Introduction to Fitness - Part 1
First, we’re going to start off by saying that this isn’t the all encompassing guide to get in shape. There is a substantial amount of information for anyone taking part in a fitness plan. What the next few pages of information contains is a high-level overview of what you need to give you an understanding, or an introduction to fitness, in how to put your own plan together that best fits your situation. This set of articles will give you an exercise 101 and nutrition 101 to get you on your way.
There’s a lot to know and a lot of information out there. Reading magazines and their cookie cutter programs make it difficult to be successful because they don’t know your fitness level, your weight, your goals, your favourite foods, etc. What we hope to accomplish with this article is to provide you with information and the tools to set up your own plan and reach your goals.
In this article, we will assume that you are looking to tone your body and lose some fat. If this is not the case and you’re looking to strictly gain muscle mass, you can gain some tips on adding muscle here.
Proven Approach
There’s the Miami Diet, the Atkins Kiet, the Grapefruit Diet, purges, cleanses, Ab Rollers, fasts, and hundreds of other programs that are guaranteed to prevent you from realizing long term success in having the figure or fitness level that’s alluded so many women.
There are three proven key ideas of focus for someone on a fitness plan. They include:
• Nutrition
• Exercise
• Rest
We’ll talk about each of these in the following series individually, but what’s important to note is that applying these three ideas is not just a temporary thing. This introduction to fitness is about changing your life to make these three elements a part of your daily life.
We don’t use the word ‘diet’ because diet implies something that is temporary. We talk about eating habits and nutrition because to realize long term, effective success, you need to learn how to change the way you eat, including what, when and how often. Sound eating habits will have a far greater impact on your results than anything else.
Also, forget about what you think you know about women and lifting weights. To put it simply, you’re going to need to lift weights and lift them like a man. Worried that you’re going to look buff, big and manly? Forget it. It takes illegal substances or very unique genetics for women to look like that. Trust in the fact that lifting weights will reduce your fat and nicely tune your body. But we’ll get to exercise 101 later. Still not convinced? Read this article here.
Finally, rest is key in allowing your body to respond to the hard workouts you’ll put yourself through. Well intentioned daily intense workouts can eventually cause you to overtrain and will even prevent results. But we’ll cover that later, too.
Metabolism
This will be your focus. To effectively lose fat, you need to speed up your metabolism. Think of metabolism as simply the speed in which you burn calories. Your metabolism burns calories whether you’re exercising, watching tv, playing pool or sitting at your desk. A fast metabolism ensures you burn through calories no matter what your activity. Basically, we spend the majority of our lives being less active, such as sleeping, driving, eating, etc. We want to make sure that we burn as many calories as possible during these down times. This is how you’ll maintain a nicely toned body.
The way to speed up your metabolism is to follow the recommendations made regarding the three key areas of focus, which we’ll cover in part two of this article.
Nutrition 101
It’s no secret that to lose, maintain or gain weight, you need to eat the right amount of calories per day. Does this mean you need to start counting calories? Well, for a while, yes! Particularly if you are just starting to eat in a clean and healthy way. To get beyond your introduction to fitness, you will want to get to the point where you have a good understanding how much food you should eat each day, and the best way to do this is to be diligent about what you eat by keeping a food diary that includes what you eat, when and what your total calories will be.
So how many calories should you eat? Figuring that out is actually easier than what you’d think. To lose fat or tone up, simply use the following formula:
Take your current weight and multiply it by 13
For example, if you’re 130 pounds, your daily caloric intake should be around 1700 calories. Now, it’s important to assess this number after you’ve been on a program for a number of weeks and see if you need more calories (seeing results but reduced energy) or less calories (seeing no results).
So what do you eat? There are three primary macronutrients defined as being the classes of chemical compounds humans consume in the largest quantities and which provide bulk energy. These are proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.
Besides the obvious of controlling your caloric intake, it is almost nearly as important to control the macronutrients you consume each day. If you are trying to tone up and lose body fat, a common ‘nutrient ratio’ is often 40% of your calories coming from protein, 40% from carbs and 20% from fat.
So for example, in the example above, that would mean the 130lb female should consume about 165g of protein, 200g of carbs and 40g of fat.
And is there an easy way to keep track of all of this? Well we love FitDay. It’s free, it’s easy and it’s automated (after taking some time to set it up).
Go to FitDay and check it out.
The final two ideas to remember is to ensure you eat at least 5 meals a day - distributing your calories somewhat evenly - and to drink a lot of water throughout the day.
Think of it this way, going a long time without food, or energy, is going to force your body to look for that energy elsewhere to function. Your body is going to start taking energy from your muscles, known as a ‘catabolic state’, which is not a good thing as your muscle mass is the best thing you have to keep your metabolism fast. To prevent this from happening, be sure to get your calories in at least every 3 hours. This also validates the importance of breakfast, as you’ve gone at least 8 hours with no food, and the importance of a some calories before bed. Feeding your body on a regular basis keeps that metabolism fast and results in more calories burned. Water will also contribute to a fast metabolism.
With your nutrition in check, now it's time to move on to your workouts. We'll cover that and the importance of rest in part two of this article.