Fitness Articles

October 2006 issue

AN INTRO TO EXERCISE FOR WEIGHT LOSS

If you want to lose weight then it’s absolutely essential to start some form of cardiovascular activity. This is any activity that makes your heart speed up a little.

It has the wonderful effect of reducing body mass fat, while maintaining-sometimes increasing-the lean body mass. This has the added advantage of using up more calories even when you are not exercising as lean muscle need more energy to function.

In order to lose weight, all you need is to do something low-to-moderate intensity, 4-6 times per week, for about 20-40 minutes each time. This may sound a lot, but you can work upto it, and in fact there are loads of things you can do to achieve this target.

ON YOUR OWN

Walking, Jogging, Cycling, Swimming, Skipping, Golf and Skating.

INSTRUCTOR LED

These are good for social interaction and if you need stimulus and encouragement.

Aerobics, Step, Aquaarobics, Dance, Circuit Classes, Cycle classes

ONE TO ONE

Competitive games can be fun and a partner encourages you to keep at it.

Squash, Tennis, Badminton, Boxing, Gym buddy, Personal Trainer.

To know if you are exercising at the right level, try the talk test-make sure you can still talk when exercising – this means your heart is at a good, moderate level.

Whenever you exercise, don’t forget to warm up. A gentle warm up should always precede strenuous activity, to stimulate heart and lungs progressively, incease blood flow, increase body temp gradually, increase metabolism of muscle, prevent muscle and joint injury and prepare for the effort to follow.