Tag lines and marketing slogans would like you to believe that “You can lose 10lbs doing this ONE thing,” or a weight loss book may claim that cutting calories is all you need to worry about, but the truth of the matter is that any good weight loss program needs to include 3 key components: 1) a nutrition plan, 2) cardiovascular exercise, and 3) strength training.
Why do I know this? As a former elite endurance athlete and a person who has been actively participating in athletics all of my life, I have plenty of experience exercising, experimenting with different nutritional programs, and trying out different strength training routines. I know what works and what doesn’t. My only problem is that I’ve never consistently incorporated all three of these components into a weight loss program. I’ll go on a “clean eating” kick for a week then follow it up with a weekend of burgers and pizza, or hit the gym religiously for 2 weeks and then avoid it like the plague for a month. This is my chance to finally change that.
To lose 20lbs., these are the three things I am going to CONSISTENTLY integrate into my life:
1) A Nutrition Plan. I’ll be using Weight Watcher’s Online program to track what and how much I eat. They have a convenient system that assigns food certain points values, and provides me a recommended target for how many “points” I should be consuming per day in order to reach my weight loss goals.
2) Cardiovascular Exercise. I’m going to aim for 6 cardio workouts (~30 min each) or 180 minutes total per week. Because it’s important to vary the exercise intensity level to burn the most calories, I’ll also be including intervals in some of my workouts. I used to row competitively and really like this 3-week online program from Concept 2.
3) Strength Training. This is my least favorite component, but I really want to not only lose fat, I want to look toned. So, I’ll be following a “Total Body Tone-Up” schedule which has a gym workout (12 exercises) 2x per week and one cardio/strength circuit routine that I can do at home on the weekend with 5lb. hand weights.
I’ll devote an individual blog to go into greater depth about each of these three components later this week, so stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment