A few notes about heart related illness:

• Hypertension (High Blood Pressure) is usually found in people who are overweight, physically inactive or have a lot of salt in their diet.
  • It can also be exacerbated by high stress levels from work and other activities.
  • Exercise is crucial in weight loss and is proven to help you manage stress knocking out 3 of those factors.
• Cardiovascular Disease is caused by a breaking off of plaque in an artery. The plaque is usually caused by high bad cholesterol which is caused by really poor diet.
  • It kills one Australian every 10 minutes.
  • Smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, diabetes and being overweight all contribute to the likeliness of getting heart disease.

Best types of exercise to improve heart health:

• 

  HIIT (High Intensity Interval Cardio): HIIT involves short intervals of hard and medium intensity whether it be on a treadmill, cross-training, punching bag or outside. The idea is that the short bursts of super intense training will keep your heart rate elevated even through the medium intensity parts. Pushing your heart rate up high will force your heart to grow stronger. Increasing heart strength is crucial in lowering blood pressure.

• Steady state cardio such as walking and cycling is excellent to get your heart pumping, especially if you are sitting around most of the day at work which your heart unchallenged.
• Play a sport. Not only is this great fun, it is also a good way to make new friends and find other people with the same fitness goals as you.

Best changes to diet to improve heart health:

• Try not to add too much salt to your food. Avoiding pre packaged, frozen and take away foods are a really easy way to lower your salt consumption.
• Eat a balanced diet, including food from all the food groups in appropriate proportions.
• Keep alcohol to a minimum, avoid binge drinking.
• Quit smoking. Not really diet related but definitely worth mentioning.

That is why it can be good to invest in some home gym equipment for those cold months in which we dread the trip to the gym and the icy barbells. Simply pick a spare room (guests can sleep on the couch, they’ll be fine :-) ) or the garage (with a heater of course) and start filling it with one piece of equipment at a time.

I recommend a treadmill, bench (preferably with incline and decline options though a flat one will do), a power rack with a pull up bar on it and a few adjustable dumbbells and barbells with 100kgs assorted weights to start with. With this equipment you can basically do any workout that you could do at a gym. Additionally you can add a yoga mat and light preset dumbbells for more variety in core work. A secret fitness fact is that a TV or cd player can also be handy if you train alone for cardio sessions.

The internet is the easiest place to buy equipment. There are many websites out there that sell high quality discount treadmills and weight equipment. Below is a simple full body weights routine to do 2 times a week. Add 2-3 sessions of cardio on top of that.

Warm up on Treadmill 10 mins. You should be breathing heavily.

Upper:

1 Arm DB Row 2-3 x 12

Pushups 2-3 x 12

Bent Over BB Row 2-3 x 12

Standing DB Shoulder Press 2-3 x 12

*Ensure scapula control on rowing exercises. Superset pushes and pulls for a more challanging upperbody workout.

Lower and Torso:

Power DB Lunges 3 x 10 each leg

BB Back Squats 3 x 12

Supine holds 3 x 30s

Prone Holds 3 x 30s

Alternate beginning the upper and lower parts each workout.

1. Vary your training

One thing I see far too many people do is just grind away at the same training style day after day. This is often due to a lack of knowledge in training methods.

No matter what your goal is you should include a variety of training techniques to challenge your body in different ways. Don’t just jump on the treadmill for hours on end; instead just do 30 mins accompanied with 30 minutes of resistance training. Same goes for people who only train with weights, try adding some cardio to your workouts to keep your heart healthy (among a heap of other benefits).

2. Record Your Workouts

This is definitely one of the most overlooked methods of tracking progress. Keeping a workout journal allows you to detect sticking points in your training and can also motivate you when you look back and see how far you have come in 6 months.

When starting this technique I would recommend keeping your journal very simple. Something like:

Date: 10/09/2009
Workout: Full Body 1
Pullups BWx8 BWx7
DB Bench Press 30×6 30×6
….. (and so on)

Once you have developed this habit you can put more details in such as:

• Cardio time/machine/settings
• Mood
• Diet
• Time of day
• Length of workout
• Breaks between sets

3. Keep your workouts short and sweet

There are many reasons why short workouts are a better option to long workouts, but today I will just talk about the motivation benefits. Shorter workouts means less time in the gym which definitely makes it easier to motivate yourself to get into the gym in the first place. Long workouts can be boring and unfulfilling; nobody wants to spend 3 hours in the gym!

Get in there, train hard and get out. More and more studies are showing that short intense workouts (even cardio workouts) are better than long and low intensity workouts. Try to keep your workouts in the 45-75 minute bracket including warm-up, weights, cardio and stretching. If you want to train more, add extra sessions and experiment with different styles of training (see point 1). You can also split your workout over the morning and afternoon. Eg. Running in the morning and weights after work.

4. Keep variety in your diet

A lot of people when trying to lose weight will get stuck in the rut of eating the same meals everyday because the find it easier to keep track of caloric intake. Or they cut out a whole bunch of foods they absolutely love (but that are unhealthy) all at once. This usually leads to a complete binge out after a few weeks which undoes all the hard work in the weeks of strict eating.

Instead you should try to add as much variety as possible. Eat a wide range of healthy dishes from many different cultures. Try new foods you’ve never tried, or haven’t eaten in a long time. You may be surprised at how much you like it. For giving up foods, try giving up just one thing you like a week and still eat some of those bad foods occasionally. You will find that some foods you really like now you won’t crave ever, or just once every few months once you stop eating it.

If your having real trouble, consider hiring a dietician or nutritionist if only for a little while to get you on the right track.

5. Set goals

Why are you exercising? Why do you spend 3.. 4.. 6.. 10 hours a week working your but off exercising?

Now there is probably and answer that has risen to the surface and quickly been shoved to the back of your mind. That is the answer we want. Push past all the vague, bullshit answers that come to mind now… ‘To be healthy’, ‘to be toned’, ‘look good for my partner’. There is a much deeper specific answer that is the correct one. Now turn that answer into a goal.

Eg. ‘I want to lose weight for my husband for our wedding’ Nope not buying it. So next she says ‘I can tell my future mother-in-law thinks I’m fat and I want to stand up there looking good and basically stick it to her.’ OK now we’re talking! Now we find a measurable goal (weight or waist size in this case) and work to a date (the date of the wedding).

6. Hire a personal trainer

A personal trainer is more than someone who counts your reps and writes your workouts. A PT will motivate you, push you to your best and get you results. It’s a person you can always ask any health/fitness related questions to and even if they don’t know they will find out for you. They will correct imbalances in your body, fix you posture and make you huge (or little).

Mind you this is what a GOOD PT should do for you (I’ve heard of PT’s coming to your house at 6am to wake you up and take you training), unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who just do PT thinking it will be an easy job or because they don’t know what else to do.

It is important when choosing a PT to keep your eye out for good ones, watch them in the gym with other clients, do they seem completely focused on their client? Ask their clients if they like the trainer or not. Do your homework and make a good choice..

7. Don’t forget to train your willpower

I once read ‘Willpower is like a muscle, the more you exercise it, the easier it is to use’. The more you say no to the unhealthy stuff and say yes to the good stuff, the easier it becomes to repeat it.  But also like a muscle, if you stop using your willpower it will get weaker and suddenly it will be harder to ‘just say no’. So keep it strong and be consistent and it will make life easier for you.

Conclusion

As you can see, the key to living a successful healthy lifestyle is variety and setting goals. Guess what?? That’s the key to a successful in general! . It should be fun to live healthy, not a chore!!