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If you want to live a healthy lifestyle, exercising regularly is important. Here’s some of the various ways exercise will improve your life:
- Control your weight.
- Improve your mood.
- Fight high cholesterol and heart disease.
- Increase your energy.
- Help you sleep better at night.
If you have a busy schedule, you might resist the idea of an exercise routine. However, the thought that exercise can’t be fit into any schedule is a myth. Here’s how you can create an exercise routine that will help you lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle:
Every Minute Counts
Every minute of exercise counts. You might not realize how quickly it adds up. Harvard completed a study to find how many calories 30 minutes of exercise burns. Here’s what they found:
- Walking briskly: 266
- Cycling: 311
- Playing basketball: 355
- Low impact aerobics: 244
- Swimming: 266
- Gardening: 200
These figures assume you’re 185 pounds, and exercising at a moderate pace. The calories you burn will vary based on your actual pace and weight.
Remember that a pound is only 3,500 calories. Even if you only jog 15 minutes each day, that’s over a pound each month!
Making It Work For You
It doesn’t matter if you exercise right when you wake up, right before you go to bed, or any time in-between. Your body burns the same amount of calories either way!
If you’re a morning person, you can wake up half an hour early every morning. If you’re a night owl, you can set aside some time before you go to bed.
Even if you only have 5 minutes here or there, you can set aside small chunks. The exercise will add up all the same.
Changing It Up
Doing the same thing over and over again gets boring. In fact, research from the University of Florida suggests variety is the most important factor in sticking to an exercise routine. If you don’t spice it up a bit, you’ll drop it quickly.
Another way you can make sure you stick to your routine is by not pushing yourself too hard. If you take it slow and steady, you’ll gradually build up resistance and stamina. If you try to do too much in the beginning, you’ll tire and injure yourself easily. This will likely lead to a dropped routine.
Do you have any tips on creating an exercise schedule? Leave your comment below!
