by jc | Nov 8, 2023 | Diet/Nutrition, Workouts
In this article, you will find 11 senior health and fitness tips that are all very doable, user-friendly, safe, and meet realistic and attainable expectations. Seniors need to exercise, and eat decent, but it doesn’t have to be as difficult as you may think. We will walk you through easy to follow tips that literally anyone can apply and we will show you how to progress one step further in your journey to better senior health and fitness. These tips will show the path that can help seniors feel better, sleep better, prevent injury, recover from injury faster, improve their immune system, and have more energy!
1. It’s Never Too Late To Get Started
I once heard someone say that it’s never too late to do the right thing, which is true for all aspects of life. So, It’s never too late to get started on the path to better senior health and fitness. A lot of times people reach a certain age and think that it’s too late and the damage is done, etc. You have to remember that your health is not stagnant. If you are not proactive and you do nothing to improve your health, it will go backwards. So, when people reach a certain age and they throw in the towel and do nothing to for their health and fitness, they start a steady decline, which leads to becoming overweight, feeling bad, no strength, no energy, limitations in daily living, and constant health problems. Again, it’s not too late. Your health and fitness can be improved in simple progressive steps, so keep reading to find out how!
2. Get enough fruits and veggies
Adults are recommended to eat 7-13 servings of raw fruits and vegetables every day. Although the meat and 3 at the local restaurant tastes very good, chances are those “3” aren’t counting too much towards your 7-13 servings. You need fresh, healthy vegetables. Preferably raw and not with tons of butter, cheese, sugar, and other ingredients added to them. The benefits to eating more fruits and vegetables are incredible. Eating more fruits and vegetables can greatly improve your immune system, help with joint pain and inflammation, help with heart health, help prevent disease, and many more benefits, including feeling better! I know what you are thinking – “I eat my fruits and vegetables and I take my vitamins.” But remember, the meat and 3 veggies probably aren’t the best for you and definitely aren’t enough, and that multi-vitamin probably isn’t cutting it. Take a look at this article from time magazine which basically states that vitamins can do more harm than good, or at least be a waste of money. So, to ensure that I get enough fruits and vegetables, I turn to whole-food nutrition. Since it is virtually impossible to eat 7-13 servings of raw fruits and veggies every day, I take Juice Plus+ fruit and vegetable whole food nutrition capsules. This is by far the easiest part of my diet. Juice Plus ensures that I get 7-13 servings of raw fruits and vegetables every day, regardless of what I eat. While I still eat a decent amount of fruits and vegetables in my diet, I don’t get anywhere near the 7-13 servings of raw fruits and vegetables that are recommended. Plus, this allows me to concentrate more on calories when it comes to my diet.
If you are really serious about being healthy and preventing health problems, spend a little time on my Juice Plus+ page and learn more about the importance of fruits and vegetables. We take our health for granted and we also do not realize how far off we are on a daily basis in terms of our fruit and vegetable intake. Juice Plus+ is the only nutritional product that I personally take or recommend. My wife and I have been taking it for several years and we rarely get sick, and when we do, we recover quickly. Our senior parents take it as well, and our children all take it and it seems that they all keep up good health.
3. Balance Protein, Carbs, and Fat
You need all three of these nutrients to some extent. Don’t stress too much over this, but do try to get a good balance of them, especially protein and carbohydrates. As you age, you start to lose your muscle mass and strength. Protein (along with exercise) can help combat muscle loss. As for carbohydrates, they give you fuel. You need them for energy. With carbs, try to have complex carbs, such as brown rice, whole grains, etc. These types of carbs will give you more sustainable energy than simple carbs such as sugars and sweets. But remember, carbs are fuel, so you need to stay active so you can burn this fuel and then replenish and repeat! As for fat, don’t stress too much about fat, just try to keep it moderate. Try to choose foods lower in fats and you will not only be reducing your fat intake, but you will also be reducing your caloric intake, since low-fat and fat-free foods usually have less calories.
4. Drink enough water
Water is one of the few things in life that has all positive qualities and no real negative qualities. Make sure you are drinking enough water. How much? The answer is easy – more than you currently are! Water will help you feel better, have more energy, keep you hydrated, help your muscles function, help you feel full, help your skin, and many, many other benefits. Not to mention, water is calorie-free and most importantly, when you are drinking water, you are not drinking whatever else you would drink, which is definitely worse for you than water!
5. Eat junk food!
What???? That is not a typo! This is my favorite senior health and fitness tip. You need to eat some junk food. You need to splurge. Food = Happiness, and if you are happy, you will do better longer. Strict diets lead to failure. If you deprive yourself of the foods you love, then you will eventually throw in the towel and quit and turn to eating junk food all the time. So, do good most of the time, not all of the time. And regularly choose to splurge and eat dessert and other foods that are bad for you. Just do it in moderation. Try to do more good than bad. Try to eat good the majority of the time, but not all the time. This is the foundation to the Calorie-Budgeting System. Learn this easy to follow system and you will see just how easy it is to get results and be healthy and still be able to eat junk food!
6. Start progressive exercise
Everyone needs to exercise, regardless of age or anything else. If you start exercising, you will feel better, sleep better, have more energy, get injured less, have better mobility and balance, and so on. With exercise, take baby steps. Do this progressively. You don’t have to start with the most drastic, over the top exercise. Just do more than you currently are doing and increase it over time. Take baby steps and consistently make improvements progressively over time. It’s all relative to you, not to what you saw on TV or what your in shape friend tells you that they do. All you have to do is more than you currently are doing! If you need help with where to get started, check out this FREE GUIDE to help you get started on your health and fitness journey.
7. Include Weight training
Everyone needs to do resistance training. Which is usually weight training or some other form of resistance training, such as body weight exercises, bands, balls, etc. Weight training will improve your bone health, increase your strength, increase your energy, help you prevent injury, and helps you feel better. My best advice is to get with a trainer and learn how to exercise safely and effectively based on your goals and physical abilities. If you are in the Birmingham area, we have excellent senior personal training at Hoover Fitness and also via our In-Home Personal Training services. If you are not in the Birmingham area, we do offer online coaching and virtual workout plans – CONTACT US for more info.
8. Make sure to do Cardio
Cardiovascular training is necessary for everyone. Cardio will help your heart health, your energy and endurance, and also your mobility. Cardio could be literally anything that elevates your heart rate for an extended period of time. I think the best way to do cardio is progressively and to increase your level and intensity over time for 15-30 minutes. Remember though, the key to beneficial cardio is having some degree of intensity. Not so intense that you cannot last more than a minute or few minutes, but at a level that you are out of your comfort zone and can make it 15-30 minutes. If you walk, try to walk faster or jog. If you jog, try to run. You can also do machines, like the bike or elliptical. Just remember to give yourself some degree of difficulty. Don’t just log minutes. Put in some work! If it’s easy, it probably isn’t helping any!
9. Get Enough Sleep
Try to get enough sleep! Lack of Sleep (and Stress) will kill your immune system. One easy way to improve your sleep is exercise! The more you exercise, the more your body will want to sleep and recover. Another tip for sleeping better is to eat further away from your bedtime. This way your body will concentrate on sleeping instead of digesting and processing your food. The more active you are and the better you eat, the better you will sleep. And, the better and more sleep you get, the better you feel!
10.. Boost your Immune system
It is important to boost your immune system. If you are sick all the time, you can’t be consistent with your health journey. Get sick less! Recover from illness faster! How do you boost your immune system? Juice Plus+ is one great way to do it. But you can also boost your immune system by following these 11 senior health and fitness tips. Exercise more, eat less junk, reduce stress, sleep more, eat 7-13 servings of raw fruits and vegetables every day, drink lots of water, stay active, and so on.
11. Take Control of Your Health
Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? It’s time you take control of your health and the way you feel. You have probably been living life being led by your symptoms. You wake up and what you do is determined by how you feel. You let your health symptoms determine what you can do. If you follow these tips, you can take control. YOU CAN LEAD!
Do what you want to do and let your health follow. Not the other way around. At first, you will have a ceiling of how much you can do and how good you can feel, but as you reach that ceiling, it rises, and over time you can do more and you can feel even better. It is progressive and continual, but as long as you keep on going, you will keep on improving.
Final Senior Health and Fitness Thoughts
Senior Health and Fitness doesn’t have to be just for those who have been healthy and in shape their entire life. It can be for you too, no matter where you are in life. Remember, whatever your health and fitness looks like, it can improve. Don’t wait – there will never be a perfect time. No more excuses. Everyone can do something. It is never too late to improve and feel better. Don’t throw in the towel. No matter who you are or how old you are, you can make improvements and feel better.
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!
by jc | Nov 1, 2023 | Diet/Nutrition, homepage, Workouts
Has your health and fitness suffered due to your super busy schedule? If you are like a lot of people in today’s world, then chances are it has suffered. I have good news though, it doesn’t have to! Below are 8 simple health and fitness tips for busy people that you can apply starting immediately to get results no matter what your schedule is like.
1. Make Your Health and Fitness a Priority
The first of the health and fitness tips for busy people is to make your health and fitness a priority. If you want to lose weight, build muscle, burn body fat, become healthier, get in shape, have more energy, sleep better, and have the benefits of regular exercise and a better diet, then you have to stop using your busy schedule as an excuse. I get it, your schedule is crazy and the last thing you want to fit in is working out or following a diet. If you want the results that come with improved health and fitness, then you have to improve your health and fitness. There is no other way.
The good new is that you can follow these health and fitness tips to get results, even if you are busy. Before you move on though, you have to decide that you are going to make your health and fitness a priority. It has to be something that you place an importance on moving forward. That doesn’t mean that you have to quit doing other things or try to alter your already crazy life, but what it does mean is that you have to decide that your health and fitness is something that you are going to put into your life on a regular basis moving forward.
2. Adjust Your Mindset
Now that you are going to improve your health and fitness, the next step is to adjust your mindset. Get out of the all or nothing thinking. Your health and fitness doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be better and it just has to be an ongoing part of your life. While your busy schedule doesn’t mean that you get a pass from diet and exercise, it does give you a pass to adjust your thinking.
Doing something is better than doing nothing. In the past, one of the things that probably prevented you from exercising is that you thought that if you didn’t have time to do everything 100 percent then why do it at all? If you get started doing some exercise and make some diet improvements and do them on a regular basis, you will get results, and you will improve over time. Sometimes it just takes enough to get started. Get the ball rolling and then once you make your health and fitness a habit and start seeing results, everything improves from there.
Remember, your results are relative to your current diet and exercise routine, not to a perfect diet and exercise routine. To see results, all you have to do is improve what you are currently doing.
3. Schedule Your Health and Fitness
Working out is not a spur of the moment kind of thing. It should be a part of your life just like work and other non-negotiables are. If you keep a calendar or planner, schedule your workouts on it. Treat them like an appointment. Often times, people put no value on workouts and base them on convenience.
Fill in your calendar for the week with everything that you have to do and then schedule everything else around those things. Include your workouts in this! Schedule in at least 3 workouts for the week (4 or 5 if possible). Probably the number one reason people miss workouts is because they make them optional and they base it on if it’s convenient or not each day.
Do the same with your diet. Look at your calendar and put all the times on there that you will not be eating good because of work or whatever reason you may have and then make sure you eat good the rest of the time. Remember, the diet doesn’t have to be perfect to get results, it just has to be better than it used to be.
4. Be Efficient
The most practical of the health and fitness tips for busy people that I can give is to be efficient with your exercise. You don’t have time to waste, so you have to work hard when you exercise. With your workouts, try doing total body workouts that allow you to get in a lot of exercises in a short amount of time. Try doing combination exercises and supersets where you go back and forth between different exercises instead of resting between exercises. Try to avoid exercises and machines that are easy to do and take too much time to do them. You can get in a much more effective and efficient workout with some dumbbells and an open area than you can by going down the line from easy workout machine to easy workout machine slowly doing whatever single body part move each machine calls for.
With your cardio, the best tip that I can give is to run instead of walk. Run for 15 minutes instead of walking for 30 minutes or an hour. You will get in a way better workout in a fraction of the time and it will be way less on your joints over time. If you cannot run, then I recommend a stair stepper or bike or other cardio machine, but work as hard as you can for 15 minutes instead of working at a low or medium level for 30 minutes to an hour. With cardio, it’s not how far you go or how long you go, it’s how hard you work!
Work hard, be efficient, don’t waste time. If it were easy, everyone would be in shape.
5. Follow a Program
The previous tip of the health and fitness tips for busy people was to be efficient. The best way to be efficient is to follow a program. There are a lot of good workout programs you can find at your local gym or online.
Our in-person workouts at Hoover Fitness are designed with the busy person in mind. We never go longer than 45 minutes and often times are even closer to 35-40 minutes. This leaves you time to get in a good 15 minute cardio session and still be in and out of the gym in an hour at the most. With online programs, you can find programs that are even quicker. My Virtual Personal Trainer workouts can be done in 30 minutes or less and are super efficient because they work every body part and contain combination exercises where you are working your lower body, upper body, and core all at the same time.
Remember, wondering around the gym or at home aimlessly trying to figure out what to do is not only ineffective, it is slow and not a good idea for the person who is trying to figure out how to fit exercise into their busy schedule.
6. Get a Coach
You invest in the things that you want to excel in, so why not invest in your health. If you don’t get results, you will probably end up quitting. If you are a super busy person, then your path to better health and fitness is going to be challenging and you need to set yourself up for success. The best way to do this is have a professional set you up on a specific program based on your personal schedule and your personal goals.
In my programs, I work with clients to maximize their time and efforts and set up programming that is doable based on their current schedule. Basically we meet and go over your goals and your schedule and map out a plan to ensure you get results based on what you can do and when you can do it. To set up a free consultation to discuss further, request online coaching information HERE.
The good thing about a coach is that they can set you up for success based on your unique situation. Trust me, there is a plan out there for everyone. Coaches can help you map out a plan and keep you held accountable to continue to see results, especially when your schedule throws you that curveball that would normally lead you to quit.
7. Skip a Meal or Two
This is tip is also mentioned in my 7 Easy Weight Loss Diet Tips post. One of the best weight loss weight loss diet tips is to cut calories. The easiest way to cut calories is to skip a meal. You don’t have to eat 5 times per day and not eating will not mess up your metabolism. These are diet myths. (If you want to overcome several other diet myths that are probably holding you back, check out my eBook). Don’t ever eat because you think you have to. The goal is to burn more calories than you normally burn and to eat less than you normally eat. The greater the deficit the faster the body fat falls off. All that matters at the end of the day is that you created a deficit.
You are super busy, and the last thing you have is time to put towards learning a special diet and preparing food and eating based on a certain schedule or plan you have to follow.
Instead of going on a diet, just cut your calories by skipping a meal or two. Have a cup of coffee or a water or a zero calorie drink instead of those calories you normally have in a meal. This is also a way to enjoy your other meal or meals a little more. Don’t cancel it out by adding the same amount to your other meals, but if you cut out 500 calories at lunch and then add 250 to dinner, then you still came out 250 ahead!
8. Don’t Quit
This is arguably the most important health and fitness tip for busy people that I can give. None of it matters if you quit. You are guaranteed not to get results if you quit. Your health and fitness routine will be good some days/weeks/months and it will be not so good some days/weeks/months. As long as you don’t completely quit then you will get results and maintain results.
If you miss a workout, no big deal, do it the next day. If you miss a few workouts or an entire week, it’s still not the end of the world. Start back the next week. Just don’t let a missed week turn into quitting completely and then waiting 6 months to start back again and then on and off that roller coaster for the next several years.
Your Health and Fitness Path Moving Forward
What’s more important than what you do, is that you do it. This is especially important to the busy person. Start today and apply these 8 health and fitness tips for busy people to your own personal health and fitness routine. Mold a routine to your busy schedule and commit to doing something with your diet and exercise and don’t quit.
Make your health and fitness a priority, adjust your mindset, schedule your health and fitness, be efficient, follow a program, get a coach, skip a meal or two, and don’t quit and you will be set up for success, regardless of how busy you are. If you stick with it, regardless of how good your routine is, you will get results!
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!
by jc | Oct 23, 2023 | homepage, Workouts
Want to know the best workout tips for beginners to ensure that you will get results? These are 9 easy to follow workout tips for beginners that will get you results and also keep you from quitting and ensure that you are set up for long term success with your health and fitness. There are a lot of plans and programs out there you can follow, but if just Googling a workout plan and following it was that easy, you probably wouldn’t be reading this and you wouldn’t need the tips that I am giving you in this article. I have spent over 25 years as a fitness professional teaching normal people how to get results without quitting and while still being able to live a normal life, and these tips will get you set up for that same success. Once you read through these, you will be armed with the knowledge to implement as you move forward with your diet and exercise. (Also, don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to our mailing list to get FREE tips weekly delivered to your inbox)
1. Have the Right Mindset
The most important of the workout tips for beginners that I can give you is to start with 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 eBook, Calorie Budgeting 101.
2. Set Your Weekly Goals
It is important to set realistic and achievable workout goals. With your health and fitness you will have results-type goals, such as losing a certain amount of weight, strength goals, health goals, etc, but you cannot reach those goals if you do not have weekly implementation goals. Develop what I call your “workout week” and set your goals for what you want to do daily each week.
How many days per week should you workout? There really is no wrong answer if you are going from doing nothing previously. But ultimately you will want to get to working out on average 3-5 times per week. The key here is to set a weekly goal, but know that you will not always hit it. Since you will not always hit it, you will hopefully make up for it by exceeding this goal some weeks. The goal should be to average a weekly amount. An example would be that your goal is 4 workouts per week, and some weeks life gets in the way and you only get 2 or 3 in and some weeks you get in a 5th or 6th workout, but over time you average 4 workouts per week. The key here is to not quit if you don’t hit your goal.
Develop your workout week and commit to doing it every week when life is normal. When life gets in the way and you have to miss, just miss that day or two then get back on to your normal schedule and continue.
3. Schedule Your Workouts on Your Calendar
Working out is not a spur of the moment kind of thing. It should be a part of your life just like work and other non-negotiables are. If you keep a calendar or planner, schedule your workouts in it. Treat them like an appointment. Often times, people put no value on workouts and base them on convenience.
Hopefully you use a calendar to organize your life. If you don’t, then you should start (free life tip!). Calendar-setting 101 – fill in your calendar for the week with everything that you have to do and then schedule everything else around those things. Include your workouts in this! Schedule in at least 3 workouts for the week (4 or 5 if possible). Probably the number one reason people miss workouts is because they make them optional and they base it on if it’s convenient or not each day.
4. Get a Workout Plan and Follow it
You are busy and you need something efficient and effective. You can’t afford to waste your own time. If you wonder around aimlessly and get nothing out of your workout, not only will it take too much time, you will not get results. If you are taking too much time and/or you are not getting results, then you will likely quit, and the ultimate goal here is not to quit!
There are lots of good workout plans to use. Their are training programs at your local gyms and there are several online options as well. If you are going to a gym, try one of their training programs, just make sure it is safe and suitable for beginners and make sure it doesn’t take too long. I like programs that are 45 minutes or less. That way you can do the workout and 15 minutes of cardio and be in and out in an hour. If you can’t afford a training program, then I recommend finding a plan online to follow at the gym. The one I recommend the most (of course) is my Virtual Personal Trainer. It is emailed workouts that explain what to do and have video demonstrations showing you exactly what to do. It is like having a personal trainer in your pocket. You can do them at any gym or at home with or without any equipment. You can learn more about our Virtual Personal Trainer or even try it out for free by clicking HERE.
Regardless of what workout plan you choose to follow, just make sure and follow a plan. You will set yourself up for success and you will have a layer of accountability.
5. Workout Tips for Beginners at Home
Can’t go to a gym? Or just don’t want to go to a gym? I have some workout tips for beginners at home. Working out at home can be challenging. There are lots of distractions and there is also the challenge of what to do if you have little or no equipment. If you implement the 9 easy but effective workout tips for beginners listed in this article you will be set up for success, even working out at home. Schedule your workouts and have a plan for them, the same as if you were going to a gym.
You don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and build an extensive home gym to be able to workout at home. At the most you would only really need some dumbbells to get in an effective workout. If you have tons of equipment that is fine, and you can use it, but even when I go to the gym, I mostly use dumbbells. And even if you are a very strong person, if you are doing the right workouts, you won’t need super-heavy dumbbells. You can even get in a good workout without any weights at home (or on the road, at the park, etc). You can use household items.
Find an at home workout plan that requires little or no equipment. My Virtual Personal Trainer is a complete workout plan that uses dumbbells, mats, and steps for the most part. It also has an option with every workout for doing the workouts without any equipment at all.
You can also do your cardio at home, even if you don’t have a treadmill or other cardio machine. You can go outside and run/jog/walk, you can go up and down steps, etc.
The key point is to eliminate barriers (excuses) that keep you from working out. So if you can’t get to the gym, you can workout at home and you don’t need a home gym. Very little space and very little equipment is needed.
6. Gym Tips for Beginners
The first step for most people when they decide it’s finally time to get in shape is to join a gym. Unfortunately, more times than not, that gym membership ends in a cancellation and not in results. So to turn your gym membership into a results membership instead of a financial waste, I have some gym tips for beginners to give you.
The first gym tip for beginners is to actually use your gym membership. In the past, the membership wasn’t the problem, the fact that you didn’t use it was the problem. As noted before, commit to working out and schedule it on your calendar and you will be on your way to utilizing that membership.
You can get great results at the gym. One reason is because of the variety of options of equipment and things to do. But the main reason you can get results working out at a gym is that by going there you have a built in layer of accountability. You are there to workout, as opposed to at home, where you have to compete against everything else going on at home.
What to do when you get to the gym? Like we mentioned earlier in this article, the second gym tip for beginners is have a plan! Don’t just wander around aimlessly. Know what you are going to do before you get there. Have a workout on paper or on your phone (like our Virtual Trainer hint, hint…) and follow it. Make the most of your time. Be efficient. The people who don’t get results at the gym and eventually quit are always the ones who don’t have a plan. At first you may feel like you are doing something just by going to the gym and piddling around, and you may get something out of it because it is better than before when you were doing nothing, but that will run out soon.
Another great reason to have a plan at the gym is so you will look like you know what you are doing. People often wonder around the gym and then get intimidated because they don’t really know what they are doing and they avoid trying things or working hard because of this uncertainty. If you have a plan to follow, your plan should tell you exactly what to do.
The third gym tip for beginners is to try out a free personal training session or class. When you do this, there are 3 possible things that can happen. One is that you will stay with the trainer or the program and get premium results. The other two things that can happen, even if you only use it for the free session, are that you will get ideas to use on your own, and you will get help on your form and how to do things correctly.
The last quick gym tip for beginners in this article is to work hard while you are there. To get results, you have to put in the work. If you are not at least somewhat miserable and working at an uncomfortable level, and if you leave the gym not tired or having broken a sweat, you probably didn’t get much out of it. Again, don’t waste your time. Make the gym membership something valuable!
7. Do Cardio
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.
8. Simple Diet Changes
So by now, hopefully you are well prepared to start working out and ready to get started. I have a few simple diet changes that you can make that will help you as you begin this journey. With the 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 beginners. 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.
9. Don’t Quit
The only way that you will fail with your health and fitness is if you quit. Our bodies were designed to be taken care of. We have to do preventive maintenance. If you eat terrible and you don’t exercise (like most people) then your body will go the wrong way. Weight gain and health problems are inevitable. And you will feel bad and lack energy. It’s just not optional if you want to get the most out of life physically.
These 9 Easy But Effective Workout Tips for Beginners are designed to get you results at a sustainable level to where you won’t quit. If you don’t quit you will get results. Consistency is the most important thing you can do. Being consistent and never quitting is much more important than what you do or how perfect your routine or diet is.
Treat this like it is a part of your life moving forward forever and not as an optional or as-needed part of you life and you will look better, feel better, sleep better, and be healthier.
Final Thoughts – Set Yourself Up for Success
This post was about setting yourself up for success by using these 9 Easy But Effective Workout Tips for Beginners. Have the right mindset, set weekly goals, get a workout plan and follow it, maximize your workouts at home or the gym, do cardio, make simple diet changes, and don’t quit and you will be on your way to laying the groundwork for a lifetime of sustainable results! Subscribe to our mailing list to receive more beneficial information to help you achieve your health and fitness goals!
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!
