Exercising

1. Do some aerobic exercise every day! Try to do between 30 and 60 minutes of aerobic exercise (walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, aerobics, dancing etc) every day. However, if some days you can only do 15 minutes, that's still a lot better than doing nothing! Forget this twice-a-week stuff. Our bodies were designed to be active on a daily basis. When we're active our metabolism is super-charged and it also puts us in a healthy frame of mind.

2. Incorporate intervals into some of your aerobic exercise sessions. Intervals are brief periods (about one minute) of more intense exercise mixed into your regular aerobic exercise sessions. For example, if you're walking, you would do a one-minute interval of faster walking about every five minutes throughout your exercise session.

Here's how it will look: you start with your normal three to five minute warm-up and then five minutes into your workout you do your first interval, one minute of faster walking (or perhaps jogging). At the end of that minute, you should feel slightly out of breath and ready to slow down. You slow down to your normal exercising speed for the next four minutes and then your fifth minute is another one-minute interval. Continue this pattern throughout your exercise session and you'll derive several benefits:

- intervals increase your aerobic fitness level. While doing your interval you cross the anaerobic threshold into anaerobic metabolism, forcing your body to become conditioned to more intense exercise

- your increased level of fitness means that a given level of exercise will feel easier and that you will be able to exercise at a higher intensity which burns more calories

- your increased level of fitness also means that you will be less fatigued from daily activities and you'll have more "energy" throughout the day

- intervals increase your basal metabolic rate (BMR), causing you to burn more calories 24 hours a day

- intervals cause you to burn more calories during your exercise session and for several hours afterwards

- intervals will tone the involved muscles to a greater degree than your regular aerobic exercise would

- intervals can make your exercise less monotonous and help the time pass more quickly

- intervals can help you to get past a weight loss plateau

- intervals will energise you!

3. Tone your muscles with weight training at least twice a week. Toned muscles really boost your metabolism and cause you to burn more calories 24 hours a day - yes, even while you're sleeping you'll be burning more calories!

4. Always eat breakfast! Skipping breakfast sends a message to your body that you're "starving" because you haven't had food in 12+ hours. As a protective mechanism, your metabolism slows down and your body begins to burn your muscle as fuel. Breakfast also gives your body the fuel it needs to exercise effectively!

5. Look for situations to be active. Park as far from the shopping centre as you can rather than looking for the closest spot. Use the stairs rather than the lift or escalator, do more jobs around the house yourself, like washing the windows or the car or mowing the lawn. Look for the "difficult" way to do things - the way that requires the most effort - and see these situations as opportunities to be active!