5 Tips For Incorporating Exercise Into Your Life

This is a guest post by Greg Blencoe, @gregblencoe

In his recent post “How To Invest In Yourself (And Why)”, Dragos discussed the importance of exercising regularly.  I couldn’t agree more.

I have been exercising in some form or another since I was five or six years old.  I played on countless sports teams growing up.  With the exception of a few breaks when I was only running, I have been weightlifting consistently since I was 15 years old.  And I ran the Chicago marathon back in 2002.

Exercise has made an extremely positive impact on my life.  I think a lot of my self-esteem and self-confidence is due to exercising.  Furthermore, when I exercise, I am much more relaxed and can think much more clearly throughout the day.  And I have met so many wonderful, uplifting people while doing activities involving exercising.

Here are five tips for incorporating exercise into your life:

1.  Find an activity involving exercising that you enjoy

The first step in making exercise a part of your life is to find an activity involving exercising that you enjoy.  This is extremely important.  If you don’t enjoy the activity, you are much more likely to stop doing it.  Fortunately, there are all kinds of different activities that involve exercise.

For example, you might enjoy yoga, tennis, swimming, aerobics, running, playing soccer, weightlifting, walking at your local mall, cycling, or hiking.  There are obviously many other possibilities.  The point is to find one or more that you enjoy, so you have fun while exercising.  This will make it a lot easier to exercise on a consistent basis.

2.  Exercise multiple times per week for 30-60 minutes each time

While there are some people (e.g. professional or Olympic athletes) that might exercise up to 4-5 hours or more every day with relatively few days off, you can achieve very significant benefits from exercising in much less time.  For the average person, I think exercising 2-4 times per week for 30-60 minutes each time is about right.  Of course, you should always consult with your doctor before starting any exercise routine.  And depending on your current level of fitness, you may need to start slowly and work your way up to this level.

3.  Exercise consistently

I believe that the key to exercise is consistency.

I have seen friends of mine get very motivated about exercising for brief periods of time due to certain things happening in their lives.  For example, a girlfriend breaking up with you or an upcoming high school reunion can definitely make a guy want to get fit!  I have seen these people go from not exercising at all to working out very hard for a few months (e.g. exercising 1-2 hours per day for 5 days per week) and achieve amazing results during that time.  However, every time, the person eventually burned out and found a reason to stop exercising.

I think a much better approach is to exercise consistently over a long period of time (preferably the rest of your life!).  In very general terms, I would define consistently as exercising 2-4 times per week for 30-60 minutes each time during at least 75% of the weeks during the year.  This would allow you to take up to about one week off per month.

4.  Find ways to enjoy exercising even more

In order to become even more motivated to exercise, I highly recommend looking for ways to make your activities involving exercise even more enjoyable.  Here are several ways you can do this.

One of the most common ways is to listen to music.  You will not only enjoy listening to your favorite songs, but you will likely be energized which should make you work out harder.  Furthermore, if walking is your primary activity involving exercise, you might also enjoy listening to audio books or podcasts during this time.

Another way to enjoy exercise even more is to mix up your routine.  For example, a person who swims a few times per week might choose to play basketball instead from time to time to break up the routine.  One way I do this is to work out at different gyms.  My gym membership gives me access to all of the different locations.  While I usually go to the location that is closest to me, I will often go to one of two other locations that are also relatively close.  This allows me to see some of my friends that usually work out at those gyms.

Moreover, while I run inside when it is cold or raining, I run outside a lot when it is sunny and warm.  There is a park right by the lake close to where I live that has a 4.5 mile (approximately 7.25 kilometers) loop where people can walk or run.  I run there a lot from April to October when the weather is nice.

5.  Live an overall healthy lifestyle

While exercising in itself is very important, it is really just one part of living an overall healthy lifestyle.  Here are several suggestions for healthy living which will improve the results that you get from exercising.

The first is to watch what you eat.  Let me say upfront that I believe that eating should be an enjoyable part of life.  I don’t think that watching what you eat should mean completely taking away this enjoyment by eating very little, not eating any food you enjoy, etc.  However, moderation is very important.  For example, perhaps one piece of chocolate will do instead of two or three.  And maybe eating a certain type of fruit would be just as enjoyable as an unhealthy snack.  These small choices involving eating that are made every day make a really big difference over time.

Another suggestion is to drink mostly water.  When I started doing this a few years ago, I lost 5-10 pounds in about a month.  And I was very fit at the time.  But it helped me to become even more toned.  For the first week or two, the lack of taste with the water was an issue.  However, I quickly got used to it.  Now I don’t have much desire to drink anything else.  And drinking water makes me feel extremely healthy.

Finally, I highly recommend doing your best to surround yourself with supportive, positive people.  These types of people will make your life so much better by giving you encouragement and celebrating your successes.

Final thought

If you are not currently exercising, I hope you will consider making it a part of your life.  I view exercise as one of the best ways to become Brilliantly Better.

Author Bio: Greg Blencoe is the author of the personal development blog Positive Waves Baby.

30 Days Exercising Challenge – Days 5-7

The good news is that I’m still on the challenge, although I haven’t blogged about it in the last 3 days. The bad news is that I had to make some adjustments to it. Basically, I started to learn how my body reacts to various levels of effort, and made the necessary corrections. So, technically, it’s not bad news.

Friday

Woke up at 6:10.

• 1 rep 15 pushups.
• 1 rep 30 abs
• 1 rep 15 pushups

No stepper whatsoever during the day, basically because I’ve spent the last day of the week socializing. Or trying to. The pause was good. My body thank me by providing generous waves of energy throughout the day.

Saturday

Woke up at 7 Am.

• 6 Surya Namaskara
• 1 rep 15 pushups
• 1 rep 30 abs
• 1 rep 15 pushups
• 19 minutes on the stepper

Felt extremely well, my heart rate never crossed 125. During the yoga part, I felt some sort of energy relieve in the joints, probably my body was so tense because I was trying to impose a little bit too much on it, a little bit too fast. In the afternoon I did another isolated rep of 15 pushups.

Sunday

Woke up at 6:30 although I went to bed at 12:30. This waking up early pattern seems to be so far pretty common and I’m happy about it. Today I woke up at 5:30 without any alarm clock and without being tired at all.

• 6 Surya Namaskara
• 1 rep 15 pushups
• 1 rep 30 abs
• 1 rep 15 pushups
• 20 minutes on the stepper (felt almost like a pleasure walk)
• 1 rep 15 pushups
• 1 rep 30 abs

All on all, seems I’m doing much better with a single workout per day. My other activities are also much better managed if I’m doing this workout in the morning. I still track my weight but I  won’t blog about it unless there are very important changes. It seems to me that I need a body fat checker more than a weight scale right now.

I also noticed that some of the people who joined this are keeping their pace, which is something that makes me, in a very strange way, happy . If you are doing your own workouts, please feel free to share them here, along with your comments and other advice.

30 Days Exercising Challenge – Day 4

Woke up at 6 AM, in pretty good shape. My weight was weight 93.7. I’m starting to feel a little bit bored about this weight stuff, as I know it can be really misleading. You can have a huge amount of fat and hence be obese, or you can have a pretty important muscular mass, without being obese, of course. I know that muscle weights a little more than fat, so measuring weight alone can be misleading. I will do my best to find a way to check out my body fat, because I think I’m decreasing in fat and increasing in muscle at the same time, hence my overall weight is remaining the same. But without a body fat checker this is only a feeling.

Morning Workout

6 surya namaskara
1 rep 15 pushups
1 rep 30 abs
1 rep 15 pushups

18 minutes on the stepper

closing with another rep of 15 pushups

Heart rate at 135-138 almost never reached 140, so I guess my body adapted pretty fast. I will continue to increase the stepper time 1 minute per day until I will reach 30 minutes per session.

Total exercising time: 25 minutes.

Afternoon Workout

2 reps 30 abs
3 reps 15 pushups

18 minutes on the stepper (heart rate constantly at 139-140).

Total exercising time: 30 minutes.

Grand Totals

Total exercises:

90 pushups
90 abs
36 minutes on the stepper

Total exercising time: 55 minutes.

Things are shaping pretty well, although I do have a little bit of difficulty waking up in the morning. Today I woke up at 6 AM, but find it difficult to exercise. It was like my body begged me to make a pause. But more on that on tomorrow’s post, when today will be completely finished.

As usual, feel free to post your comments on your own exercising routine, if you’re doing one.

30 Days Exercising Challenge – Day 2

The second day of my 30 days exercising challenge started a little bit odd. For some reason, I wasn’t able to do my morning workout, so I had to postpone it for the afternoon. I started around 17:00.

After an initial 2 minutes stretching I had 1 rep of 15 pushups. 2 minutes pause and then my first rep of 30 abs. After another 2 minutes pause I had one more rep of 15 pushups. The first part was finished with 16 minutes on the stepper. I decided to gradually increase the time on the stepper with 1 minute per day until I will reach 30 minutes. That way I will do at least 2 x 30 minutes = 60 minutes on the stepper each day. It just seem doable at the moment.

The second part of the workout was made of 1 rep of 30 abs and another rep of 15 pushups. After that, I started the second 16 minutes stepper session.

Heart rate went to 146-149 and stayed there for the first rep on the stepper. On the second, I had around 5 minutes in which the heart rate went over 150, up to 156, but never higher. The last 5 minutes the heart rate was 146 steady.

Weight: 93.5 kilos.

Total exercising time, including breaks: 50 minutes.

Total exercises:

• 45 pushups
• 60 abs
• 32 minutes on the stepper

I felt good although it was really hot and lost a lot of water. I hidrated myself in the beginning, during and after the workout. It seems that my body is starting to adjust, although is really early to tell that. I found it pretty difficult to fall asleep in the evening, it was like my body was still alert, but didn’t have any difficulty whatsoever in getting up at 6 AM. More on that on the blog post about the 3rd day.

I started to read some material on the topic (specifically, the book presented in this comment) and also started to look around for a body fat checker device, but I’m not in a rush.

If you’re following this challenge and starting some exercise for yourself, feel free to post a comment here.

Starting To Exercise

Seems like August is my favorite month for personal development challenges. Last year, on August 4h I started my raw food diet, which lasted for more than 9 months. After my trip to Japan, in April, my raw food diet ended and you can read more about that in the post raw food diet blog post. Now, let’s get physical.

I intend to have a 30 days challenge in the physical area. In plain English: I’ll move my butt and start exercising a bit. I don’t have a very strict goal. In fact, I’m doing this just to create a scaffold for my physical body, to give it a little bit of rhythm.

You see, other areas of my life are already benefiting from setting a conscious rhythm. For instance, I have this goal of publishing at least 3 articles per week in the blog. I also check Twitter and email first thing in the morning, and sometimes several times during the day. I spend time in the garden, wetting the flowers or doing some other type of small jobs. This creates a pattern. After a certain threshold, I’m doing those things with much more ease. I’ve integrated them. For instance, I come to the point when interacting with at least 10 people per day on Twitter is something trivial. In the garden, I’ve gone from planting my own flowers up to setting up a little vineyard. Out of those small things I do every day, some great results are emerging. I call this setting a rhythm.

Now, in the physical area I don’t have yet such a pattern, but I intend to create one. I feel a little bit disconnected on this level, I mean every other parts are moving ahead, but here it seems I’m a little bit stuck. Like I already told you, I don’t have a specific goal, but I do intend to measure this somehow. I guess the best way would be to count the time, but I will also include some other specific measurements.

Based on my previous experience with exercising, I intend to reach 45 minutes of exercising daily, in the next 30 days. As for the type of exercising, I will stick to something moderate. I won’t hit the gym, because I already have quite a fitness setup at my house. The only tool I will use though would be a stepper, for the rest I’ll settle with pushups and small abs. I also intend to integrate some moderate yoga postures. I don’t intend to break any world record here, just to feel a little bit better and fitter.

As I write this I already had my first 20 minutes session early in the morning and I feel great. I will describe the whole thing, including my evening session, in tomorrow’s blog post. I don’t know yet if I will have 2 sessions per day, one in the morning and one in the evening, at this point just seems natural to have it this way. I’ll see what happens and adjust.

The longest exercising period in my adult life (not including the times when I was playing basketball in high-school), was 6 months and it ended just before Bianca was born. It wasn’t something very strong, it was a combination of yoga, stretching and meditation every morning, but I felt really, really great. I remember very clear the feeling of balance I had during that period.

I will try to blog as often as I can about this, but don’t expect anything too strict. It may be one post a day or it may be one post a week.

If you want to join me in this, feel free to comment and post your own goals. I think sharing this goal to as many people as I can reach will increase my motivation level. And I think it will work the same way for you.

Working Out Your Money Muscles

Playing the money game is something really fun, when you do it with an easy heart. And by that I mean that whenever you focus only on the money part and lose the game part you derail yourself from a path of joy and learning. Making money is just something you do in the process of creating value. The focus must always be at creating value, not at money.

In today’s post I’ll share some of my money game experiences, I will show how money can be compared with a fitness workout and I’ll take a closer look at one very scary notion related to money, and that would be debt.

The Money Game

For me money is just a source of energy. I wrote about that before so if you want to know how you can make money with a purpose, just go and read that post and return here a little later. If you already read it, than you know what I mean: each time you interact directly with money, you break an energy flow. And direct interaction with an energy flow can be really dangerous. You should consider using switches for manipulating money, the same way you manipulate switches for electricity, in order to light your room or make it warmer.

Money is just a part of a game, is something you use in the process, is not the process itself, nor the goal of your actions. People tend to forget this and they do it especially when one part of the game become a little naughty: when they are caught in debt.

Debt and win are just two faces of the same coin (ironically, I use a money object in order to describe a money concept). If you win money in the process of creating value that simply means you have more resources than you had in the beginning. If you used more money than you had at a certain point, well, you just created a debt. The problem with debt is that is very often perceived like a threat or a burden. And it surely is, as long as you don’t know the value you created with that debt. If you used that money in order to build something, you created a certain value. (If you didn’t and just spend it on a shallow lifestyle, well, that’s another problem and your debt should really be a problem for you.) But if you created value, your only question is:

Is my created value bigger than my debt?

If the answer is “yes”, you’re on the safe side, and the money game is working for you. If the answer is “no”, well, you should do your best to create more value.

That’s what makes the difference between successful people and losers. Successful people know all the time if their created value exceeds or not their financial debt. And most of the time, that value is well over the debt. Losers (sorry for the term, but it’s the most appropriate term I found for this category) never know where their created value is compared with their debt. At the first sign of a debt they consider something is wrong and stop doing everything, start complaining, become irrational or simply run away. (more…)