Apart from this group, however, there are even more of those who tried running but kept it up for only a couple of days before they quit. They never got to enjoy the benefits of regular running. There are many reasons for quitting: because of injuries, because they lost breath after just a couple of minutes and did not see absolutely any progress or simply because they ‘didn’t like running that much after all’.

Sadly, many of these people probably would have loved running, could lose weight and get really fit if they only knew how to properly start it.

Today I’m giving you the ultimate formula for a successful start of running. From now on, you’ll be able to feel what success tastes like. Today I give you…

A surefire programme to start running and love it

There is a simple and easy plan which will lead you to a level of fitness, which will allow you to run for a consecutive time of 30minutes. This is enough to fell the difference and enough to start losing weight. From there, you’ll be able to take your running to any level you want.

The programme takes 30 minutes to complete. It is easy to follow and execute. It is designed so that your body will be able to keep up with its increasing difficulty and you will see your fitness grow without the usually expected pains of running.

You should begin the programme with very short periods of running alternated with periods of walking. As time goes by, you will shorten the periods of walking and extend the running time. The exact programme looks as follows:

1. week one – run for 2 minutes, then walk for 4 minutes (repeat 5 times)
2. week two – run for 3 minutes, then walk for 3 minutes (repeat 5 times)
3. week three – run for 5 minutes, then walk for 2.5 minutes (repeat 4 times)
4. week four – run for 7 minutes, then walk for 3 minutes (repeat 3 times)
5. week five – run for 8 minutes, then walk for 2 minutes (repeat 3 times)
6. week six – run for 9 minutes, then walk for 2 minutes (repeat 3 times)
7. week seven – run for 9 minutes, then walk for 1 minutes (repeat 3 times)
8. week eight – run for 13 minutes, then walk for 2 minutes (repeat 2 times)
9. week nine – run for 14 minutes, then walk for 1 minutes (repeat 2 times)
10. week ten – run for 30 minutes !!!!

Each week you run more and walk less until on the 10th week you actually run for consecutive 30 minutes.

The programme is simple and an average person can follow it easily and work his or her way to health, fitness and well being.

Additional rules to make it even easier

Don’t run every day

This is the most common mistake among new runners – excited about their new healthy way, they try to jog every morning. The body of a new runner, however, is not ready to take such amounts of exercise. Your muscles and joints need time to regenerate after each run. Your whole body needs time to rest. If you don’t give it time to do that, you’ll feel more and more burned out and eventually your fitness level will nose dive instead of improving, or worse – you’ll end up with an injury.

For starters, the best approach is to run every second day, or even 3 times a week what allows one break of 2 consecutive days each week. I do the latter – it works for me and I don’t think I’ll be ever running more often.

If you get through the programme and want more… start increasing the time of the run. Run for 40 minutes, 50 minutes or even an hour. Once you get to an hour, you’ll be a really fit person and will probably have burned all the fat you had.

Only when you become accustomed to running long distances, if you still want to go further you may decide to run every day. I would suggest again to take it easy and on the days that used to be resting days run only for 30 minutes in the beginning and then increase the length of run over time.

Don’t exert yourself

Weight loss is most effective if you do not exert yourself to the limits. Especially in the beginning, you should run slowly. The only thing that matters is the time of run. Distance are absolutely irrelevant. Going fast is not neccessary.

Optimal intensity of cardio exercises is obtained in the moment when your heart rate is increased, breath is deep and quickened, but you are still able to talk. To describe it in a different way – as long as you’re able to inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth and do not feel deprived of oxygen, you’re doing a good weight loss exercise. It is then that your body burns fat most effectively, because blood is able to provide sufficient amount of oxygen to the muscles.

Also if you run slower, you will not experience muscle pains and you will not get that tired. You will actually enjoy these 30 minutes.

If the programme is too hard..

If it turns out, that you cannot run even for 2 minutes, start with 1. If one is too much, start with 30 seconds or simply a fast march. As long as this is still an aerobic exercise for you – it serves its purpose. The programme is a guideline only. You can start from walking and slowly increase the pace. Sooner or later you’ll get to the point, where you’ll be able to follow the programme.

If the programme turns out too fast, take it slower. You can do each of the above sessions for two, three or four weeks before you decrease the walking time. There’s no rush – running is a life-long adventure.

Shoes

That is the only expense I encourage you to do. Running puts additional strain to your knees and ankles. Especially in the beginning, when you’re not yet used to it and when you’re fat and heavy, your joints and muscles are subject to increased pressures.

Get good sports shoes designed for running – they will save you a lot of pain.

Have fun

Running is fun. It really can be fun. If you follow the steps above, you will start to enjoy it within a couple of weeks. You will notice the improvements in your body very quickly as well. You will be more agile and will have more energy. You will not feel tired or burned out as many beginners do when they start.

If you stick to the programme above – you will really have fun watching how your fitness level increases. There is nothing that stops you now from reaching for health, fitness and a nice thin body. Go out there and enjoy it!

A surefire method to start running and love it is all yours!

This was another one from Matt for your fitness and success,

Matt

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A surefire method to start running and love it

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Aerobic exercises

Aerobic exercises take their name from the fact that when we do them, our muscles produce energy in chemical processes which involve oxygen. Aerobic means ‘with oxygen’. Aerobic exercises can be characterised as exercises performed at moderate level of effort, which can be continued for extended periods of time (20-60 minutes) and involving large groups of muscles.

During these exercises, our heart is able to pump to muscles enough blood carrying sufficient amount of oxygen to produce enough energy to keep the muscles going. While aerobic exercising, after the initial period in which muscles use glycogen as their energy source, they start to burn fat.

So the thing to remember: Aerobic exercises burn fat!

I wrote more about how long these exercises should last in a post: running for weight loss. Basically, they should not be shorter that 30 minutes. Only then your organism will have a chance to burn some fat.

How do I know if my exercises are aerobic?

The easiest method to make sure that you’re performing aerobic exercise is through control of breath and heart rate. If these are both increased, but far from maximum, we’re performing aerobic workout. As soon as the heart rate starts to increase further and we begin to lose breath, we’re moving into anaerobic exercises (described below).

The best type of an aerobic exercise is the one which you can do continuously for around 30-40 minutes with increased heart rate and quickened breath, so that if you wanted to say a few sentences, you could, but at a longer speech you’d lose your breath. This level of effort ensures that we train in the peak of our aerobic abilities – oxygen flows smoothly and its amount is sufficient. But if we start talking, what interferes with breathing, our organism has to quickly switch to anaerobic exercises due to insufficient oxygen.

The above description shows why activities like sweeping, dish washing and many other around the house, do not really help to burn fat. They are better than nothing, but definitely not enough. Also choosing the stairs instead of an elevator, even though it’s good for the heart, will not make you slimmer – unless it’s the 100th floor that you want to get to

Real fat loss requires us to get up and really do cardio. I am doing it for two weeks and so far so good – I’ve lost 5 pounds

Anaerobic exercises

Anaerobic means ‘without oxygen’. Anaerobic exercises are all those during which our muscles replenish energy in processes which do not involve oxygen. These are all sorts of strength exercises aimed at development and growth of muscles. Primarily they include those exercises which involve extensive training of small groups of muscles. These will be belly crunches, push ups, lifting weights etc. During these exercises, energetic requirements of the muscles trained are huge. Blood is not able to provide sufficient amount of oxygen to enable burning fat. The body reverts to the second option, which is burning without the use of oxygen.

Fat can only be burned with involvement of oxygen, therefore during anaerobic exercises the main source of energy for the body are carbohydrates. The fat remains intact.

So does that mean that we should stop anaerobic exercises? – NO!

Anaerobic exercises help you burn fat too!

Anaerobic exercise also help you bur excess fat. Here are the reasons:

1. When you’re on a diet, your organism burns your muscles. As soon as you decrease your calorie intake below your daily need, your organism will start to look for sources to fill in the gap. It will revert to fat, but it will start burning your muscles as well. Even around 45% of weight lost can be attributed to reduction in muscles. Anaerobic exercises stimulate growth of muscles what prevents them from being burned for energy.
2. Muscles burn calories even when you sleep. Muscle tissues are one of those which need a lot of energy just to maintain existence. One pound of muscles needs around 30-50 calories every day, whereas 1 pound of fat uses only 1-3 calories. So, the bigger the muscles, the more energy your body uses just to maintain itself. Muscles help you get thinner. They will also help you remain thin when you finish the diet and will allow you to eat a little bit more.
   I know gents will like the idea – nice bicepses and abs are what each of us wants. Women are often more reluctant to build up muscles. I wouldn’t worry though – to grow big muscles women must really exercise extensively. Anaerobic exercises will probably give positive effects in form of hard bellies, straight posture, firm thighs… mhhmmmm I’m starting to dream here…..
3. Anaerobic exercises induce production of hormones. This happens also during aerobic exercises, but especially if we do strength training. After such training our bodies produce increased amounts of the growth hormone. This is very helpful for weight loss, because it suppresses productio nof insulin and induces production of glycogen, which stimulates burning of fat.

It is good to plan anaerobic exercises so that each of the major groups of muscles is exercised at least once or twice a week.

To sum up

If you want to lose weight, you should primarily focus on aerobic (cardio) exercises, but do not forget about the anaerobic ones. Both types help you lose fat and in combination they can make dreams come true.

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Why do you need 2 types of exercises to lose weight

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• Running is simple – you don’t need too many skills to run.
• You can run anywhere – this is particularly important. I can run whether I am home, on vacation or when I travel for work purposes.
• Running is cheap – There is almost no cheapest sport on earth. All you really need are good shoes. Any other equipment is just a luxury. Apart from the shoes, you don’t need to pay for anything to anybody.
• Running is natural – there are no awkward moves as on some of the training equipment available in gyms.
• Running is a cardio exercise - cardio exercises are best when it comes to fat loss.

How long should I run?

In order to answer that question, we have to look deeper into how energy is used during running.

Our organisms store energy in two ways:

• As fat – that is the energy we want to use. We want to burn that fat. Fat, however, is a long-term storage of energy. Our bodies keep energy in form of fat as a resource for long and significant energy deficits.
• As glycogen – this is the short-term energy storage of our bodies. Glycogen is a polysaccharide (type of sugar), which is stored mainly in muscles and liver and is the first to be burned by our bodies.

So when we run, glycogen is the first to be burned. Usually it lasts for around 20 minutes. Only after that time our bodies start to really burn fat. It is estimated that during the first 20 minutes only 20% of energy comes from fat and 80% from glycogen. After about 15-20 minutes, the proportions start to change in favour of fat. It is only then that the real fat loss takes place.

In order to lose fat, one should therefore run, or do other cardio exercises, for a consecutive time which is longer than 20 minutes – that is where the golden rule of exercising for at least 30 minutes per day comes from.

You can cheat this mechanism

Yes, yes – you can cheat this mechanism and it’s really simple. The only thing you have to do is go running in the morning, before breakfast. Your body uses glycogen as its energy resource throughout the night and in the morning its stores are significantly depleted. If you run in the morning, you start burning fat almost from the very first minute

There you are – I just gave you a quick hack to get rid of fat loss

My running update

I won’t be running in the morning as that would require getting up much too early, therefore to burn fat I decided to run for 40 minutes 2-3 times a week. This gives me 20 minutes of fat loss. So far I’m not able to run for consecutive period of 40 minutes so my ‘running’ looks as follows:

• 5min of march – quick worm up march,
• 10min of a trot,
• 5min of a march,
• 5min of a trot,
• 5 min of a march,
• 3 min of a trot,
• 7 min of march – quick in the beginning but slowly decreasing – this takes the pressure off the heart which has to pump excess blood out of my legs (this blood delivers extra oxygen to muscles during the run).

That’s my drill so far – 20 minutes of slow running and 20 minutes of walking. Not too impressive so far, however, I can average around 3 miles in that time, which I think is not bad for a start. My goal, however, is to be able to run for 40 consecutive minutes without pause. To achieve that, I’ll be reducing periods of walking and increasing periods of running within the 40 minutes.

That’s it from me for today.

So tell me now – what exercises do you do to lose weight? Do you do any at all?

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Running for weight loss

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When we go on a diet and reduce calorie intakes below our daily calorie needs, our organisms adjust the metabolism to match usage of energy to the amount of energy received. This way they hope to get us through to the times when there will be access to more food.

A bit of history

This pattern has been working effectively for ages. In prehistoric times, during summer, tribesman were hunting and gathering food. They had plenty to eat and their caloric intakes were optimal. But when the winter came food was scarce and hunting more difficult. Maintaining the same caloric intake was impossible. People ate less and their bodies went into a metabolic slow mode. At these times whole tribes reduced their activity – stayed more in the village by the fire, told stories,  slept much more… They didn’t even feel the need to go anywhere – they didn’t have the energy. This lasted until spring, with which came the first edible plants and more game came out to feast on the first green grass. Calories were within reach and metabolisms jump started again. Life begun again: hunting, rebuilding camps, dancing, competitions and all other energy consuming activities took part during summer.

Present times

We unfortunately are not that far in development when it comes to our bodies. When we go on a diet, our organisms don’t know, that we aim to lose fat. They think it’s something like the winter time of the ancient tribesmen, that these are tough times which they have to get us through. They react by reducing the rate of metabolism.

Will we be losing weight? Probably yes. Caloric intake at 70% of DCN is so low that we should be losing weight even despite slowing metabolisms. This, however, will be a painful and slow process. Sometimes we might just be able to lose a couple of pounds after which the arrow on our scale will stop.

Also, what is even more important, loss of weight will come in great part as a loss of muscle. Our bodies are very quick to use our muscles as a source of energy. They can burn them almost equally as fast as the fat.

I can feel the slow down myself

I am now in my 5th day of a diet and I already feel effects of reduction in the rate of my metabolism. First of all, I feel cold much more easily. Usually I would be one of those people who are never cold – now I do notice every chilly breeze, and today for the first time I put my socks on at home (Before that, I always walked bare feet).

Other symptoms may include tiredness, easy irritation, more difficulty in focusing on complex tasks. They may not be  severe, but they are noticeable.

Solution – Exercise to boost metabolism

To overcome the problem of slowing metabolism, diets should be accompanied with exercise. Exercising prevents our organisms from burning muscles and boosts metabolism, which then uses our excess fat as the energy source.

That is why in my weight loss plan I included exercising from day one. My organism will try to slow down, but I will not let this happen. I exercise regularly now. I can feel the surge of positive feeling and energy almost after each session. I am tired, but somehow, I feel more energetic – more alive

Exercising has also other positive effects. It relieves the stress that may build up when one is on a diet. If you have a day of particularly strong cravings, exercising can reduce them significantly. It can help you fight off the feeling that you want to throw it all away and simply have a doughnut or a cake.

To sum up: If you want to lose weight – do not wait – put your trainers on and go out for a trot!

So tell me – do you exercise on your diet? If not – how successful are you?

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Exercising is essential in weight loss

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