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Shed Fat With These 6 Active Tips

Discovering time to exercise is like trying to get more laughter in your life: It's usually easier said than done. To master the tricks, you need to be part escape artist and part strategist, but most of all an opportunist. The moments that you can grab for activities come suddenly and pass swiftly, and if you don t take advantage of them, every cell of your body pays a certain price. Here are some ideas to help plan your playtime.

Take the stairway. Whenever you have a choice, climb the stairs instead of getting on an escalator, a moving walkway or an elevator. You burn ten times more calories climbing the stairs than you do sitting still. If this means you need to allow yourself a few more minutes to get to your office or to make your way through an airport, so be it.

Forget close parking spots. Parking at the mall? Shopping at the supermarket? Instead of cruising the lot to find the closest space, go for those vast empty spots on the far side of the lot. It won't take you that much longer to get to the store (no, you won't miss the sale), and the long-distance walking boosts your metabolism and burns calories.

Lengthen the drop-off point. When you're taking a cab, allow some extra time and have the driver drop you off a few blocks from your destination. If you're taking a bus, get off a stop or two before you need to, then cover the distance with some fat-burning strides.

Make every minute count. When you're standing in line, for example, you can tighten and relax your gluteus muscles (that is, your rear end). When you're on the phone and someone has put you on hold, you have a good opportunity to do a few repetitions of abdominal breathing techniques.

Use commercial time wisely. TV commercials aren't for snack-fetching, they're for stretching. Get up, stretch, move around. If you're upstairs and there's a quick chore to be done downstairs, or vice versa, seize the commercial break as an opportunity to get it done. Or hang a jump rope near the TV and skip to the jingle. Even that small amount of activity will help you break out of the fat-making mold.

Schedule physical activities with friends. Make active dates with friends and do some physical activities together. If you're accustomed to meeting for lunch or drinks, figure out some other meeting arrangement and make sure it involves exercise. Maybe your lunch partner has been wanting to take up tennis again, and so have you. Maybe you can get some people interested in a pickup game of Frisbee, table tennis, basketball, soccer or volleyball. Even if your lunch hour is literally that, no more than an hour, you and a friend can plan on a short lunch together, followed by a long walk.

How To Keep The Weight Off For Good

You can lose weight without exercising. People do it all the time by simply eating less. But you cannot expect to keep the weight off if you don't work out. Studies show that among people who are successful at maintaining weight loss, more than 90 percent exercise. On the other hand, at least 90 percent of those who don't exercise gain back all of their weight, if not more, within a few years.

If your goal is permanent weight loss, the best strategy is to meet in the middle. For instance, over the course of a week, you might eat 250 calories less than usual each day by cutting back from two scoops of chocolate ice cream to one; meanwhile, you could burn an extra 250 calories a day by taking a one-hour walk or a half-hour jog.

Losing weight is not as easy as it sounds on TV diet commercials. It takes a lot more commitment than just eating that delicious shake for breakfast. And it takes time. Exercising 20 minutes three times a week certainly can improve your health, but it's not enough to make a significant dent in your weight-loss efforts. If you want to lose fat, build up to at least 45 minutes of aerobic exercise 5 days a week. Keep in mind that genetics play a large role in weight loss. It's easier for some people to lose weight than it is for others.

No matter how dedicated you become to exercise or calorie cutting, don't try to lose more than a half pound or a pound each week and don't eat fewer than 1,200 calories per day (preferably more). On a super-low-calorie diet, you deprive your body of the nutrients it needs, and you have a tougher time keeping the weight off.

"Maximize your workout and burn over 1,000 calories per hour!" That's a claim you're likely to see in advertisements for treadmills, stair-climbers, and cross-country ski machines. And it's true. You can burn 1,000 calories per hour doing those activities - if you crank up the machine to the highest level and if you happen to have bionic legs. If you're a beginner, you'll last about 30 seconds at that pace, at which point you will have burned 8.3 calories, and the paramedics will be scooping you off the floor and hauling your wilted body away on a stretcher. There's a better approach to calorie burning: Choose an activity that you can sustain for a good while, say, at least 10 or 15 minutes. Sure, running burns more calories than walking, but if running wipes you out after a half mile or bothers your knees, you're better off walking.