Improve your fitness fast!

The great thing about trying to get fit is that your body responds so quickly once you start, in a matter of days you feel fitter and healthier. It is so encouraging.

We tend to think of fitness in rather broad terms – we have to be either a ‘fitness fanatic’ and imagine going to the gym every day or running five miles before breakfast – or we ‘don’t do exercise’ because we don’t like it and it’s too much like hard work. But there is a massive middle-ground which is probably the healthiest anyway. It is just being more active and doing some form of exercise occasionally throughout each week to help increase our fitness.

If you are a follower of Twitter (you can sign up by going to http://twitter.com/RosemaryConley) at approximately 8 pm BST each evening I suggest a ‘Fitness Challenge’. I may ask you to do 10 ab curls or walk up and down stairs five times but whatever it is, it will challenge a group of muscles in the body. You can break off from what you are doing for three minutes while you do the challenge – or even do it with your friends or relatives who are there with you. There is something quite motivational to imagine that lots of us are doing the challenge together. And you will be surprised how quickly you begin to feel the benefits of your muscles becoming a little stronger. I know I have.

Obviously we need to do some activity that will challenge our heart and lungs to improve our cardio fitness and that’s where we are sometimes put off because it can seem too energetic, but it needn’t be. Just going for a fairly brisk walk for 20 minutes will give your body enormous benefits including increasing the fitness of your heart and lungs but also burning fat! Do some activity that elevates your heart rate for 20 – 30 minutes at a time, three to five times a week and you will transform your body. (If you are very overweight, just walk slowly for 20 minutes for a real benefit.)

I teach two diet and fitness classes a week and those workouts exercise most of the muscles in my body to keep me in reasonable shape. We have a fun evening out at the same time and it sets me up for the week. I just add in a couple of 30 minute walks at the weekend with Waise (pronounced Visor) our dog, plus an occasional skating lesson and I feel I am reasonably fit. Over recent weeks I have been working sitting down a lot and I felt I had lost my fitness but after just two weeks of being a bit more active, my fitness levels have leapt back and I feel great again.

We don’t have to aspire to running a marathon or training for a triathlon. We just need to do something active regularly. Check out our classes and if there’s one near you, why not pop along. Join me with my daily fitness challenge on Twitter too. It could change your figure and your life! Go to http://www.rosemaryconley.com/ for details.