One Big Health Nut

Believe it or not, exercise does not have to be a dull and tedious ordeal. There are many ways to make it fun. Of course the method you choose to accomplish this goal depends on your fitness level and your exercise routine. Most activities can be tailored to fit your personal fitness needs and still be enjoyable at the same time.

For those of you that exercise at a gym or use home gym equipment, here are a few suggestions:

1. Try not to spend all of your time on the same piece of equipment. It becomes monotonous. Instead, vary your routine. If you normally spend twenty minutes running on the treadmill, try dividing the time on various machines. Spend ten minutes on the treadmill, then do ten minutes on the eliptical. This gives you the added benefit of surprising your body which could maximize your results.

2. If you are a fan of the treadmill and prefer to dedicate your work out on this particular machine, vary how you run. Don’t spend the entire time running forward. Yawn! Instead try skipping, running backwards, and running sideways. Even if you don’t find it more fun, the person next to you will be entertained. Just kidding!

3. Do a different exercise everyday. If you are at the gym, use a different machine daily. If you exercise at home, do a new video every day. You could rent them at the video store, buy new ones, or rent the free ones available on your cable On Demand menu.

For you gym-phobic individuals, try to choose an activity that you consider enjoyable. Exercise doesn’t have to be regimented. Take a vigorous bike ride with your kids on a bike trail at your local park. Jump on the trampoline behind your house with your kids. Swim laps in the pool. The trick is to find what works for you. And make sure whichever activity you choose, you perform it continuously and with enough vigor to raise your heart rate.

One very important thing to keep in mind is that all serving sizes are not created equal. This can be very significant for those of us that are calorie conscious. Most food packaging contains nutritional data on the back or side of the product. When looking at the packages, be sure to pay close attention to the serving size. One vending machine contained a Reeses Peanut Butter Cookie that reported it contained 225 calories per serving. Closer inspection of the nutrional information revealed that the serving size was 1/2 of a cookie. Anyone daring enough to eat the entire cookie would consume a massive 500 calories with just one snack.

The cookie is just one example of many. Even many bottled waters are following this trend. A very popular bottled water product claimed a meager 50 calories per serving. That seemed a little steep for water, but not so bad compared to other drink products. Until, once again, you look at the serving size. Each bottle of this particular water was considered to be 2.5 servings. So if you consume the entire bottle, you swallow 125 calories. The lesson here to remember, always look at the serving size of the product before you consume it. This way, if you choose to forego calorie counting and indulge, you can do so conservatively. No point in waisting your indulgence on water!