Well done for making it through week 1 of The Slimming Clinic’s Little Black Dress Challenge. With only 11 more weeks to go until Christmas, this week is going to focus on exercise.
If you’re not a naturally sporty person or perhaps haven’t done any new meaningful exercise since school, starting again can be quite daunting, especially if you’re not too sure where to begin. Here are some tips to help you fit more activities into your daily life and get back into the swing of things:
- Instead of driving short distances, take your time and walk to your destination. If you need to drive to work, park further away from where you usually do and walk the rest of the way.
- Exercise doesn’t always mean having to go the gym, especially if you don’t have the time. Help your family be more active and instead of spending the weekend in front of the TV, try going swimming, take a walk in the park or play in the garden. If you own bikes, why not go for a family bike ride? If the weather isn’t too great, have a dance party indoors. You will be able to spend some quality time with your family and get in some exercise.
- Walking is an easy and effective way to increase your activity. Instead of taking the lift, take the stairs. At home walk up and down the stairs, and gradually increase the amount of times you go up and down. Also try to increase your walking speed gradually each week.
- If you find activities such as walking to be quite dull, why not join a club? There are many dance or sport classes you can join or even a stretching exercise like yoga that can help you lead a more active lifestyle.
The addition of adding a few activities into your lifestyle can help prevent boredom that encourages eating junk food even when you don’t feel hungry. Although the addition of exercise to your lifestyle may make you feel a little hungrier than usual, please make sure to not compensate for your hard work with food that contains more calories than you have just burned. Try choosing some filling, but low calorie foods, such as fruits or low-fat yogurt.
Try some of these low calorie snacks for after exercising:
- Fruit salad comprising of 50g grapes, 50g apple and 100g tinned pineapple all chopped- 102 kcal
- 6 cups of microwave popcorn-100 kcal (Yes! You can still have this tasty movie night snack.)
- 28g of crunchy red pepper finger sticks- 9 kcal
- Fat free Greek yogurt with a drizzle of honey- 84 kcal
- Half a baked potato with salsa- 84 kcal
Some more tips on exercise:
- Be realistic about your goals. Set yourself achievable targets that can be met and improved upon each week to help keep your motivation up. Take things a few pounds at a time and be proud of yourself for each milestone you meet.
- Remember that success isn’t just measured in weight loss, even if the number on the scale doesn’t seem to go down, think about the following: Are your clothes a little looser? Does your skin feel tighter? Do you have a bit more energy? Are you able to walk up a particular flight of stairs without having to stop for a rest now? If so, then you are making progress in your fitness journey and keep going!
- Find a friend or relative to exercise with you so you don’t feel like you’re doing this alone.
- Plan ahead. Schedule your weekly exercise in the beginning of the week. Planning in advance will increase your chances of making physical activities a part of your lifestyle.
- Remember that when you first make a major lifestyle change to be flexible and factor in trial and error of activities you may not enjoy.