STOP! Don’t Join a Gym
If you are thinking of joining a gym, don’t.
I’m not joking.
January is the very worst time to join a gym – it will be crowded, full to bursting with new gym-goers, fresh from making their New Year’s resolutions and you won’t be able to move easily from machine to machine. You might love the atmosphere at the gym by March and might even enjoy going but the crowds in January will put you off like nothing else.
Also, if you think you truly want to join a gym, consider whether you have enough commitment to keep going after January is out. For most people it is a complete waste of money. 80% of the people who join a gym in January never go much beyond February (if they even last that long).
Though you think the pain of paying for something and not using it will make you go – it doesn’t seem to work for most people. The pain of going to the gym seems to be bigger than the pain of paying for it!
If you think you want to become a regular gym goer, think about what a commitment that is. How much time will it take you to get to the gym, get changed, work out and get showered and home again, three or more times a week? What will you NOT do to make time for that? And if you don’t think you will have to give anything up, then think again so that you can be ready for how much time will disappear rather than surprised!
If you still think you want to join a gym, prove to yourself that you are committed to fitness…
Keep up a non-gym exercise routine for two months and then reward yourself with gym membership. You can work out with weights at home (the weights will cost less than a gym membership) and you can run or walk for cardio training.
Better still take up an exercise you will love, something where they won’t be able to keep you away, like dancing or skating or rock climbing – whatever floats your boat.
Walking, Fitness, Weight Loss and Me
I feel that walking has had a bad press among exercisers. After all, it can’t be real exercise, can it…
- if you don’t have to get yourself to a gym
- if you don’t have to learn complicated moves with state of the art equipment
- if you don’t have to get showered immediately afterwards
- if you don’t even need to change your clothes before you begin ?
Yet regular walkers are some of the fittest and healthiest people around and they rarely suffer the injuries and set backs of runners, joggers and regular gym goers.
Usually at this time of year I am thinking about starting to run as training for an annual charity race – the Race for Life. Then as I get going I decide I hate running and never run again after the race until the same time next year.
This year I’ve decided to add a regular walk to my fitness routine instead and see how I like that as a “rest of my life” activity. It feels right as I will be following in the footsteps of my Dad who walked every day of his adult life until he died last year aged 86 – staying fit until the very end.
Walking is great for weight loss too of course. Though that’s not my primary motive in taking up this form of exercise, I have some clients who follow a weight loss walking program I put together and find this the very best way to lose weight and keep it off. It will do me no harm to join them – especially as I have eaten so much after Christmas….
Is Your Car Making You Fat?
It seems that the more time we spend in a car the fatter we become.
Over time we’ve simply got too used to driving a couple of blocks to run an errand when we could get there under our own steam.
And it’s funny, what do we do when we arrive? We drive around for 5 minutes trying to get a “decent” parking spot – the one that will mean we need the fewest steps possible to get to our destination.
We do all that – and then find we have to join a gym to keep fit and lose weight.
Now I know, some of the distances you travel are probably longer than a couple of blocks but I’m sure you get the picture. Could you do even a little more walking?
Research has shown that at least half the journeys made by car in urban areas are for 3 miles or less (and 41% are less than 2 miles).
It’s not that we can not walk – in fact going everywhere in a car is a modern phenomenon. It’s as if we can’t find our way anywhere under our own steam. It has become the default that we don’t even think to question.
Well why not question it from now on? Every time! Always ask yourself
- could I walk there (safely) or could I carry out the same errand on foot (say at my local store rather than an out of town mega huge faceless store)?
- could I park a little further away?
- could I enjoy my journey more by walking/cycling and getting in touch with what is going on in my local area?
- could walking/cycling mean that I can combine my keep fit routine with my chores today and save myself a bundle of time?
And remember if you are stuck driving in your car a lot you can still get some exercise – remember the 4 Easy Car Exercises post from a few weeks ago
Easy Workday Walking Workout
Sometimes in a busy day there just isn’t time to do a full workout or get to the gym.
But you CAN do something.
Just a few minutes here and there can make the difference between maintaining your fitness and losing it.
And in any case, you’ll feel so much better about yourself if you do the best you can and don’t give up your fitness efforts entirely on those busy days we all have.
Here’s all the you have to do
- At the start of the day, climb 5 sets of stairs – they can be 5 flights at work or mean going up and down stairs at home 5 times. (Alternative: step on and off one step for 5 – 10 minutes)
- At morning break, take a 10 minute walk (or do your stair routine again)
- After lunch, another 10 minutes (take a longer walk if you can then)
- After dinner, 10 or more minutes walk (or more stairs).
There – that means you’ve fitted in 30 – 40 minutes exercise without taking up much of your day at all and you’ll find the mini breaks from your work do you good too.
And if even that is too much then try my whole body fitness course Fitness in No Time which involves only 10 minutes exercise 3 times a week!
7 Tips for a Great Cardio Workout
1. Follow a Training Plan
If you have an effective and well thought out plan to follow (which matches your level of fitness) you are more likely to keep to it and less likely to injure yourself by doing too much too soon.
Don’t have a plan? Find one on the net like these great resources for example…
Cool Running Couch-to-5k training plan (This is the one I’m currently following – Week 6 day 2 just now)
Do it for Charity Cycling Training Guide
Alternatively borrow a book from the library or pay for a session with a personal trainer to help you formulate a workout schedule for the coming weeks.
2. Vary It
Cardio can get very boring if you do the same activities and use the same machines or follow the same routes every time – and besides, if you keep on doing the same old routine it does not challenge your body as well as it could.
Make the effort to switch around your activities, equipment and environment. Vary the intensity too – some long slower sessions, some interval training, some medium intensity, medium length sessions too.
3. Entertain Yourself
Add to your enjoyment by using music or tapes while you work out. Watch TV at the gym. A long session on the treadmill can go very quickly with your favorite show. Don’t forget to focus on what you’re doing too though.
4. Protect Yourself
Keep yourself safe and free from injury by wearing the right clothes and footwear and keeping to well-populated areas. If there’s a lot of traffic go easy on the music so you can hear as well as see vehicles approaching. Let someone know where you are going.
5. Eating
Wait a couple of hours after eating a full meal before working out. If you are too hungry to work out a light snack such as a banana can be enough to satisfy you before your session. Also you may find you get more out of an early morning work out if you have a light breakfast first.
If you want the full fat-burning effect of a cardio workout don’t eat straight after your session but wait an hour or so before having a meal.
6. Stay Hydrated
For a normal cardio session plain water is best. Before, during (depending on the length of your session) and after. Avoid sugar loaded sports drinks – you don’t need them. Good performance requires hydration not sugar.
7. Stretching
Don’t forget to do your stretches after your workout to avoid soreness. Doing a lot of cardio (and building muscle) can reduce flexibility – so stretching is essential. Also taking up something like yoga and practising on non-cardio days can be particularly beneficial in maintaining flexibility.
Bonus Tip : The main thing to have an effective cardio workout is just to “Do It” because chances are you will feel great whenever you do and not so great when you have avoided getting out there and getting it done for a week. Once you have a plan, log your workouts so that you can see you are making progress. A heart rate monitor too is a great tool for seeing how far you have come before you can even feel the difference.
No Time to Get Fit?
I read in the local newspaper yesterday that the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gets up at 4am to go to the gym.
No wonder she looks so good at 53.
It’s not that she is any different to anyone else. As she says
“Like everybody, I get up some mornings and think “I can’t do it” and then I think “Sure you can, because you won’t feel alert if you don’t”"
Although you might think being featured regularly in the media might give you the motivation to stay in shape, (and I’m sure that would work well for me – vanity prevails) the same can’t be said of some stars who get in and out of shape with alarming regularity. Don’t they care when a million people see their flab over breakfast? I sure would.
If you know getting up at 4am is not an option, yet you’re so busy it’s the only time you can see free in your schedule, why not take a look at my Fitness in No time program because 10 minutes, three times a week and a simple home routine is all you really need to get in shape.
Maybe Condoleezza should try it for those days when matters of State get in the way?
Fitness Motivation: Everything Changes
If there’s one thing you need to remember where fitness is concerned…
Nothing Stays the Same
If you are fit today, it means zilch if you do nothing but lie in bed for 4 weeks – you’ll be as unfit as a lifelong couch potato.
And if you are unfit today, you can make great strides in the same 4 weeks and change your fitness level beyond recognition.
The only thing is, if you don’t start a fitness routine you’ll never get there. And if you don’t keep up a fitness routine, you’ll never stay at the level of fitness you achieve.
And just to make things more complex, you can’t even stay the same by sticking to one workout routine every day or every week – you have to challenge yourself in new ways and push yourself to stay at your peak.
So what this boils down to is that
- you had better find a range of activities you enjoy doing – that make working out fun
- view any routine you start as getting fit for life, not just for the summer
- find activities you can do all year round or at least activities which you can do to cover all parts of the year
- if you don’t like working out, just the feeling it gives you, get hooked on that feeling so that you feel motivated to keep up whatever you start
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