Maximum Fitness, Minimum Time: 16 Tips

These 16 strategies will help you get the body you've always wanted:
1. In the beginning, your fitness plan should not be overly aggressive. One of the biggest problems most people encounter when starting a fitness program is rapidly depleted motivation after only a few weeks; this is due to an overly ambitious fitness plan.
Two days per week of 20-minute low-intensity cardiovascular exercise (walking, jogging, biking, swimming) and two days per week of 30-minute light resistance training (using weights or resistance machines) is adequate in the beginning. As you adapt to the lifestyle shift, you can add more days and get improved results. But beware: If you try to do too much too fast, you may end up quitting altogether.
2. If your goal is fat loss, then your cardiovascular exercise should be low intensity. Your heart rate during cardio exercise should not exceed 50 percent to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. The simple formula for calculating your 100 percent maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age.
If the intensity of your exercise increases your heart rate beyond 70 percent (which can occur very easily if you are in poor shape), you start shifting from using body fat as your energy source to relying on glucose metabolism. Your personal trainer can supply you with a simple heart-rate monitor you can wear during exercise. That way, you always stay in your peak fat-burning range.
3. Don't waste your time working small muscles with isolated movements. If you don't enjoy doing resistance training or are pressed for time, concentrate on working the largest muscle groups with compound resistance movements.
When I see overweight people doing wrist curls or lateral raises, I wonder why. It's generally just a lack of understanding of how their bodies work. Most people want to lose fat and tone and firm their bodies. The way to do that is to use resistance (weights or machines) to train the large muscle groups
Men should be concentrating on legs, chest and back. Women should concentrate more on their legs and back. The best exercises for legs are lunges or squats (your personal trainer will show you the proper form and then monitor you during the exercise) and the leg press. The best chest exercise is the bench press, and the best back exercise is the seated row. All of these are compound movements, which means they incorporate multiple muscle groups.
4. Always stretch. Stretching improves flexibility, blood flow, muscle recovery and a host of other things. Additionally, stretching can prevent injury, make you sleep better and improve your performance in all sports. Always stretch, but be certain not to stretch cold muscles. You should always warm up before stretching. However, it is very important that you know how to stretch. Never bounce! Your personal trainer will show you the proper execution and timing of your stretches.
5. Never do a traditional sit-up. Unless you are super athlete with an incredibly well-developed midsection, sit-ups can lead to a strained lower back and possibly lumbar injuries. But it gets worse. Rather than hitting your abdominal section, sit-ups can shift exercise tension to your hip flexors, which defeats the purpose of the exercise.
There is so much misinformation about how to strengthen, tone and firm the midsection, it's almost frightening. It is very difficult to learn proper abdominal exercise technique by reading about it or watching it demonstrated on a video. You need to do it with supervision and get feedback about your form from a knowledgeable source.
And keep in mind that you use your abdominal muscles in almost every single movement you make. Strengthening your abdominal region is the most effective way to prevent, or recover from, lower back pain.
6. Set realistically attainable goals. You must have tangible, quantifiable, short-term and long-term goals for your fitness program so that you can gauge your progress. It's crucial to have a baseline before you begin. Your health club or personal trainer can give you a complete fitness analysis that will aid you or your trainer in developing a personalized fitness program to address your particular needs.
Having goals, particularly short-term goals, allows you to track your progress and keeps you motivated when times are tough and you don't feel like exercising. Keeping a journal of your cardio and resistance-training workouts, as well as tracking what you eat, will ensure fitness success.
Just remember that your goals should be realistic and attainable. The best way for you to understand what is realistic and attainable for you is to talk to a fitness professional -- don't buy into the hype of infomercials or diet products that blatantly mislead.
7. Set exercise appointments with yourself. You wouldn't miss a business meeting or client appointment, would you? So don't miss your exercise appointment with yourself. Nothing is more important than your health. Nothing. Everything else will crumble around you if your health goes south. So make your exercise appointments a priority.
If you find it difficult to keep these appointments, then consider hiring a personal trainer who will hold you to your commitment. When you have money invested and someone waiting for you to show up, you are much more likely to actually show up!
8. Remember the benefits of exercise. Remember that feeling of euphoria you experienced after a particularly good workout? You experienced that feeling because the most powerful feel-good drug in the world, endorphins, were coursing through your veins. If there is a panacea, it's exercise.
Nothing feels better than the post-workout high you experience after exercising. Revel in that feeling. Let it wash over you and truly experience it. Etch that feeling in your brain. It will fuel your motivation on those inevitable days when you just don't feel like exercising. Being physically fit affects every single aspect of your life: You sleep better, eat better, love better, overcome stress better, work better, communicate better and live better!
9. Exercise correctly. So much time is wasted doing, at best, unproductive exercise, or at worst, dangerous exercise. Get educated on how to exercise correctly. And the absolute best way to do that is to hire a personal trainer to develop a program for you and then teach you what to do and how to do it right.
Personal training does not have to be an ongoing process. You can hire a personal trainer for whatever length of time you need to learn the ropes. It could be five sessions or 15. It's completely up to you. But statistics prove that those who understand how to exercise correctly, get better and faster results. And that's what you want, right? Results!
10. Enjoy yourself. The most difficult thing is actually getting into your running shoes or going to the gym. But once you begin your workout, relax and enjoy the process. Don't fight it. Make exercise your personal time.
When you are exercising, you can focus completely on yourself. Yes, exercising can and should be somewhat rigorous (depending on your level of fitness), but it is just that investment that makes it supremely rewarding. As with anything, if you are in the moment, you can fully appreciate the experience and truly enjoy the process.
11. Americans eat too many carbohydrates for our lifestyles. Minimize your intake of bread, pasta, rice, potato and, of course, all sugary drinks. We are no longer an agrarian society participating in manual labor. Most of us are fairly sedentary throughout the day and therefore do not need the high levels of carbohydrates to sustain our energy.
Additionally, carbohydrates are addictive. The more doughnuts you eat, the more you want. The bulk of your carbohydrates should come from vegetables and fruit. Focus on those with high water content, such as cucumbers, grapefruit, tomatoes, cantaloupe, strawberries and even vegetable soups (watch out for high sodium), which will all fill you up nicely.
By the way, numerous studies have conclusively proven that the quarter of the population eating the most vegetables get half the cancer of the quarter eating the least!
12. Deep-fried food has no nutritional value none! Almost every food, whether it s steak, chocolate or red wine, has some nutrients to contribute. But one thing is absolute: Fried foods are garbage.
Potato chips, french fries, onion rings, breaded chicken strips and all the rest of the deep-fried junk are pregnant with saturated fat and calories -- and they contain almost zero nutritional value. If you're trying to lose weight and/or reduce fat, simply eliminate fried foods completely from your diet. Yikes! That stuff is scary.
13. Never skip breakfast. If you want to maximize your fitness results or fat-loss efforts, you've got to eat breakfast. Even if you don't exercise at all, breakfast remains the most important meal of the day.
Your breakfast should contain complete proteins and complex carbohydrates. A great breakfast is oatmeal (not the pre-packaged, pre-sweetened kind) with a little honey and banana and a protein drink. Or try scrambled egg whites with Healthy Choice turkey sausage.
14. Eat fat to lose fat. Healthy fats are necessary to your body for a bunch of reasons: regulating hormonal production, improving immune function, lowering total cholesterol, lubricating joints and providing the basics for healthy hair, nails and skin.
You must be aware of the difference between healthy good fats and dangerous bad fats. Good fats are monounsaturated fats such as olive; peanut and canola oil; avocados; all-natural peanut butter and nuts; and omega-3 fats found in salmon, mackerel and soy-based foods. Bad fats are saturated fats, partially hydrogenated fats and trans fats.
Your personal trainer can provide you with a simple diet program that will complement your exercise to help you live longer, feel better and boost your immune system. The bottom line is your body needs good fats and will revolt if you attempt to abstain from them; it absolutely does not need bad fats.
15. Drink plenty of fresh, clean water. Yes, I know that you've heard this over and over again. The recommended amount is approximately eight glasses, or 64 ounces, of water every day. When you are exercising, you need to drink even more. More than 75 percent of your body is water (even bone is more than 20 percent water). When you don't drink enough water and substitute diuretics like coffee, tea and caffeinated sodas, you dehydrate your body, your blood doesn't flow properly and your digestive system doesn't operate smoothly (among other problems).
Even a small deficit of water can radically affect how your body performs. Here's a good rule of thumb: If your urine is a dark yellow or has a strong odor, you're not drinking enough water. Drink up!
16. Eat regularly throughout the day. Fasting or overly restrictive diets will enable you to lose weight in the short run because the weight you lose is primarily water weight and lean muscle mass. But in the long run, it has exactly the opposite effect you want.
When you restrict your diet, your body instinctively thinks it's being starved and shifts into a protective mode by storing fat. Energy expenditures are fueled by your lean muscles. Therefore, your body fat remains essentially the same and you lose vital fluids and muscle instead.
The less muscle you have, the slower your metabolism becomes and the less fat you burn. You should be eating three nutritionally balanced meals each day, and you should have at least one or two healthy snacks. This keeps your metabolic furnace stoked -- you burn more at a faster rate. I know it's counter-intuitive, but it's the gospel truth!
There you have it: Sixteen essential strategies for an effective weight-loss-and-fitness program that will have you looking and feeling better than you have in years -- maybe ever!
I realize that starting (or re-starting) a productive and effective fitness program is not easy. That's why I encourage you to get help.
If you're sick, you go to the doctor. If you've got a tax problem, you see an accountant (or an attorney). Have a toothache? You're off to the dentist. Leaky pipes result in a call to the plumber. So why is it that so many people attempt to solve their health and fitness problems without consulting an expert? I don't know why, but I encourage you to make the investment in yourself -- in your quality of life -- by hiring a qualified professional to help you get started.
The hardest part is getting started and sustaining your motivation until fitness becomes habitual. Once you develop the habit, which can take as little as 30 days, your whole life will change for the better.