The World’s Fittest You: Harness the Power of Interval Training-and Get On the Road to Fitness in Just One Month

Joe Decker

ISBN 0-451-21401-3

Amazon link

Joe Decker’s The World’s Fittest You is my favorite guide for weight loss/exercise. He includes the following ten steps to healthy eating:

(1) Follow a schedule for eating, (5 times daily),

(2) Downsize everything and follow the allotted portions,

(3) Drink water–don’t substitute water for food,

(4) Read the label for all foods (especially pay attention to the size of the portion that is chosen to list the calories, etc.),

(5) Give your refrigerator a make-over,

(6) Substitute the good for the bad,

(7) Keep track of your emotion triggers (food is often used to comfort and ease our emotional pains–Joe recommends keeping an eating log),

(8) Take control of all your eating–think before every time you
eat to make the right choices,

(9) Plan ahead–”A kitchen without food is a fattening one”,

(10) Reward yourself–he suggests Sundays for little treats.

The largest part of the book is devoted to his FIT equation. He doesn’t like the word “exercise” so he calls them activities. These routines fight the biggest reason that we quit working out–sheer boredom. FIT is included in many other exercise books and stands for F (frequency), I (intensity) and T (time). The three types of activities are cardio exercises, strength training and stretching (flexibility).

One of the workouts he includes is a workout at the playground which includes warm up, strength, and cardio which is varied and fun to do. He includes recipes and activities–all types–for 30 days and recommends doing an activity log as well as food log.

Workouts for Dummies

Tamilee Webb

ISBN 0-7645-5124-8

Amazon link

From How This Book is Organized:

1) Part I: Getting Started—is about getting motivated to begin exercise on a regular basis.

2) Part II: My Body Type’s Best Workout

Choose your body type from the diagrams for mesomorph,

ectomorph or endomorph.

3) Part III: Upper-Body Workouts

Pick and choose your favorite exercises to put in your personal

workout program.

4) Part IV: Lower-Body Workouts

She includes exercises to tone and tighten your lower body

5) Special Workouts at Home, on the Road, in the Office, or at the Gym

Also included are specialty workouts with bands and tubes, plus

programs for seniors and moms-to-be

6) Part VI: The Part of Tens

This chapter is a resource center for information on health and

fitness. She lists her Top 10 videos plus her 10 favorite books

and her favorite exercises.

7) Part VII: Appendixes

the final chapter contains an exercise program chart and lists of

great Web sites.

Cardiovascular exercise:

• Always warm up and cool down when you are finished.
• Perform 20 minutes of exercise, 3-5 times per week.
• Keep your exercise at a low to moderate intensity, approximately 35-65% of your maximum heart rate.
• Choose low-impact exercises such as walking, swimming, bicycling, using a stair climber, low-impact dance aerobics, and chair aerobics.

Muscle-conditioning exercise:

• Perform 20-30 minutes of resistance training exercises, a minimum of 2 times per week.
• Perform one exercise for each muscle group with at least one set of 8-10 repetitions.
• Choose 8-10 different muscle groups to exercise for each workout.
• Use relatively light weights or bands, and try to gradually increase the number of repetitions of each exercise to increase your muscle endurance.
• Flexibility is important at every age and can help prevent injury, so aim for a goal of stretching after your workout to keep yourself limber.

The Senior Band Workout: the following exercises are to be done with an exercise band. The bands provide a variable resistance so the resistance changes throughout the motion of your exercise.

• Seated front-thigh extension
• Seated outer-thigh extension
• Seated inner-thigh leg lift
• Standing back-thigh curl
• Chess presses
• Seated upright row
• Upper-back pullback
• Upper-arm press back
• Seated arm curl
• Upper-back strengthener
• Abdominal curl

Move Your Body Tone Your Mood

Kate F. Hayes

ISBN 1-57224-275-2

Amazon link

Kate Hays has created what she called “the workout therapy wookbook”. In the introduction she requests that you adopt two actions from the beginning: 1) thinking of yourself as an investigator or searcher for truth, and 2) making a commitment to one form of sedentary activity—wring out your thoughts.

The table of contents reveals what this book suggests:

“But I thought therapy was all talk.” How exercise can be your

therapy

1) Starting on your path

2) Why exercise is good for your head as well as your heart

3) “What’s in it for me? Getting started doing exercise

4) Designing your exercise plan

How to be therapeutic to yourself through exercise

5) Stress busing and mind calming

6) Getting up when you’re feeling down: overcoming inertia and

And changing your mood

7) Feeling strong and capable: self-esteem and competence

The poetry of the sunrise: clear and creative thinking

“Now what?” Maintaining your gains

9) Keeping going….and getting going again

10)“But it felt so good!”: Overcoming exercise

11)Is food eating you?

12)Being female, being active

Taking a “fearless inventory”: review and reflection

13)When exercise isn’t enough: exercise and therapy

14)A final exercise

Yoga for Weight-Loss: The Effective 4-Week Slimming Plan for Body, Mind and Spirit

Celia Hawe

ISBN 0-7607-5454-3

Amazon link

In the introduction, Celia Hawe writes this short overview of the book:

“My Yoga for Weight-Loss program will help you to lose fat effortlessly and permanently.

All you have to do is:

1) Learn a few easy postures

2) Challenge your present thinking

3) Follow an easy detox eating plan

It works because:

1) It alters your way of thinking

2) It identifies areas of your life that needs to “lose weight”

3) The eating plan is practical, easy-to-follow, and guarantees results”

She has the following chapter topics:

1) What is Yoga?

2) Guidelines for successful practice

3) Let’s begin: the essential warm-up

4) Success: the choice is yours

5) Think big!

6) Learning to love and forgive

7) Believe in yourself

Positive communication

9) Feeling fulfilled

10) Letting go

11) Eat to energize

12) The 28-day detox and eating plan

Power-boosting tips

Frequently asked questions

Points to ponder

Resources

The postures: a quick-reference guide

You need to check on all parts of your physical health before undertaking a new fitness program. Generally, it is recommended that you check with your doctor who knows the state of your physical health.

It also is a good idea to keep a workbook with the following test results:

1) Body Mass Index is an indicator of how your weight and height can determine the body fat you have.

For example, a BMI of 30 or more can directly affect your health by 50-150%. This website also has a calculator that adjusts the BMI for age which will give you the weight percentile which compares you to other Americans.

2) Always check the estimated calorie requirements to see how you are maintaining your present weight. Regardless of what you believe you are eating, the figure of daily calories yu are consuming will help to keep your food intact in the reality of calories consumed.

2) On one page you can (a) calculate the distance, time, pace and speed, (b) calculate the BMI (Body Mass Index), (c) calculate your target heart rate, and (d) calculate you body fat percentage.

3) You may be interested in learning the calories expended for different types of exercise.

4) Understanding your training heart rate by Vicki Pearson includes the talk test which is universally used. It means that if you can easily talk during exercise, the exercise may be too easy, if your talk is gasping and hard to do, the exercise is too hard. Taking the count of your heart is easy also. Be sure to measure your heart rate when resting and check the appropriate training heart rate according to your age. She introduces the Karvonen Formula which is the most affective.

5) Be sure to monitor your heart rate by checking it before, during, and after exercise. Check your pulse at your neck, wrist, or temple with two of your fingers. Don’t use the thumb which has a pulse of its own. Know your target heart rate for your age and don’t go beyond 70% of it. If you ever feel dizzy or lightheaded, stop immediately to give your body time to regroup. Live down on your back. Don’t fall for the “no pain, no gain” mindset. Exercise should be done with exertion that is comfortable and enjoyable.

6) If you are interested in learning how to exercise at your desk, this site gives several suggestions.

Relaxation learning stems from needing to free the body of our mental and emotional trigger points. You are the only person who can identify your trigger points. Keep a written record of the situations that may you tense. Notice yourself getting tense sometimes before anything has happened.

By learning simple physical exercises, you can combine these with mental and emotional techniques to begin calming yourself during your tense times. Stress is directly proportional to your letting go of all the experiences over which you have no control.

If you know the God of your understanding, letting go is much easier than holding on to resentments or control issues. But, even if you haven’t made the commitment about God, you can practice the following exercises.

My physical tension center is my neck and upper shoulders.

If I ignore my discomfort, the tension only gets worse. I practice these:

• Sit on a chair and slowly allow your upper body to lean toward the floor and then slowly sit upright again. This can be practice anywhere you have a chair.
• Always do neck exercises slowly and gently. Slowly rotate your neck to the left and right. Ease yourself into the discomfort you find there. After rotating your neck, you may choose to bend your neck from left to right and then reverse it.
• A third exercise to roll your neck slowly in a circular motion being very careful to do it slowly. I do a few rotations clockwise and then do a few counterclockwise.
• To help strengthen and relax your back, sit on a chair and slowly clasp your hands behind the chair. You will feel tension in your upper arms also.
• Also for the back, you may practice the shoulder shrug by lifting your shoulders up and then slowly lowering them.

Often times, poor posture can aid the tension that you feel. To evaluate your posture, stand with your body facing away from the wall. Ease yourself gently toward the wall to see which part of your body touches the wall first. Then practice bringing your body aligned better without arching your back.

The upper back needs to be strengthened daily in order to help the neck and back. One exercise to help the upper back is to lie face down on the floor. Gently raise your upper body from the floor. Be careful to be gentle with yourself and repeat this stretching exercise several times.

Boredom is the main reason that people desert an exercise program. After the first few weeks of an exercise program, anyone will begin to feel better. Endorphins, the good-feeling hormone secreted by the brain, are released with exercise.

Interval training beats the boredom as it incorporates several types of exercise. Switching the exercises daily as well as the length of time for each exercise and reps (repetitions). The basic types of exercise that need to be included in a program are: (1) cardio exercise (need to be done 3 times weekly) builds endurance , (2)strength-training exercise

builds muscle(needs to de done daily, and (3) stretching exercises(need to be designed to include all the major muscle groups 3 times weekly).

As I have stated elsewhere, I use Joe Decker’s The World’s Fittest You. His website is here. He uses the FIT Equation from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).The FIT Equation shands for F (frequency), I(intensity), and T (time).

The World’s Fittest You also has a believable food program. The main guidance Decker gives, becuase he used to be seriously overweight, is to measure your food. I bought 12 1/2 cup measures and that is how I regulate what I eat. Remember a stomach is about the size of a fist. I measure my food and have a food program that includes several of my favorite foods. Food is not my enemy and neither am I.

Take tests to measure your flexibility, endurance, and strength. Some tests are here, here, here, and here. Oprah has a great boot camp. Oprah in “Oprah Makes a Commitment” article at her site, tells how after she had spent three years getting her dream home built in California. Then she looked out over the gorgeous property and told herself that “she did not want to be a unhealthy fat person standing in the doorway of this beautiful house”. She practices a varied exercise program that she does daily. Exercise to her now is in the same category as taking a bath or brushing her teeth–she just does it. No more maybe or later or someday or do I feel like it. She just does it and everyone can tell that she does. She looks great and I bet she feels great. And you can, too.

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A basic daily exercise plan:

Deep breathing—10 minutes daily

Walk 30 minutes daily.

MONDAY 20 minute endurance

TUESDAY 10 minute strength

WEDNESDAY 20 minute endurance

THURSDAY 10 minute strength

FRIDAY 20 minute endurance

SATURDAY Add 30 minute extra walk—Do Am and PM

Keep the results of the following in your food/exercise journal and redo the results every 4-6 weeks

Check with a doctor before beginning

Measurements: waist, chest, hips, upper and lower arm and leg

Waist measurement: men-more than 40 and women-more than 35 considered to be health risks

BMI (Body Mass Index) at risk at 25-35

Measure for the following:

Flexability

Physical fitness

Knee push-ups-how many push-ups can you do

Endurance

1 mile walk—count your heart rate before you begin. Place your fingers on the side of your neck. Count the pulses in 15 second intervals and multiply this number by 4.

After the walk-take your heart rate before you begin. Write it down and complete your walk. After the walk, write down how long the walk too. Also record your heart rate and record it also.

Heart rate can also be measured quickly by taking your pulse for six seconds and adding a zero to your pulse.

Develop exercise modules using the following suggestions:

15-20 minutes each

Types of exercise included:

For balance,

For flexability

For endurance

For strength

Goals for exercise:

Weight loss

Improve health

Focus on parts of the body

Gain energy

Self-esteem

Toning exercises

Fighting a Sedentary Lifestyle:

Every hour do something physical

Intensity of workout—should be able to talk freely during exercise

Food isn’t the problem—inactivity is

Workout aids-

Have an exercise partner

Wear bright, fun clothes