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Moms – Finding “you” Time

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Shake Up Your Routine

When it comes to shaping up for the summer, we all tend to gravitate towards a workout routine that we know we can excel at. However, going to the same kickboxing class, or running the same 3-mile loop at the park, is not the most effective way to get your body back in action. Do the same routine over and over, and you’re going to make strong muscles tighter, and leave weaker muscles weak. You’re also hardening well-established neural pathways, instead of challenging your body to create new ones. Do the same exercise enough, and your body will change its shape in response to your activity.

Ever seen the arms of a professional tennis player? One arm is twice the size of the other—a direct result of the different level of demand placed on the playing arm. For a tennis pro, that’s part of what they do, but for the rest of us, the goal is balance: overall strength, flexibility, endurance. The way to achieve that is to add variety to your routine, find different ways to move, and consistently challenge your body system.

Here’s 3 ways to instantly shake up your routine this summer:

*Change your mode of locomotion. For cardio, try riding a bike or jumping rope instead of running, for example, or change your usual routine to include stairs, hills or other challenges.

*Step away from the machines. Get outside! See what happens when you find alternate ways to train–pushups on the grass instead of a cable chest press machine, or step-ups on a park bench instead of the elliptical machine.

*Choose a new flavor. Try an activity you’ve never done before, like a new class or a new sport. Just learning the basics can definitely be a challenge.

YOUR BOLD SPRING STEP

Charlotte Blake
Personal Trainer
Pre/Post-Natal Pilates Instructor

5 STEPS TO A HEALTHY YEAR

Here are some thoughts from the Nimble team about making 2010 your healthiest year yet.

1: Look back to move forward. We often learn more from what we see as our failures than our successes–those times we didn’t feel successful often turn out to be very valuable in our overall growth. Questions you could ask yourself about the past year are: Did you exercise as often as you wanted to? Were you working towards goals, or just kind of winging it? Did you make your health a first priority, or was it an afterthought? Is your home and work environment set up for success? By considering where you fell short, you’re also giving yourself the road map for success in the future.

2: Set your positive intention. Intention is everything. Visualize positively what you want to accomplish this year—it will make all the difference in terms of the quality of what you do and your decisions. If you focus on failure in anything that you do–getting married, changing your eating habits, making an important presentation—failure is usually what you’ll get. A little bit of time and effort spent seeing yourself making healthy choices every day will make it that much easier to keep your commitments to yourself.

3: Create your own health blueprint. And keep it simple! Focus on these 3 aspects: food choices, movement, and quality rest. Think long term but act on a daily basis. Take a week and test yourself—concentrate on making healthy choices in eating, movement, and rest for seven days–and see how you feel and how those choices affect everything you do.

4: Expand your awareness—connect with others. Take an active interest in your health and activities that interest you (examples—cooking class, running clubs, volleyball leagues, ski clubs, hiking groups, yoga classes). You’re not alone! There’s guaranteed to be other people interested in what you like—and they can provide inspiration and motivation as you move forward on your path to a healthier lifestyle.

5: Live it. Making your health a priority on a daily basis is really about making every aspect of your life better, whether it’s your work, your social life, your sleep or your relationships. Consistently taking care of yourself is not selfish—it’s making your ability to achieve success and take care of your loved ones that much greater.

Love Your Feet!

When’s the last time you showed your feet some love? Our poor feet often experience cruel and unusual punishment. We stuff them in stylish shoes that fit us poorly for the sake of looking good. We run around all day and forget about them until they start to hurt.

Here are some tips from Nimble Fitness on how to give your feet some love and create a solid foundation for your heart-healthy cardiovascular program.

1. Pay attention to your posture—standing and walking with proper balance and a “stacked” torso (where your shoulders, rib cage and pelvis align over each other) will help your feet support your body weight the way they’re meant to.

2. Get a foot massage, reflexology treatment, or just use a tennis ball to loosen up the fascia on the bottom of your feet.

3. Organized exercise! Develop an integrated training program that draws from several styles of movement, so your feet have a variety of challenges to develop strength and balance.

4. Wear shoes that fit well and give you the support you need. Enough said! Your shoes should fit around your feet, not vice versa.

Your New Year’s Solution

What exactly is a New Year’s resolution? The dictionary defines resolution as ‘a firm decision to do something,’ but what does that really mean? It’s easy enough to make a decision to get in shape, lose a few pounds or quit smoking—it’s the follow-through where we tend to get tripped up. Rather than making a resolution this year, we are going to suggest you make a New Year’s solution. There is no better time than the New Year to create a new approach to getting yourself healthy. A New Year’s solution means creating long-term success–so you never have to make another resolution again.

We’ve all experienced short-term motivation. Most of us start the New Year by saying, “I ate too much,” or “I’ve been lazy,” or “I feel out of shape,” and then we make a short-term resolution to change. Ask yourself this: If you took a wrong turn in your car and ended up where you started, would you take that same turn again? Probably not, yet time and time again, we all make the same resolutions at the same time of year. We basically set ourselves up to fail! Isn’t it time to change your routine and perhaps change your way of thinking–because if it hasn’t worked in the past, it’s not going to work this time around either!

The first step towards changing your results is to examine your goals and how you view exercise and fitness. This is the key to understanding why none of those New Year’s resolutions really work. Was your resolution a short-term goal? Was it based on a number, like losing 20 lbs in 6 weeks, instead of on an overall feeling of health and wellness? Once you start to look at the roots of your health habits, you can identify what’s been holding you back. If you’ve made a decision to get in shape for the New Year, yet deep inside you view exercise as punishment and food or alcohol as a reward, you’ll be fighting yourself every step of the way. The quickest way to achieve your goals in health, or in life, is to bring your thoughts and actions into alignment with how you want to feel and look.

Observe your thoughts and daily habits and develop a sense of awareness about them: How you feel throughout the day? Where are your priorities? Who do you surround yourself with, and do they help or hinder your success? Become aware of any excuses you use which consistently hold you back. You’ll get some very interesting information about yourself—information you can use to refine your health plan and move forward.

Then take action! Simple steps on a daily basis, like taking the stairs rather than the elevator or skipping dessert when dining out, add up. Look at all of your daily choices as positive steps toward better health. After all, the whole point of a healthy lifestyle is to feel good all the time, not just after you spent an hour in the gym. Start feeling good all the time, and things in your life get better—your work gets better, your body feels better, your sleep is better, sex is better, and your relationships get better.

Remember your 3 keys—not a resolution, but daily steps towards success: movement, good food choices, and sufficient rest. Have faith in the process; every mountain climb starts with a single step. You’re not going to get to the peak in one day, so take your time and learn about yourself as you progress. And take time to enjoy the view! As you continue to find daily ways to be healthy, you’ll feel your strength and confidence improve. The solution is there, waiting for you.

Managing Stress

What is stress? Let’s keep it simple–stress is a response created from an event that is challenging or in some way sends you into a heightened alert state. These events are called stressors. Sometimes they can be good, often they are a reaction to a bad situation. An example of good stress would be if you are driving and have to react to the puppy that has lost its way into the street; you swerve to miss it and in the process have gone through a very quick, very stressful situation. Bad stress can be created by an abundant array of possibilities, ranging from work, to relationships, to money and lack of time, just to name a few. Stress can deplete your immune system and leave your body’s natural defenses weakened, while also creating other problems.

Here are some practical ways to manage stress:

1. BREATH! Take a belly breath! Having a few breathing exercises at hand is key when trying to produce a relaxation response. Try this one: Lie down on the floor and put a book under your head to create a comfortable head position (chin and forehead in alignment). If you really want to set yourself up, put a pillow under your knees. Begin by asking your body to be heavy and completely relaxed. Start breathing with your hands on your belly to help cue the movement of the breath into the diaphragm. When you feel that you have a nice full and easy belly breath happening, move your hands onto your rib cage. Now send your breath into your ribs and feel how they rise slightly. Next, relax your arms to your side and move your breath into your back. Feel the floor become resistance. Sixty percent of our lungs are located in our back body, so feel how three-dimensional you actually are! During this process, keep asking your muscles to relax and your body to be heavy. Feel the space and relaxation you have created by gaining a new awareness of your breath. Yeh mon!

2. YOUR GREATEST WEALTH IS HEALTH! What’s more important than being healthy? All the money in the world does not matter much when you feel like crap. To be consistently healthy, take daily action with your healthy habits. My rule is mandatory Monday workouts. It starts my week out with flowing energy and sets me up for success. Go and take a yoga class or give a tai-chi class a shot. Choose non-processed and whole live foods that support the recovery you need when healing your body from stress. Another good rule of thumb is to stay away from consuming too much caffeine, because it adds stress to a system that is already stressed. Take some action every day!

3. STOP WATCHING THE NEWS! AND FREE UP YOUR SCHEDULE. Listen, the media loves when they can inspire fear in their viewers. They’re in the business of stealing your time and hooking your thoughts to their programs. Giving the news a break can free up some time for you, and that means paying attention to some key health habits that otherwise might get neglected.

4. YOU GUESSED IT: SLEEEEEEEEP. Do you make it a point to maintain a consistent sleep cycle? You will be giving your mind and body time to recover strength and energy and be better equipped to handle any stressors that arise throughout the day.

5. BUILD YOUR RESILIENCE AND OBSERVE YOUR THOUGHTS. Remember change is always happening. Your perception of that change is how it will be for you. Become an observer of your thoughts. If you find yourself thinking negatively, ask yourself why. At some point in our lives we have to become our own best friends and be present enough to choose thoughts that are in alignment with our dreams. Resilient people have great friends, view change as a normal part of life, see most problems as solvable, take daily action and know how to relax.

5 reasons your workout may not be working

1. You do the same exercise routine every week.

If you do the same routine over and over, your muscles will simply adapt and you’ll hit a plateau.  However, if you challenge your muscles from a variety of angles by adding or alternating moves periodically, you’ll get significantly more muscle fibers into the act and develop more tone and strength.

2. You’re exercising too hard, too often and don’t get enough rest

If you don’t rest enough between hard cardio or strength workouts, you’ll stop making progress and may even lose some of the fitness you’ve gained.  You’re also likely to burn out on exercise.

3. You’re not challenging your self enough with cardio

Sticking with the same aerobic workout can sabotage your results as much as pushing too hard.  To truly boost your fitness (which enables you to burn more calories with less effort), you need to venture outside your comfort zone a couple of times a week, to the point where you’re somewhat winded and can feel your heart pounding.

4. You perform your reps too quickly when strength training

When you use momentum instead of muscle power, you don’t stimulate the muscles properly.  You’ll also be more susceptible to injuries.

5. You avoid resistance training or don’t do it properly

If you don’t challenge your muscles with resistance training, you could be selling yourself short.  When you train with weights or other forms of resistance, you see improvements in strength, tone and bone density.  If you lift weights that are too light, you won’t see these improvements.  If you lift weights that are too heavy, you’ll compromise proper form, increasing your risk of injury.

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Why not stop by and see us?  Our trainers will evaluate your program and put you on the right track to success. Contact us today

Reduce Your Health Care Costs TODAY!

While the President and Congress debate health insurance coverage for every American, you can start your own personal Heath Care Reform right now. There are steps you can take today that make a tremendous difference to your health—and they don’t cost a thing. In fact, we’ve created a Health Reform plan that will save you unnecessary trips to the doctor and keep more money in your pocket.

Remember these 4 factors when considering your health: how much exercise you get, daily food choices, how you reduce stress, and how your lifestyle affects all three. Here are some quick tips from your friends at Nimble Fitness to reform your health today and immediately reduce your personal health care costs—and oh, you’ll feel a lot better too!

1. Reduce health risks by taking care of your physical self

You’ve probably heard this before, but it bears repeating–consistent exercise makes your body function better, makes your immune system stronger and helps you reduces stress. Here’s something you may not have heard: you don’t have to work out like Lance Armstrong to benefit from exercise. Research has shown again and again that moderate exercise, as simple as a brisk walk 15 to 30 minutes a day, substantially changes your risk profile, lowers inflammation around your heart and digestive system, and reduces stress. Exercise 2-3 times a week by doing 15-30 minutes of cardio (e.g. walking, swimming, biking, hiking), some basic strength training (e.g. squats, presses, core exercises) and maintaining flexibility with light stretching or basic yoga poses.

2. Eat better for more energy and a stronger immune system

Follow Nimble’s simple nutrition rules.

If it’s white, and it’s been commercially processed, don’t eat it! We’re talking white flour, white sugar and milk. All of which are often over-processed or “enhanced.” Choose 100% unprocessed sea salt to season foods, and when you want to use sugar, try a healthier substitute, such as organic agave nectar. If you must consume dairy, choose Certified Organic whenever possible.

Check food labels. If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it! Processed foods and oils are not your friend. The longer a food’s shelf life, the more preservatives it has. The more preservatives, the greater risk to your health. Also, use vegetable oils such as soybean, corn, safflower and cottonseed sparingly; they are liberally used in a lot of processed foods and are a leading cause of excess inflammation in your body, which can contribute to inflammation-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

Get back to eating real, whole, nutritious vegetables, fruits, meats and grains. Choose organic whenever possible—whether it’s beef or chicken, or colorful fruits and veggies. Avoid overcooking your vegetables and stay away from dried fruits, which are stripped of most of their nutrients.

3. Stress Reduction

There are two very simple strategies for stress reduction that can be employed anytime, anywhere: practice slow breathing and drink more water.

Breathing, at its essence, is simplicity itself: it’s the first thing we learn to do. By simply stopping to focus on your breath, you’re turning off your mind’s spin cycle of thoughts, worries, and errands. Sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and feel your breath start to slow down and even out. Picture your breath moving through your body, in through your nose, out through your mouth. By focusing on your breath, you’re also naturally tapping into the parasympathetic part of your Autonomic Nervous System, the part that helps you rest and repair.

Staying hydrated is just as easy as slow breathing, and just as important. Water serves all vital bodily functions: carrying nutrients to your cells, aiding in digestion, flushing the body of wastes, and keeping your kidneys healthy. Water also keeps your moisture-rich organs (skin, eyes, mouth, and nose) functioning well, lubricates your muscles and cushions your joints, and regulates your body temperature and metabolism. The more efficiently your organs and digestive system function, the better you’re able to manage stress. Remember to drink quality, filtered water throughout your day.

4. Lifestyle Management

The top three lifestyle risk factors for Americans are smoking, high blood pressure and obesity–all preventable. It should be pretty clear by now that if you are a smoker you are seriously damaging your health and shortening your life span. We encourage you to look into the many different options that are available to help you begin the process of quitting. If you’re carrying around too much weight, as a lot of Americans are, not only are you at risk for cardiovascular disease, but everyday activities such as climbing stairs or even playing with your children become unnecessarily stressful on your body. Other lifestyle factors, such as limiting alcohol consumption, lowering caffeine intake, and getting enough sleep, will all contribute to your well-being. It’s easy to underestimate the need for quality sleep, but the truth is that none of this stuff we talked about can be accomplished if you aren’t getting enough sleep at night. You need energy to be able to change and it’s during sleep that we recharge our mind and body.

The equation is simple: exercise, plus good food choices, plus quality rest, means better health for you. That means fewer visits to the doctor and less need for prescription medicine, which ultimately means more money in your pocket!

Basic Plank Series

The Plank is a static exercise for strengthening the abdominals, back and shoulders.  This isometric  exercise is important for stabilizing the trunk  and creates a bracing effect, which works all the abdominal muscles.  When doing any variation of the plank, make sure to remember to breath while contracting your abdominals.   This video demonstrates 3 different types of planks – from easiest to most difficult…

Beginner Plank

Lie on your stomach and raise yourself up so you’re resting on your forearms and knees.  Hold this position for 15 – 30 seconds.  Lower and repeat for 2-3 reps.

•    Keep your elbows under your shoulders
•    Keep your neck and back flat, in a straight line from head to knees
•    Hold your abs tight by drawing your belly button in
•    Remember to breath throughout the exercise

Intermediate Plank

Raise yourself up so you’re resting on your forearms and toes.
Hold this position for 30 – 60 seconds.  Lower and repeat for 3-4 reps.

•    Keep your elbows under your shoulders
•    Keep your neck and back flat, in a straight line from head to your toes
•    Hold your abs tight by drawing your belly button in
•    Remember to breath throughout the exercise

Advanced Plank

Brace your elbows on the center of a stability ball with your body extended and toes on the ground.  Hold this position for 30 – 60 seconds.  Lower and repeat for 3-4 reps.

•    Keep your elbows under your shoulders
•    Do not let the ball move under you
•    Keep your neck and back flat, in a straight line from head to your toes
•    Hold your abs tight by drawing your belly button in
•    Remember to breath throughout the exercise

Healthy Steps for a Busy Work Week

Here’s your daily step-by-step guide to better health.

As soon as you wake up…
Set yourself up for a healthy and happy day by aligning your thoughts with positive energy and reciting a few simple declarations. This lays the foundation for emotional health and facilitates positive subconscious thinking.

• I move through my day effortlessly and with abundant energy
• I eat healthy and feel strong
• I am confident and empowered
• I am successful in all that I set out to do

Immediately after, close your eyes and take a few deep, 3-dimensional breaths. Feel your stomach expand then your ribcage from back to front and right to left. As you inhale through your nose, feel both the stomach and ribcage expand. Slowly exhale through your mouth, allowing your body to relax. Lastly, drink a glass of water as part of your morning ritual. This will replace the fluid, which was lost during the night and start the daily process of hydration.

Before you leave for work…
Eating a nutritious breakfast is important for good health. Resent studies suggest that people who eat breakfast have better control of their weight and are healthier overall than those who don’t. Breakfast provides your body with the energy needed to begin functioning efficiently and thinking clearly. Eating a good breakfast will kick start your metabolism and have you feeling alert and ready by the time you reach the office.

On your way out the door…
Take a look at your bag or briefcase. First thing you should do is remove any unnecessary items that may be adding extra weight. The repetitive loading of heavy bags can lead to neck, shoulder and back problems. Pay attention to how you carry your bag. We suggest switching hands or shoulders throughout your commute to avoid neck and shoulder strain. For those of you who have to carry something heavy for work—a laptop or tools for example–a backpack is a good alternative to a shoulder bag, as it will distribute weight evenly across your shoulders.

During your commute…
Take the stairs whenever possible to develop stronger legs and increase the circulation of blood and oxygen through your body. When you’re on the train or bus, you can strengthen other muscles by doing isometric work–contracting and holding different parts of your body as you travel between stations. Start by holding your abs tight for 10 seconds. After that, squeeze your glutes (butt cheeks) together. Hold the handrail and pull tight to flex your arms and shoulders. Alternate different muscles every station, and you’ll definitely feel your muscles have worked by the time you reach your destination. Another Nimble note: you can add some cardiovascular exercise to your day by simply getting off one stop sooner and walking the rest of your commute. Do this for a month, and you’ll burn around 1,000 extra calories! This is a great way to strengthen your heart and lungs.

Before Lunch…
Get up out of your chair every 30 minutes and stretch by reaching your arms to the ceiling. Take another series of deep, 3 dimensional breaths. Hold your arms out in front of you and gently bend your wrist back and forth. Roll your shoulders forward, then back to reduce tension. Remember to drink plenty of water, too. Keep a bottle at your desk and fill it often. Staying hydrated will help you stay alert and keep your metabolism fired up.

Lunch time…
If you’ve been following our advice you have had quite an active day so far and should be pretty hungry by now. Choosing the right lunch is important. Avoid high-sugar foods and meals with too many carbohydrates, like heavy pastas and breads, which can zap your energy and cause you to crash later. Choose brown rice over white. Have grilled chicken or fish added to a salad, rather than a sandwich. And watch out for unhealthy, high-calorie dressings! If you can, save the last 15 minutes of your lunch break for a casual walk. This will aid your body in digestion and can also help reduce heartburn.

The rest of your day…
Continue to drink water and do a quick stretch every 30 minutes. If you can take a break, go for a quick walk in the office or around the block. Some kind of movement will open up the circulation in your legs and help prevent lower back pain associated with sitting for long periods.

On your way Home…
Take the time on your way home to decompress from the challenges and stresses of your workday. Bring your attention to your breath, and gradually breath out any tension you’re carrying with you. Re-align your thoughts to a positive frame of mind, so you can enjoy quality time with your family and friends.

Great lower back exercise?

Don’t laugh, but during your next exercise session try crawling.  Crawling is a neurologically important activation exercise that connects your left and right brains, while also working the smaller stabilizing muscles of the spine. When these muscles are active and strong, the result is more support for your spine and less lower-back discomfort. Start on all fours, making sure your belly doesn’t dip too far towards the floor, and begin crawling, starting with the right arm and left leg.  Work your way across a carpeted floor and always focus your eyes on the forward hand.  Try crawling backward to your starting position.  Trust us- it’s not as easy as you think.

Wordology

Words have power! At Nimble Fitness we share with our clients the idea of Wordology. The non-conscious often does not know the difference between what you truly want and the words and ideas you are just playing around with. All of your thoughts get filed in the oneness of the non-conscious, so we ask clients to choose words that align with their life vision. Why not? Through what we have learned in our past, we often create habits or conditions that we live by that no longer serve us. These words we say over and over carry major energy and shape our perception. For example, I had a client that often stated “Every time I walk into the gym, I believe I’m moving forward in my journey to health,” and another that would often discount the work he did if it was not of a certain duration or intensity. He would often state that he could never do enough. Which client do you think progressed faster in his program? The point I would like to make is this: Are you setting yourself up for failure or success? Make the promise to yourself to use words that support you in success and believe it! Why not? Namaste

Stretching Tips / Part I

I recently attended three stretching seminars, all taught by experienced health and fitness educators, on three consecutive weekends. One seminar focused on stretching muscles that are tight, one focused on activation for muscles that are weak, and the third dealt with how both approaches can be effective. There are many different ways to effectively stretch, so to make sense of all that information, it might be helpful to start by saying this: not everyone responds the same way to stretching, and not every body needs every stretch.

Here are some key questions to ask yourself before you stretch: What is your own physical set-up? Are you chronically tight, hyper-mobile through the joints, or somewhere in between? Are there some muscles that are always tight, while others never seem to tighten up? And how flexible do you need to be? The first step in effective stretching is to know your own body. If you have hyper-mobile joints and are loose already, you’ll create problems for yourself if you continue to stretch muscles that are already flexible. Sorry, no yoga classes for you …unless you’re experienced and really know how to balance strength with openness in each pose. Believe it or not, your goal in stretching or yoga should never be to stretch every muscle group as far as you can—because becoming too flexible in many cases can cause weakness. If your muscles are on the tighter side, its important to raise your own awareness to what is a safe limit for stretching your muscle tissue.

Another key concept is using stretching as an effective way to reset muscle length. Often, when we stretch at the end of a workout, the most effective thing we can do is reset tight muscles to their resting length, which maintains balance through your body and just feels good. In other words, stretching doesn’t always have to be about creating new length in muscle tissue. Here are some Nimble foundation principles for effective stretching:

*When you’re stretching, use this guiding principle: Being strong and limber is ultimately about having stability in your joints and freedom of movement around a healthy spine, not about how far you can stretch. Don’t sacrifice the health of your spine or your joints just to push your tissue a little bit further.

*Think balance when you stretch! Be aware of where you’re tighter—front to back, right to left, top to bottom—and spend more time stretching the tighter side. Seek balance in your stretches. Think about balance also in your twisting stretches.

*Your breath is vital in the process of relaxing muscle and fascial tissue. Your breath will help you focus your awareness and open up muscle tissue. Exhaling helps relax the muscle you’re stretching, allowing you to take it into a deeper stretch.

*There’s no need to do static stretches before playing a sport or an intense workout. In fact, it can be counter-productive, making your muscles less neurally active. Static stretching, where the stretch is held in one position, is much more effective post exercise, because warm muscle tissue is easier to stretch. Before sports or intense workouts, we recommend muscular activation exercises and doing a more dynamic warm-up that will prepare muscles to handle more stress.

*Active stretching is OK before sports and workouts. Active stretching is moving through a particular range of motion repeatedly, allowing the muscle tissue to gradually warm up and lengthen to a greater range of motion. For example, a baseball player will swing the bat from side to side in a gentle arc, gradually increasing the range of motion with each swing. You use the same approach for your warm up, moving your legs and arms gently through different planes of motion to prep for exercise.

So! In this article, we just scratched the surface of the when, where and why of stretching. Next month we will continue to discuss effective stretching techniques.

LIVE HEALTHY NOW!
Daniel Lucas / Keith Paine

The Easiest Exercise Program Ever!

Lets face it, if you live in this city (or any other urban jungle), finding the time to exercise is challenging. You might even argue that it’s impossible. What if I told you it wasn’t- that not only do I have an exercise program that’s easy but also one that will only take up 10 minutes of your time and have you walking more than 260 miles!

I know it sounds crazy but it’s true. This exercise program cost nothing. It doesn’t require any special clothing and involves absolutely no equipment. You do it on your way to and from work, and it only takes 10 minutes. Best of all you’ll increase your cardiovascular fitness, lose almost 8 lbs of body fat and feel better instantly.

“What is it”, you ask? It involves simply getting off one stop sooner on your bus or train commute and walking the rest of the way… Yes, you read correctly – get off one stop before your station and WALK the rest of the way to work.

Hear me out! Subway and bus stops are spaced 8-9 city blocks apart. Since 20 city blocks equal approximately 1 mile, you’ll be effectively walking a half-mile by getting off one stop sooner. Do the same for your commute home and you’ll have walked a mile or more. Even at a relatively modest pace of 3.0 mph it will take just 10 minutes each way. There really is no excuse not to try this. Even if it is summertime, the morning temperature should be cool enough that you won’t sweat through your clothes. This is less of an issue going home, where you can easily shower and change.

Follow this program and in one week you will have walked 5 miles and burned an extra 240 calories. It doesn’t sound like a lot but make this your daily routine and in one year you will have burned off enough calories to equal almost 8 lbs of body fat. Best of all you’ll have walked an extra 260 miles, increasing your cardiovascular fitness and making you look and feel healthier.

-Antonio