How Often Must I Work Out ?

The question most  people often asked is, how often must I work out? The question  should be rephrased to “How often do I get to work out?” Or “How often will I want to work out once am addicted to it?” These are some of the questions my clients ask me when they come to the gym .

You can actually work out as often as your schedule allows! As far as training results, you need to  exercise five or six days a week. The minimum will be three days a week, but that won’t contribute to much weight loss.

How long do I need to work out at each session to lose weight?

Aim for 45 minutes of exercise six days a week, with one day off for rest and muscle renewal. Most of each session should be spent on your target heart rate. You can do the calculation to figure how much weight you will lose. If you burn 500 extra calories a day, it will take seven days to lose about half a kilogramme. If you want faster weight loss, exercise more (both in the morning and evening). Or deduct 500 calories from each day’s menus. That will give you the recommended 1kg a week loss of fat. Anything more is water weight.

What should I do for more challenge?

If you have been exercising  for a while, you may want to increase your fitness level. You can add interval training to your exercise session by interspersing short, intense burst of activity with the slower, sustained movement. Start with short intervals of intense exercise 15 to 30  seconds and build up from there. I do interval training, I walk, then jog. Sometimes, I climb the stairs, then skip.

You can add fun to your workout by inviting a friend to join you. That will sure serve as a motivation for you. But remember you need to begin your exercise session with a warm up. After warm-ups, then jog or run to a designated stop. But don’t stop there. Continue your reduced pace, then jog or run again. The winner is rewarded with a few extra calories burned! Enjoy stimulating conversation while you cool down.

To achieve overall fitness, three components are important:  strength and toning, aerobic endurance and flexibility .

By understanding the role each component plays, you can design your own active lifestyle and become a calorie burning machine. Whether you choose to join a gym, get a personal  trainer, or just engage in fun activities on a regular basis, you will have to be able to fine-tune your fitness to meet your personal goals.

Strength and Toning

Muscles are your body engine. They are metabolically active, and they not only burn calories during physical activities but also when your body is at rest. Increasing your muscle mass will increase your body capacity to burn calories. 1/2 kg of fat only burns about three calories per day. But 1/2 kg of muscle burns up to 50 calories! If you gain 1kg of muscle over the next year and nothing else changes you could lose about 5kg of body fat.

It’s been proved that diets, which significantly restrict your calorie intake, can cause the loss of lean muscle mass. Strength training helps maintain your lean muscle mass while you lose fat and it is excellent for toning and shaping the body and prevent injuries. It also helps in the following conditions: osteoporosis, arthritis, obesity, ageing, hypertension and high cholesterol .

To build strength, a muscle must be overloaded or worked beyond it’s normal level. This overloading challenges your muscles on a regular basis and stimulate them to build stronger muscles.

       Aerobic Endurance

Fat burns best during aerobic activity. The word aerobic means to use oxygen. Large muscle sustained activities are considered aerobic because we can sustain them for long periods of time with out running out of oxygen. When the activity is isolated to a single muscle group, as in weight lifting, or when we exercise so hard we become winded, this is considered anaerobic, or without oxygen.

Aerobic endurance is a measure of how fit your heart and lungs are. Aerobic exercise causes you to breath more rapidly and your heart to pump more quickly. With regularity, your body will respond with lower body fat, heart rate, cholesterol level and blood pressure. Another positive benefit is increased energy and endurance.