Fitness For the Fun of It

Beginning to see a pattern here? Paul can’t wait to break a sweat with his next renovation project, climb on the jungle gym, or give an after-dinner piggyback at the request of his three-year-old, And as Joan says of her time running around like a teenager in her duties as a volunteer coach, “It’s the most rewarding part of my day.”

Which says it in a nutshell. Some people participate in a sport; others discover a hobby. Whatever it is, it should be something that satisfies you and that you actually look forward to doing. Fitness after 5 o’clock, in short, should be for the fun of it.
But nothing that comes even close to inducing a sweat could fill that bill, you say?

l challenge you to test that claim. Below are some ideas for leisure»time activities that are fully capable of providing substantial fitness and fat burning benefits, yet would be very difficult, indeed, to classify as one:

If you have children, involve them. Take them for nature walks, or even just walks to the nearest ice cream store if you live in the city (and don’t worry, you’ll have earned yours). Or do sporting activities with them — play ball, Frisbee, tennis, badminton, even horseshoes or croquet. You’ll at least be doing more than watching Wheel of Fortune, and you’ll also be getting your children into the healthful pattern of being active — very important for influencing their exercise behavior as adults, studies show.

If you own a home, improve it. And don’t worry if you know as much about dovetail joints as Joan.

Hoodwink a friend who does know, and work along as a helper. Or hire a professional if no such friend exists, and work along on weekends until you know enough to go it alone. (That’s the way Paul got started. He took his vacation one summer to work alongside the carpenter building his deck and learned enough to remodel his family room. Not only did he lose five pounds during those two deck-building weeks, but he also saved himself about $40O!)

If you’re a competitive type, compete. Sports can be especially suitable for those of us who inherently seem to get ourselves too busy, because they can help channel the aggression that makes us overbook ourselves in the first place. Besides, activities such as tennis, softball, racquetball, and squash can be great exercise as well as fun.

Why come home and crunch more numbers when you can crunch the likes of a tennis ball instead? Research confirms that we aggressive types do best when we let our aggressions out, so we’d be foolish not to do so in ways capable of bettering our health along the way.

If you like animals, show it. Amazing but true: Studies show that pets can help us live longer; they are sources of comfort more important than we realize. So what better way to grab a few extra years than by taking Fido for more of those walks he craves? Or even Morris?

Undertake the care and riding of something as large as a horse, and you could really have some exercise on your hands. As the American Council on Exercise poster that pictures a dog states, “Think of him as an exercise machine with hair.”

If you like vegetables, grow them. How many avid gardeners do you know looking plumper than their tomatoes? Not many, and the reasons are simple: Vegetables are virtually fat»free, and gardening can make for some awesome exercise. The digging builds cardiovascular endurance as well as muscular strength, and the weeding and picking are great stretching movements. Start delivering all those extra tomatoes to neighbors by foot, and you’ll really have a victorious garden on your hands.

If you like dancing, just do it. Dance instruction has come a long way since Arthur Murray taught the tango.

There’s now improvisational jazz dance to be learned, disco, ethnic, and of course square dancing and ballet, in addition to the ballroom types that Arthur stepped so well. So if you like to move to rhythms — which a lot of us do, as demonstrated by all the Walkmans we wear — dance is the best way to do it. It also can be a real sweetheart of a calorie-burner, as the physiques of the great dancers attest.

Fitness For The Busy People!

Are you a traveler who is always rushing from here to there? Are you feeling mentally-drained, experiencing insomnia, or overeating at fast foods at the airport? Do you find it difficult to overcome the discomfort and tiredness of traveling?

This book was written as a survival guide for all the fellow travelers who want to claim control over their busy lives by a salesman who clocks over 200,000 air miles a year. In this useful book you will learn:

1) 10 amazing ways to find exercise where there is none.
2) How to lose fat and have fun at the same time by being more active on the road.
3) How to exercise without having to go to a gym.
4) The secrets of a super-fit salesman
5) Fitness at 40,000 feet
6) How to run two miles in a hotel room
7) De-stressing techniques which you can use anywhere and anytime.

Buy now at a introductory price of just $25USD! We can’t promise that the price will stay there forever!

Fitness After 5 P.M

Work is supposed to be over when you get home time to relax and be with the family, to stretch out and catch up on the day, to unwind, not switch directly from your work clothes into a sweat suit.

True. But remember: lf you’ve already been nibbling away at your DER (Daily Exercise Requirements) in some of the ways recommended in this book, you won’t need that sweat suit. If you’ve already managed to squeeze in two 10-minute cardiovascular workouts, in fact — one in the morning and one at lunch — you can consider anything else you do for the day to be icing on the cake.

Take the case of Paul. He gets a short walk in the morning and another one at noon; thus, his precious evening hours are open for any number of highly pleasurable activities involving his family or requiring his services around the house or yard.

“Some nights I’ll take a walk with the kids to the park and get some strength exercise messing around with them on the jungle gym,” he says. “Other nights I’ll do something physical in the way of yard work, such as clipping hedges, working in the garden, cutting some grass, that kind of thing. Or if the weather’s bad, I have a set of weights I’ll push around for a while in the basement, I’ve gotten myself in the habit of always doing at least something, even if it’s just helping my wife with some of the housework. She also works, so she really appreciates any help she can get.”

Atta boy, Paul! Your fitness program certainly gets high marks.
“But best of all is the difference it’s all made,” Paul hastens to add. “What I’m doing hardly feels like any sort of structured program, yet I’ve lost close to 20 pounds in the past year, and I seem to have so much more energy.”

Aha! Therein lies the secret of fitness when approached in the easy-does-it style I’ve been recommending since the opening pages of this book. When pursued at a pace the body finds comfortable, fitness begins fitness. The more active you are, the more active you will feel like being and your fitness level will spiral upward in an exponential fashion.

“I used to get home from work and head straight for the TV because I felt too pooped to do much else,” Paul confesses. “But now I get home champing at the bit to get into one of the projects I’ve got going.”

Handy and healthy. That’s Paul. You don’t have to be a Bob Vila to burn calories pleasantly and productively in your leisure hours, though. Consider joan, a 36 year-old working mother of two, who also gets her evening exercise in fun and meaningful ways but wouldn’t know a dovetail joint if it flew in her face.

“Two nights a week in the summer,” says joan, “I’m the manager of a softball team, which one of my daughters plays on, and I make sure to get plenty of exercise during our warm»ups for the games. We also practice on Saturdays, so I get another workout there. We all do stretching exercises together, and some running. It adds up to a pretty good workout.”

With the turning of the leaves, Joan turns to coaching soccer, in which both her daughters participate. “I certainly get my cardiovascular workouts there,” she says. “And not just during practices. Even during the games, I find myself running up and down the field to follow the play.”

In the winter, Joan’s fitness turns to coaching basketball. “I just love working with kids,” she says. “They have such energy, and it’s contagious. I find myself doing all this strenuous exercise, but it doesn’t feel like exercise. I guess it’s because I get so involved.”

Tips for Lunchtime Fitness

You can get more out of your lunch break than food. With imagination and resourcefulness, it can be the key to fitting in fitness.

1) If your company has a fitness room, for heavens sake, use it. Many corporate fitness facilities today rival even the finest health clubs, so you’d be silly not to cash in. For a cardiovascular workout, use either a stationary bike, stair—climbing machine, treadmill, rower, or cross-country skier. For a strength-building workout, use free weights (barbells and dumbbells) or one of those bizarre—looking weight machines (studies are equivocal about which of these two approaches is better, so let your preference be your guide). Ask the instructor at your facility for assistance in putting together a workout suited to your cardiovascular or strength-building needs and put together a workout on your own.

2) Explore the great outdoors. This may not be feasible in certain urban environments, but if your place of work is in a reasonably safe and natural setting, kick off your heels or wing tips, lace up your walking shoes, and get strolling. An advantage of walking for your lunch time exercise, as opposed to doing something more strenuous such as jogging or getting a tough cardiovascular workout at the fitness center, is that you can do it after you eat, thus boosting the number of calories you burn. You also spare yourself the time and trouble of having to shower.

3) Explore the great indoors. If weather conditions are unfavorable, or you simply don’t like the locale of your place of work, stroll the corridors (if your complex is large enough) or head for the nearest mall.
Maybe even do some quick grocery shopping while afoot on your midday spree. You’ll be increasing the calories you burn by carrying those bags, and you’ll save yourself from having to do it at night.

To Eat Before Or After Exercise?

lt’s an often asked and very good question: When’s the best time to eat in relation to noon time exercise?

Answer: That depends on the intensity of the exercise, and why it’s being done. If your primary goal is to burn calories for the purpose of weight control, research shows it’s best to eat before you exercise, so long as you’re not going to be exercising too hard. By eating before you exercise, you increase what’s known as the thermal effect of food. That means calories are more readily available for immediate use as fuel when consumed shortly before exercise. Food should be eaten within 30 minutes before exercise begins for this increased calorie-burn to occur, studies show, and the increase can be substantial — as much as 30 percent, in fact.

But if your reasons for exercising are more performance oriented - perhaps you’d like nothing more than to whip a colleague or two in the next corporate SK — you’d do better to eat after your lunch-hour workout. The greater intensity with which you’ll be exercising could cause digestive discomfort if you eat beforehand.