, don’t go too slow.  And, make sure you are gradually increasing the intensity.  These bikes can be very effective, but just like a bike on the road, if you are coasting, you are getting nothing out of it, so make sure that you are actually working hard.  One great tip to ensure that you are working hard is to pick a speed that is fast and fairly uncomfortable and keep it above that speed the entire time.  You have to remember to keep an eye on it thought, because you will automatically slow down if you don’t.  The speed is usually indicated on the bike’s screen as RPM.  Gradually increase the resistance while keeping at the desired speed and you will get a great cardio workout on the bike. 

 

5.  The Spin Bike

You don’t have to be in a spin class to use the spin bike.  These bikes can get you a killer workout.  As a matter of fact, I don’t really recommend spin class often, but that is a whole other topic that I will go into in another post.  But, for your 15-30 minutes of high intensity cardio, you can use a spin bike.  On the spin bike, I recommend going back and forth between fast and resistance.  Notice I didn’t say fast and slow, or hard and easy.  Once again, we have to stay out of the resting zone.  So, start by going fast for a minute and then after that minute, make the resistance very hard and try to count 100 pedal revolutions.  When you finish the 100, you can go fast one minute then do another 100, and so on.  You can also do 30 seconds fast, 50 resistance revolutions, and other time intervals. 

 

 

Other cardio ideas

There are other cardio machines out there.  There are some that are like ellipticals and steppers combined, row machines, etc.  You can also jump rope and things like that.  Any of these can be effective if you work at a progressive pace and if you start and don’t rest until you are finished.  So, be careful on some of these and make sure you are working hard enough.  If you can only do a few minutes at a time, then you are not really doing cardio, you are doing more like weight training. 

 

 

So, to recap…

*15-20 minutes is enough if you are working at an intense pace and you do it consistently (shoot for every day you do a workout)

*Work progressive –  gradually increase intensity.  Don’t go fast one minute then rest, etc.  Remember, your results happen when you push through, not when you rest. 

*Use the misery index – If you are miserable, then you are probably working where you need to be.  If it is easy, you will not get results.  You want to work at the level of where the minutes go by like hours and the seconds like minutes.  Use music, videos, tv shows, prayer, and any other things you can to distract yourself. 

Use these tips to help you maximize your cardio.  And remember to do all three, Weight Training, Cardio, and Calorie-Budgeting to get maximum results!

Need help with the weight training? –  Check out my Virtual Trainer

Need help with the diet?  Try the easy to follow Calorie-Budgeting system

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