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.

Too hot to exercise?

As most people know, I teach a couple of diet and exercise classes at the Holiday Inn in Leicester City centre on a Monday evening. Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far and I think we could all be forgiven for wondering whether exercise was a good idea. We opted out of doing normal aerobics but instead decided to do chair exercises and toning. We all got a good workout and our muscles were exercised extensively. We had a great evening. Exercise needs to become part of our lifestyle and going along to a class with friends is a perfect habit to get into. If you don’t fancy attending classes, maybe playing a sport would suit you better.

My husband Mike finds normal types of exercising pretty boring but he loves sport. So last evening he played squash with a friend and came home appropriately exhausted. He thoroughly enjoyed his game and feels better for having had a really good workout on court.

If you love running, then run. If you love swimming, swim. The only way we are going to get fit and stay fit is to do some form of fitness that doesn’t seem like a chore, that is fun and enjoyable and that we want to do again soon! It has to become part of our lifestyle rather than a big effort for two weeks just before our holiday in an effort to shed some emergency weight for the beach.

I’m off ice skating this morning. I travel 40 minutes to Nottingham to the National Ice Centre where I have a lesson. I am new to this activity but I am absolutely loving it and now that I am getting a bit better at it, I am working harder, travelling over the ice faster, and really stretching myself. It is unbelievable fun and, by the time I’ve finished my one hour lesson, I am really hot, despite being in an ice room, and feel I’ve done a good workout. I love it so much I make time in my busy life to go – even on a weekday morning.

If you know you should be more active, try and find an activity that you really enjoy. You may be wary of going along to a class when you’re not use to exercising with others but when you go, I bet you’ll love it. The music, the friendship, the enthusiasm of the instructor, the feeling of elation when you’ve finished working out as your happy hormones, endorphins, are released, all add up to a great experience. Lots of our members attend more than one class a week – some as many as 5 – because they have so much fun and realise the benefits.

In this glorious warm weather at the moment, try and make time to go out for a walk. If you follow me on Twitter you can do my daily Fitness Challenge which I post every evening at around 8 pm. If you think you’ like to try a class, check out our website www.rosemaryconley.com to see if we have a class running near you. If there isn’t, have a look at my fitness DVDs and have a go in your living room. No matter what you do, where you do it, exercise is good for you. It helps burn fat, keeps your muscles strong, relieves depression, tones you up, uses extra calories, keeps you supple as it helps your joints,...I could go on. There is no down side.

If Andy Murray can play tennis at Wimbledon in a hot and humid enclosed court until 10.40pm last evening, I am sure we can muster enough energy to do 30 minutes of exercise today!

Meanwhile, I’m off skating!