Good Weight Management Begins with Exercise

The best way to manage your weight is to burn more calories than you consume. You can cut calories but you also need to burn them off with exercise. So the first step in good weight management is to begin to add exercise.

How Much Exercise

When you add exercise, start gradually. The first goal should be to add 20 minutes a day of moderate exercise. Moderate exercise means that you get your heart beat going a bit. So taking a stroll in the mall is exercise, but it is not moderate. On the other hand, walking at a faster pace, whether in the mall or at the ocean, would be considered moderate. If you are only going to do easy exercise, you would need to do it for twice as long, or about forty minutes. Don’t increase your exercise too rapidly. You can add 10 minutes each week until you build up to forty minutes to an hour.

What Kind of Exercise

The best kind of exercise to manage weight is some sort of aerobic exercise that pumps your heart faster, and gets your blood moving. This includes fast walking, bicycling, running, jogging, tennis, and sometimes swimming, if you really swim hard. This doesn’t mean that things like weight training, or yoga, or Pilates, or other exercise is not good. In fact they are great complements to your weight program and over all health. However, those exercises focus on a different part of your system. They are not necessarily increasing the calorie burn, but working with your muscles to tone them. They will help, for sure. But you do need to burn calories.

When to Exercise

Every study on weight management and exercise has shown that people who exercise first thing in the morning, tend to stick with the exercise plan. The moment your day gets going, it is easier and easier to find excuses not to exercise. It becomes harder and harder to squeeze the exercise into your day. The problem is that first thing in the morning, most people don’t feel like exercising. They want a more mellow start to the day, or, they are always late, rushing to get out the door to work or school, and so it seems impossible to stop and take time to exercise. There is no easy solution to this. One thing that works is to have an exercise buddy. If you have to show up and meet someone you are more likely to keep the appointment than if you are only meeting yourself.

Weight Management and Exercise Equipment

If you are not sure that you are going to stick with your exercise plan, don’t invest in expensive equipment. Use a gym. And even with the gym, be sure that there is not a big sign-up fee or a long-term contract involved. However, most of the exercise that works is free. Instead of walking on a treadmill, walk outside. If the weather is inclement, go to a mall, or, put on a rain jacket and walk anyway. Exercise is a free commodity, just like air, if you make the effort.

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