simplified fitness - part 1 - have a plan
This is part 1 out of a series of about ten parts (I haven't quite decided yet), bringing out the basics of what you can do and things that are good to know when you try to reach your goal.
But first you need a goal, make a plan and write it down. Answer the questions, why? what? how? when?
Figure out the reasons why you want to do this change. Is it to lose weight, lose fat, get stronger, build muscles, get definition, get fit etc
Get yourself measurable goals, like 10 cm off the waist or be able to run 1.5 km in 10 minutes. Set short term goals (weekly) and long term goals. Last time I had a run for it my goal was to match RFL G1 level of fitness required for all serving soldiers and officers in the New Zealand army in two months. Your long term goal should be hard to get to but not impossible.
Look over your lifestyle, to get quicker results you probably will have to look over both your diet (more about diets later) and exercise more including a bit of weightlifting (more about this later).
Try to find exercises you enjoy, there is no point running if you don’t like it…find a few different exercises that you like and alternate to keep yourself motivated. Don't start too hard out, start slowly and let your body adapt and then gradually increase the workouts and tighten up your diet.
When you start, be prepared that it might take a bit of time to see the results of your hard work, you might see results for a while and then it stops (more about plateaus later).
If your plan doesn’t work as expected, tweak your plan and give it some more time. Fitness is a bit of a science and you have to figure out what works for you and your body by trial and error. Fitness doesn’t happen over night so don’t give up, just keep on going and you'll get there!
Ok I have a plan, now what?
Before we move on there is one thing which very important for your motivation and over all success. And that is to measure your progress because otherwise, how will you know you've reached your goal or is going in the right direction? There is another thing to it as well. When you see something everyday you tend to get used to what you see and don't really see if something has changed. By measuring you will get to see that things are actually changing.
Start of by taking measurements and write them down and then along the way you take new measurements and you will see the progress of your diet and training.
I would say that once per week is good to track your progress and I don't see any point of doing it more often than that.
The results of your measurements can be very motivating in two ways. If the results are good, that's fine and if the results aren't as good as you thought you can look over your routine and try out different things to make the results go in the right direction.
There are several different ways to do this.
When measuring your weight and changes in your body frame try to stick to certain routines and try to keep the same conditions for each measuring. Me for example: I pick Monday mornings and I use the same kind or similar clothing every time.
Use a measuring tape
I reckon this is the best way to measure change of your body. Choose which parts you want to measure and then decide if you want to measure those parts while being relaxed or while putting tension to the part. It doesn't really matter which just remember to be consistent. I measure my chest, upper arms, waist, under belly button, buttocks, thighs and calves. You can of course do less or more.
Photograph yourself
Taking photos on a regular basis is a good way of visualizing the change. You can do your whole body or pick a body part you want to work extra on.
As you can see in this blog I took photos of my tummy, I could not see the change by looking at myself, but when seeing the first and last photo, I could definitely see the change.
Bioimpedance scale
This scale or ha hand held gadget which with a very low electrical current measures not only your weight (not hand held) but also calculates amount of fat, fat free mass and water. Don't rely on it too much as the result can vary depending on how much water you have in your body at the time you use it. It is completely painless.
Fat Caliper
This is probably the way you can get the most accurate body fat percentage read out in your own home. You take skinfold measurements from selected body parts and then based on the results from that you can calculate the body fat percentage.
This requires a bit of training to get right but when you do it is every accurate. I think this would probably only be useful for people who compete within bodybuilding and fitness. The rest of us doesn't need it and I would get one for myself i would do it only out of curiosity.
Regular scale
If I could I would ban this one. A regular scale does nothing good, instead it causes many people to be discourage and sometimes even depressed. The results from the scales varies too much, for example...I can step up on a scales now, get a value...then go to the toilet, step up on the scales again 5 minutes later be over 0.5kgs lighter! I think you get my point.
When it comes to stamina, it's about how long you can go for, how hard you can go for but also how fast you recover when you're done. You can check you pulse (manually or buy a heart rate monitor) before, during and after the exercise. After a couple of weeks of exercising you should notice that your resting pulse is lower than before and that you recover faster after the exercise. To check this, measure your pulse every 2 minutes three times directly after exercising and record the values.
