Easier Exercise?

Is it possible to make the exercise component of a serious, balanced, weight loss program (such as “Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle”) easier than it otherwise might be?

Well for the exercise to be effective you still need to expend the effort required, but your perception of where this sits on your own physical comfort scale will depend on a number of factors.

Much of this will be associated with the physical side effects of taking exercise, such as breathlessness, perspiration, muscle discomfort etc but some will be more ‘cerebral’ (although still very pertinent) such as finding exercise routines tedious and repetitious (and eating up precious time in your already overcrowded daily schedule!).

To counteract this downside as far as possible, I have developed a few strategies that I have found, whilst not making the exercise actually enjoyable, at least make undertaking the required physical exertions a far less unpleasant experience.

Now it has to be said that (apparently) for a lucky few people taking strenuous exercise can actually become an enjoyable process in its own right. The theory goes that taking exercise at a certain level can cause your body to release endorphins, which are pleasure-inducing hormones, into your bloodstream, which actually gives you an exercise “high”.

However, I have never got this to work for me, but you might be one of the lucky ones. In which case –good on you! If not, my ‘exercise pain aversion’ strategies may be of some interest to you.

So-How to make exercise for weight loss seem less unpleasurable? Well I touch on some of this in my “How To Succeed with BFFM” guide (as just one of the aids to success) that you get when you go buy the program via my site (and join the Succeed with BFFM Club) but I would like to elaborate on that information here.

The BFFM program involves two different exercise elements –Cardio Training and Resistance Training and what I am about to say applies to some extent to both of these, but more particularly to the Cardio element. This is because it is probably the more time consuming and more life invasive of the two elements (particularly if you commit to it on a frequent and regular basis in the early days of your program, in order to burn the maximum amount of fat).

I believe that the way to tackle this issue is to break it down into three main areas in which you are trying to reduce the negative impact of the exercise program that you are now (most likely reluctantly) undertaking, and which I characterise as Physical, Mental and Lifestyle.

The other idea is to try to tailor the exercise to fit in with your life as seamlessly as possible, or at least without displacing too many other activities that you value. This also touches on the concept of leveraging your time in such a way that you can overlap your exercise time with another activity so that the ‘time cost’ of the exercise routine is diminished. I will expand more on this in discussing the “Mental” dimension to this issue in a minute or two.

Now the “Physical” dimension to this is really about choosing a form of Cardio Training (and also Resistance Training to some extent) that you find most appealing (or the least unappealing). I therefore think it is worth taking the time to research and experiment with the choices open to you regarding the type of exercise that you undertake and the kind of exercise equipment that you invest in.

In keeping with the idea of minimising the impact of your exercise on your daily life (and not increasing your time-poverty more than you have to) I believe that it makes sense to be able to do your Cardio exercise in the comfort and convenience of your own home, if at all possible.

This generally means buying a piece of exercise equipment that you will be able to accommodate physically in your home, that will be within your financial means and which will also satisfy your exercise needs and preferences. In fact there are a great many alternatives to consider here including treadmills, steppers, exercise bikes, rowing machines and cross trainers to name just the main types, and this is something that is largely a matter of personal preference.

Another aspect of this situation, which I have already touched on, is of course the overall time commitment involved in exercise. This must inevitably result in some sort of a trade off between the level of intensity of your work-outs and the overall time spent exercising.

If you seriously want to burn fat through Cardio exercise then the exercise routine needs to expend sufficient energy to create an appropriate calorie deficit. This can be achieved either by shorter bursts of intense exercise or longer spells of more moderate activity.

There has been an ongoing debate for some time in the fitness community regarding the difference between quantity and quality of exercise. For a long time the received wisdom was that longer periods of steady (aerobic) exercise were better for fat burning. This is because, of the total calories expended, a higher proportion of the calories were burned as fat than at higher intensities (known as anaerobic exercise).

Most fitness coaches these days advocate incorporating a combination of these exercise intensities into your workouts and that is now what I do. Therefore my formula for achieving the “best exercise experience” using this approach is as follows: I start with a short warm up phase of lower intensity activity (between 50%-60% MHR) and then move into a period of aerobic activity (65%-70% MHR).

During this time I utilise video and/or audio material both to avoid boredom and to give positive value to the time (as I said previously, I most often make use of learning material). I then move into an anaerobic phase of exercise (80%-85% MHR) when I switch to listening to rock music. Finally I reverse the process by moving back to aerobic exercise, where I go back to listening or watching my learning material again, and finally end with a brief cooling down period.

To be able to do this I do need to use two separate media devices of course but this is actually not that complex to arrange because the music element is just provided by using a small MP3 player with headphones whilst the other input can come simply from positioning your exercise equipment in such a way that you can utilise the TV or radio.

One of the benefits of this is that the relatively short period of intense (anaerobic) exercise in the routine stimulates the heart rate sufficiently that when you move into the second phase of aerobic activity it requires less physical effort to keep your heart rate in the aerobic zone. I found that the simplest way to monitor this to start with was by use of a chest belt heart monitor, but that after a while I found that I was sufficiently aware of my heart rate level in the different phases of exercise that I could dispense with this.

Now this may seem like a lot of hassle to go through just to do exercise but I have found that by taking just a little trouble to set up my home exercise facilities in this way has made a huge difference in making the exercise element of the BFFM program significantly more acceptable as an integral a part of my lifestyle. And, in actual fact, once you have got into the routine of it this is really no hassle at all!

Whilst I have talked here mainly about Cardio exercise, similar measures can be employed with Resistance Training. If exercising with weights at home it is possible to use the full range of “media distractions” available but even in the Gym that little MP3 player with headphones can provide suitable “entertainment” to accompany your workout activity and significantly reduce the tedium factor here as well.

The unlooked for bonus in embracing an exercise and fitness program as part of your weight loss plan is the significant heath benefits that come along with it. I have never felt fitter or healthier in my life, or had more energy. I am glad that I took the time and trouble to incorporate an exercise regime into my life and to “engineer” it to fit into my lifestyle with the minimum of grief.

If you are not “there” already I really commend you to this.