Most people are trying to lose weight, get toned and stay fit.  Many of the people I help motivate want to know how to get flat stomach and learn the best ways to get in shape.  On the other end of the spectrum, people are trying to find personal motivation for exercise and weight loss.  Some people do too much and some people do nothing.

It is an absolute waste of time to try to get more done in day.  It is the wrong idea to get more exercise done.  Let me illustrate in a little analogy.

Think about this, lets say your mother wants you to paint a room.  You set everything up, tape off the baseboards, cover the floor and have your primer and paint ready to go.  You cover yourself up to make sure you don’t ruin what you’re wearing.  After cleaning and sanding the wall you put one coat of primer and maybe a second coat. After it dries you put a coat of the actual paint for the room.  Then you find out that you painted the wrong room.

You got a lot done, but you find out you got a lot done in the wrong place. This can easily be applied to your fitness goals of losing weight, getting stronger and more fit.  You’re doing too much cardio when you should be doing more weight training; or it could be you’re doing too much weight training when you should be doing more cardio.  Maybe the type of cardio you’re doing isn’t the best type for your goal, but you’re getting a lot done.  I mean, 60 minutes of cardio is 60 minutes right?

In our career and business lives things are little more complicated.  If you work in any sales and production based business (or have in the past), you know how stressful things can get.  It’s very competitive out there and when you’re  trying to get to the top, 90% of goal isn’t good enough.  Small changes make the biggest difference. Here’s what I mean:

You could be doing a lot of the right things, but what you’re doing a lot of what isn’t ideal or optimal.  Your heart is in the right place, you’re pushing hard making an effort, but there is a better way.

The Best ways to stay in shape

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What is your major outcome?  If you were to accomplish this major outcome today, would it make make significant progress in the direction you want to go?  Will it make major improvement in your ultimate fitness, weight loss or six pack outcome?  (This is thanks to some old school self development gurus.)

To-do lists are crap, they are never ending.  You will never run out of things to do.

Time is finite and we must manage it wisely.  This means to do the things that matter most in our fitness programs (business and personal too!).  Want to know the best ways to stay in shape?  Here’s how you know what the best way is to lose the weight:

Whatever you’re doing least of is what you should be doing.

That is the best way to stay in shape.  It’s usually the best way to lose weight.  Everyone is different and our lives differ from day to day with a different set of demands and challenges. Without getting into the nitty and gritty of all the nerdy science of things I want to simplify things to the ridiculous. Get the most out of your time you spend in the gym (or working outside the gym) by doing what you’re least adapted to, as I’ve mentioned in the fastest way to lower your body fat article.

In fitness for weight loss, getting a flat stomach and getting in shape there are 2 types of exercise – cardio and strength training.  True strength training requires rest periods and
challenging weights.  You can integrate strength training with cardio with doing circuits or something similar to crossfit.  I personally love kettlebells for my non-running cardio needs.

 

The more specific your goal the more the specialized the information needs to be.  If you have a sport you’re trying to get better at like football, basketball, muay thai or brazilian jiu jitsu AND lose weight/build muscle your exercise selection and nutrition choice will differ greatly (especially if you are in-season or have a tournament coming up).  The key take away for everybody is that you must narrow in on what you want (know your goal) and focus on what activity that will make major movement on where you want to be in your fitness.

For the busy mom with 2 small children that could be 20 minute run and some push ups and situps.

For the marathon runner trying to lose weight, that could be some injury prevention like foam rolling and stability exercises.

For the Muay Thai, it could be specific movement drills or just sparing.

For the Crossfit athlete training for Crossfit Games, it could be (and usually is) heavy strength almost, power movements.

For the busy executive it could be some kettlebell swings with some moderate weighted push and pull strength exercises.
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