Archive for January, 2010
Lose Weight by Becoming More Active
You can lose weight by simply being more active. That’s right, forget exercise or diet, you can lose weight by simply being more active! Of course, diet and exercise are great and would greatly speed up your weight loss, but you can still lose some weight by simply changing the things you do in your free time from passive to active. So instead of watching TV you’d go to a museum, instead of watching “Danceing with the stars” you’d go to a club and dance yourself!
There are two reasons why this works. The first one is obvious – by increasing the amount of physical activity you do you will burn more calories. The more physically demanding something is, the more calories you’ll burn. Which is why dancing is a great way to have some fun and burn some calories!
The other reason for it works is because you will eat less if you are more active. I am not sure what the reason for this is, but it’s true. If you are doing something actively and enjoying it, you don’t feel hungry. Think back to when you were a kid, when you played basketball with friends, you didn’t feel hungry in the middle of the game did you? Chances are you didn’t even feel hungry after the game. On the other hand if you are doing something passive, like watching TV, then you just seem to gravitate towards the kitchen for a snack now and then. Even though you don’t really feel hungry, it just seems to happen!
So become more active and lose some weight! It’s quite simple too, just go for a walk a few times a week, take some dance or yoga classes, check out a locale museum or gallery etc etc. By making these simple changes you could lose a surprising amount of weight!
The Dangers of Weight Lifting
Weight lifting is an excellent method for building muscles, getting a nice toned body and losing weight. It has many pros compared to other methods (like running for weight loss) a work out can be pretty short yet very effective, it’s easy to scale up or down depending on your fitness level. There are many different exercise so you will never get bored of doing the same thing. Different exercise allow you to target different muscle groups – letting you sculpt your body the way you want it.
Yet for all it’s pros there is a major con – weight lifting can be dangerous! The danger comes from the fact that many of the most effective exercise involve compound movements, and require good technique to perform. Do them with bad technique and you risk suffering an injury, either right away or eventually (depending on the weight you use and just how wrong your technique is.)
Also, unlike body weight exercise, where you can get injured by in most cases you will see a potential injury coming a long way before you get injured. And most injuries are some variation of pulling a muscle and comes from doing many repetitions of a given exercise. In contrast with weight lifting you can potentially get a serious injury in just one move. It doesn’t even have to be a heavy lift, even moderate amount can cause a serious injury if your technique is wrong enough.
This shouldn’t stop you from incorporating weight lifting into your work outs, as it is very, very effective. It does however mean that you should learn the technique before you jump in, this is especially vital for guys who have a tendency of going for heavy weights to “see how much I can lift.” So learn the technique first, using very, very low weights to practice moves (a broomstick is a popular replacement for barbell to learn technique.)
If you are serious about using weight lifting as your main exercise method, then joining a gym that has a weight lifting program or joining some classes where a certified instructor will teach you the correct technique is a good idea. Although you can teach yourself fairly well by watching instructional videos on youtube just try to learn why the move is done a certain way, in addition to learning how to do it.
