So you’ve decided to keep fit. That’s a great decision. Here are 10 things you should do to achieve your goal

1. Set out your fitness goals

What do you plan to achieve, what duration are you planning to achieve these goals. Examples are; setting out to loose 25 pounds/11kgs in 6 months, having a great body a year from now, being healthy. Whatever it might be, there must be a purpose for wanting to be fit. This is what will keep you going when you feel like quitting.

2. Wake up early

The best time to do fitness is in the morning when you feel refreshed and energized. This might not be convenient for some if you wake up early to go to work. Well you can wake up earlier, say at 6 a.m in the morning. Set your alarm clock to this time.
Early in the morning is the best time to do fitness as this is when you feel like doing anything in general.

3. Do stretching exercises

Stretch yourself first. Get a fitness or a yoga mat for your convenience.

4. Start Jogging

Jogging is an ideal weight-loss exercise that helps you burn calories at a high rate. It can be done on a threadmill or classically outside.

5. Start doing Push ups.

Push ups on its own has several advantages which includes;

- improving your core strength
- enhancing your cardiovascular system
- increasing your whole body muscle mass
- improving your posture
- protecting your shoulders from injury
- preventing lower back injuries

Doing push ups might be challenging at first.
Don’t try to start big with push ups, this might make you tired throughout the rest of the day. That’s not what we want. We want to do as much push ups that will keep us going throughout the day.

You can start with as little as three or five. Then try to improve over time. Let’s say you start with five this week, try doing seven the next week, 10 after two weeks and so on. Very soon you will reach a plateau say 40 and that’s Okay. So far you are persistent with it, you will get results.

6. Start doing sit ups

This helps to strengthen and firm up the rectus abdominus muscles, commonly known as the “six pack” muscle. This alone won’t help to reduce the amount of fat in your tummy. It’s necessary to combine this with healthy diet and high intensity exercises such as jogging, running, cycling and swimming to reduce abdominal fat.

Same as with push ups start small and with time improve on the amount you do per workout session.

7. Drink water frequently

Our body is composed of about 60% water. Drinking enough water helps boost our metabolism, energize our muscles, cleanse our body of waste and act as an appetite suppressant. This is of vital importance when trying to lose weight.

8. Get enough sleep

Our body grows when we sleep. This means that enough sleep will give the body enough time to grow into the kind of shape we want it to. Sleep is very vital. Growth hormone is released when we sleep.

9. Eat healthy

Eating healthy can be difficult. You can start with reducing the amount of junk food you eat, replacing sugary drinks with water and eating fruits frequently.

Try eating at a specific time of the day. For example, breakfast at 8 a.m, not later than 10 a.m, Lunch at 2 p.m, not later than 4 p.m, dinner at 8 p.m not later than 10 p.m. This will train your body metabolism, improve digestion and avoid eating excess calories.

Try avoid eating late night snacks as much as possible as this is not ideal for you and will only give you excess calories. The body metabolizes food slower at night than during the day.

10. Be consistent
Consistency is key. This is true for anything you set out to do in life. Do it enough and eventually you will start seeing results.

You can decide to do fitness every day, 2 or 3 times a week, every two days or as you wish.

Don’t overdo it. You should have a time frame for fitness, for example 15 minutes every day, 30 minutes every two days.

You don’t have to start with all of these. You can start with whichever is convenient for you and as time goes on, you can add more and more fitness regimen into your schedule.

Read more

http://abcstrength.com/2018/08/21/fitness-basics-start-with-these-10-things-first/