How to Develop a Hard Workout for Yourself to Help You Lose Weight

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Excercise has many benefits: it can help you maintain a healthy weight, elevate mood, enhance self-esteem, and lower your risk for a variety of diseases. Here is how to come up with a challenging workout you can stick with.

Steps

1. Start small If you try to leap into a difficult workout regimen without any prior experience, you'll likely end up frustrated or injured. Instead, set managable goals, such as 20 minutes of jogging a day for a week, and increase these the length and difficulty as you become more fit.
   
2. Focus on aerobic excercise Aerobic excercise will help your body burn fat. Strength training, while beneficial, will cause you to gain weight in muscle and may not reduce your body fat as effectively.
   
3. Mix it up If you do the same workout each day, you'll quickly get bored. Try different activities, such as swimming, hiking, yoga, or canoeing to keep yourself engaged.
   
4. Set Goals For example, try to log a certain number of hours or miles each week, and reward yourself with a funtreat, like a foot massage or a day at the beach, when you meet it.
   
5. Focus on Personal Improvement Instead of comparing your performance to others or to an imaginary ideal, praise yourself for improvements you make.
   
6. Get a Workout Partner A partner can provide encouragement and push you to work harder. Just be sure to do the same for them!
   
7. Customize Your Workout Know your body and what excercises are best for you. For example, if you have bad knees, you might want to try swimming as an aerobic workout instead of jogging. Pick activities that you enjoy.
   
   • An example of a workout:
     
   
   
8. 10 minutes warmup For example, jog or walk briskly.
   
9. 30 minutes aerobic excercise Jog, run, swim, kayak or bike
   
10. 10 minutes strength training Pushups, weight lifting, situps
    
11. 10 minutes cooldown Same as warmup
    

Tips

• Be sure to hydrate properly before and after your workout. Plain water is usually fine, but in hot conditions, add juice or sports drink to your water (ratio: 1/4 cup juice to 1 cup water).
  
• Wear proper clothing and supportive shoes. If you need help picking shoes or clothes, you can ask a sports store employee for help/
  
• Get proper nutrition. Even though you're trying to lose weight, your body needs nutrients to function optimally.
  

Warnings

• Watch out for obsessive behavior. If you or your workout partner is fixated on weight loss at the expense of your heath, get medical help.
  

Things You'll Need

• Persistance
  
• Good workout clothes and shoes
  
• A good friend
  
• Water
  
• A workout location
  

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