Let’s say you want to get healthier. Truth be told, you want to get hotter. You want your body to STAND OUT. Where do you begin?
There are a few key components to a good fitness hot body regime. Good, solid, standards for a program look like this:
Nutrition
If you are interested in weight loss, what you need to strive for is burning more calories than you take in. That is the plain and simple of it. If you are striving to maintain your current weight then calories in & calories out should equal. It’s math. It’s science. It’s not terribly sexy, but it’s very logical.
To start with, you need to look a the intake piece of the equation. Food. What you put in your body. There are reams and reams that can & have been written about how to feed your new, hot body right, but the basic “clean eating” principals are a great place to start. These include, among other things:
- always eat breakfast
- Avoid processed foods and refined sugar
- Practice portion control
- Avoid soda and other sugary juices and drinks
- Drink at least 8 cups of water a day
If you can’t jump in full force to a strict diet routine, you can start with cutting the major garbage out of your diet–chips, sodas, pastries, candies, fried foods– while adding plenty of water to your daily fluid intake. Water, among other things: cleanses your system, sharpens your senses, and helps curb appetite. Drink a lot of it!
Exercise
Strength training–This is the key to a great fitness program for men and women alike, though many women are still under the impression that it is not critical & that cardio is what they need to focus on. Truth is strength training should be the main focus of your fitness routine. Too much cardio with will allow you to lose weight, but will not provide the definition of a nice physique. More importantly, it will do nothing to help change your metabolism.
Super-charging your metabolism so that you are a calorie-burning machine all day, every day, is what’s going to help you make efficient changes to your body. To do this, you need to build lean muscle. The muscle feeds on your calories in order to grow and regenerate. Start small, with good form & work each of your major muscle groups at least once a week.
“pyramid” technique–A strength training key is the “pyramid” technique. You will basically use lighter weights and a higher number of repetitions for your first set of an exercise & then work your way up to higher weights, for a lower number of repetitions. The principle is to warm up your muscles and then stress them beyond what they are accustomed to. They will weaken during the workout due to the unexpected stress & then rebuild during your rest between workouts. Doing this will allow you to make continual strength gains and will help you change your body composition rapidly.
Rest before working the same muscle group again. Muscles grow when they are at rest, after being stressed, they respond by rebuilding themselves even stronger. Rest your muscles between workouts. Don’t work the same muscle group again until they’ve stopped being sore from the previous workout, generally about three days.
Cardio–There is a roll for cardio in a good workout routine, but it’s a smaller roll than many people may assume, or may have previously learned. Cardio improves your circulation and reduces risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, among other things. Cardio will also burn calories slightly more efficiently during work out itself than strength training, though strength training continues to burn calories after the workout & helps to make metabolic changes that allow you to more efficiently burn calories overall.
Interval training—The key to great cardio is get the most bang for your buck, or the most “hotness” for your effort. You can get a lot out of 20-30 minutes of cardio 3 days a week, if you use interval training, which simply means you alternate between lighter intensity and bursts of heavier intensity within the course of your cardio workout. Here is a good basic introduction to interval training, if you are ready to find out more.
Flexibility–For overall health and well-being, stretching and breathing is also an important component of your fitness program. Try to do at least 10 or 15 minutes a day, preferably after you work out, while muscles are still warm.
Rest
Night-time rest is also critical to your weight loss program & your general well-being. Make sure you are getting a good night’s sleep. Studies show you have higher chance of becoming obese if you are getting less than 7 hours of sleep a night, even if you eat less than someone who does get a full night’s sleep. Make getting your zzz’s a part of your overall fitness and weight loss program.
There are endless customizations and variations to these general concepts, but these are really the basic, critical elements to a program for getting fit, getting healthy, and getting hot.
First Steps
First, remember any positive change is progress. So, get moving starting now, any way you can; make some positive modifications to your diet, any way you can. Then, quickly work on getting yourself a real fitness plan, which is how you will ultimately get efficient, effective results.
If you don’t want to do a lot of research and are looking for a solid basic program to get going with a new, fitter lifestyle, a good place to start is Body for Life by Bill Philips. A lot of the folks who have a BodySpace page at BodyBuilding.com, began with a B4L program & then progressed from there. I recommend this book as a starting place for someone who wants a whole program laid out for them, but not as the BE ALL and END ALL of how to exercise.
For motivation, check out the transformations in the Body For Life book or in the “Transformation of the Week” section of Bodybuilding.com. It will help you visualize what your new, hot body is going to look like!
Are you ready to get started? Are you already progressing with a program? Share your comments below!
