As Spock said, “live long and prosper”. That’s a good goal. The question most often asked is how do I know what to do and when to do it?

There are 3 components of getting fit and being health: nutrition, aerobic conditioning, and strength training. We all have a busy lifestyle, and as in anything that we want to do we must “make” (not find) the time. Is your health worth 1 hour a day? If you agree that it is then let’s develop a plan and the time blocks to accomplish our plan. For the purpose of this article, I will briefly touch on nutrition and weight training, but my main focus will be a time savings aerobic conditioning tip.

Step #A Nutrition.

Erase the word diet from your vocabulary and replace it with nutritional meal plan. Your body needs proper fuel to perform properly and that is what being healthy is all about. Make a list of what you eat, when you eat it and how much you eat. Analysis how many calories are from clean (good) foods and how many are from junk foods. Set a plan to reduce the junk and increase the good. Good foods would be: veggie, fruit, lean meats, whole grains. Shop and prepare your foods for the week on Sunday, this should take about 2 hours. Of course there is so much more to it than that, but begin gather information; a certified trainer or nutritional expert can be a valuable resource.

Step #B Weight training.

Obviously in lifting weights you build muscle and one benefit of building muscle is that it will increase your metabolism which burns calories and reduces your body fat percentage. Lifting weights is crucial to fitness and being healthy. Knowing how much to lift, how long to lift, when to increase the weight you’re lifting, and proper form is vital to a successful strength training program. Too many times people go into the gym unprepared and hurt themselves which set their effort way back, if not derail them totally. I strongly recommend working with a certified personal trainer, at least in the beginning until you know what you are doing.

Step # C Aerobic conditioning.

Typically when you hear aerobic conditioning or workout, you think of running, biking, fast walking, sports, and you would be correct. Most people who want to lose weight join a gym and do hours on the treadmill or the stair stepper. They get results at first, but then they plateau and have no idea why or what to do. They don’t know about adaptation or progression. Again, a trainer can save you so much time, money and frustration. But here are some suggestions that will help you along the way.

Choose an aerobic workout that you enjoy, you will stay with it longer. Realize that you have to get your heart rate into your target range to really be doing any good. A stroll is not the same as a fast walk or even running. The stroll is a good start, but increase your speed as your fitness level allows. Here is my time saving tip. If you are time challenged, I recommend you spend 3 times per week 30 minutes lifting weights and 30 minutes doing interval training. Interval training is a mixture of high intensity burst with low intensity periods for recovery. An easy example would be your stroll; you stroll for 5 minutes then burst into a sprint (fast walk at first) then back to the stroll until you get your breath (maybe 2-5 minutes) then sprint again. Repeat this pattern for 30 minutes. As you get more fit you will be able to maintain the burst longer and your stroll will be more of a fast walk. As you get more fit change it up, use the bike, the stair stepper, or other things. Interval training is an excellent compliment to weight training and increases muscle building and weight loss.

In summary, 3 hours work out, 2 hours of meal planning; that’s only 5 hours per week. As you get fit you will naturally want to do more so you can LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!!!