Your 12-week Jump Start To Regular Exercise!

 

• Regular physical activity can prevent and treat type 2 diabetes, improve glucose control, positively affect blood fat levels, blood pressure, improve cardiovascular disease and improve mortality.
  
  
• These improvements are because of the short and long term benefits of exercise on insulin activity.
  
  
• Most of these benefits are accomplished with a combination of aerobic and resistance exercises.
  
  
• The experts recommend at least 150 minutes of AEROBIC exercise each week, spread out over a minimum of 3 days, with no more than 2 consecutive days between physical activity.
  
  
• RESISTANCE TRAINING should  ALSO be done at least 2ce a week - ideally 3 x per week - every other day. See below for examples of resistance exercises that anyone can do..If you're just starting out, get a personal trainer to guide you to make sure you don't injure yourself, until you get the moves right.
  
  
• Using a pedometer regularly is a good idea as it helps you quantify your progress when you set a measurable goal eg to walk 10000 steps per day. Also, a study found that people who used a pedometer increased their physical activity by 27% over their baseline.
  
  
• You must exercise regularly to get the full benefits of it.
  
  
• Exercise improves your insulin activity for 2-72 hours after the exercise. It's got to be moderate to vigorous exercise to be of benefit.
  
  
• If you lead a sedentary life, you need a pre-exercise assessment if you plan to do exercise more than brisk walking. Visit your doctor and ask them to arrange this.
  
  
• If you are at high risk of cardiovascular disease (get your doctor to confirm this), and you have no symptoms, you may benefit from having an Exercise Stress ECG done before you commence your improved exercise program.
  
  
• Works best also if you're part of a support system of one or more people...

About Those Resistance Exercises...

Here's the link to a post I wrote, with pictures of 6 simple resistance training exercises you can do every other day...
Strength Training Blog Post

As For Aerobic Exercises...

Examples include:

• Walking
• Skipping Rope (great because it's both aerobic and resistance training...)
• Climbing up and down your stairs at home
• Cross trainer
• Treadmill
• Swimming
• Running
• Sports eg tennis, basketball, football, martial arts...

There are others of course. The point is you've got to pick one you enjoy and can stick to. Then do it for up to 150 minutes per week (break it down to say 30 minutes per day) - and add resistance training every other day to the mix. Feel free to vary your workout routine so you don't get bored.

Getting Started...First, choose your preferred aerobic activity or activities

• Break it down into baby steps.
  
  
• If you've been sedentary, don't expect to be able to easily exercise for 30 minutes each day from day 1.
  
  
• Start with 5 minutes of aerobic activity each day. This will get you into the habit of doing something each day. Setting aside a regular time to do it each day, works best for some people.
  
  
• When you've done 5 minutes exercise each day for 1 week, upgrade to 10 minutes each day.
   
• Do this for 2 weeks.
  
  
• Upgrade to 15 minutes each day
  
  
• Add in resistance training every other day: aim to go through the 6 exercises I mention in the article at least once every other day.
  
  
• Stick with 15 minutes aerobics daily and resistance training every other day - for 3 weeks
  
  
• After 3 weeks, upgrade your aerobics time to 20 minutes daily
  
  
• Stick with this for 4 weeks
  
  
• After 4 weeks, upgrade to 25 minutes of aerobic activity daily
  
  
• Do this for 2 weeks
  
  
• After 2 weeks, upgrade to 30 minutes of aerobic activity daily
  
  
• CONGRATULATIONS!!!!  You've just completed a 12-week jumpstart to a regular exercise program that has been proven to improve your blood sugar, blood pressure, reduce LDL cholesterol and improve quality of life overall!
  
  
• By now regular exercise should be a habit for you. You can't remember or imagine what your life was like without it.
  
  
• Now hook up that pedometer and let's see how many steps your 30 minutes get you. If you're not walking 10000 steps in your 30 minutes you'll need to gradually increase until you do.

A Better Way...High Intensity Interval Training

At this point you may be ready to try out a type of exercise that's more efficient especially timewise, than the regular aerobic you're used to doing. It's called 'High Intensity Interval Training' (HIIT): this is where you take your chosen aerobic activity and do it as hard and fast as you possibly can, for about a minute, then slow down for the next couple minutes, followed by another minute of high intensity workout.

Note that there are two ways to raise the intensity of your workout, so you can choose the method that suits you best:

a) You could increase your speed to the maximum you're able to do, and maintain that maximum speed for a minute then slow down for the next couple minutes, repeating the cycle for about 8 times.

b) You could increase the resistance against which you are moving, keeping the speed constant, to the highest level of resistance you're able to work against, maintaining this level of resistant work for a minute, then reducing it back to a regularly manageable level for a couple minutes. Again, aim for a cycle of about 8 minutes.

HIIT benefits you not only while you're working out, but also for at least 24hours AFTER such a session. And a complete total body resistance and aerobic workout (which is what you get from HIIT), lasts less than 30 minutes! You'd be adviced to do this every other day though - give your body time to recover in the in-between period.

Here's wishing you a fit, healthy and happy new year!