Fitness-You don't have to kill yourself to be fit & healthy

Hello and welcome to my blog!  I've always been fairly active.  I didn't play competitive sports but I roller skated, roller bladed, played tennis and racquetball, took aerobic classes and whatever other activities looked like it might be fun.  I tried running when I was younger and quickly found I did not like it one bit.  Ironically I started running in my late 40's because I wanted to participate in a sprint triathlon.  I actually got to like parts of the running, such as running on the beach at sunrise (I live in Florida, which helps) and when I get to travel it was always fun to find places to run wherever I was.  I found a wonderful off-road path in France.  Plus it's pretty easy to strap on running shoes and head out the door.  No equipment needed.  It took me many years to figure out that you don't have to kill yourself and exercise for hours a day 7 days a week to be fit and healthy.  What a revelation!  But it was hard to change my mindset.  Things have changed physically for me as I've gotten older.  I need more recovery time and I'm not willing to spend the time or the effort I used to, I would be exhausted all the time.  I am no less fit than I used to be.  Many people feel if they are going to do something they may as well give it their all.  I've also seen the other side of the coin, people just going thru the motions, but I still give them credit, something is better than nothing.  It really comes down to what your goals are.  Do you want to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger, competitively compete in a sport or just be healthy?  Some of my hardest workouts are 20-40 minutes long.  Your body adapts quickly.  So if you do the same thing all the time the same way your body adapts and your don't get as much benefit or bang for the buck.  It's not too tough to change it up, if you do the treadmill then change to the elliptical or rowing machine or do 10 minutes on each.  The key is to just do it different.  You can change it every time, weekly or monthly, whatever works for you.  The other thing you need to do is change up how you do your cardio.  Do you go at the same pace for the same period of time?  Here are the 3 things you should integrate into your cardio workouts.  1) Steady State - 2) Tempo - 3) Interval.  1) Steady State:  Probably what most people do, keep the same pace for the entire workout, usually not a full out effort.  On a scale of 1-10 of perceived exertion you should be at about a 6-7, you can talk but you are still breathing heavy and you can go for an hour or more.  2) Tempo:  You have set intervals of higher intensity and then a recovery period.  Such as 5 minutes at a Perceived Exertion of 7-8, you can't talk without taking a breath every 4 or 5 words and you could probably go 10-20 minutes at this level.  You follow the 5 minutes with a period of recovery.  You can do this at a 1-1 ratio, 5 min at a higher level and 5 minutes at say a level 6 Perceived Exertion.  3) Interval:  This is High Interval Training (HIT)  This is hard and should kick your behind.  You do short intervals at a Perceived Exertion level of 9-10, that's all out huffing and puffing, can't talk.  The interval can be 15 seconds to 1 minute.  Recovery depends on your fitness level, you need to get your breath back to where you feel you are back to a Perceived Exertion level of 6 or 7.  You can get a heart rate monitor and figure out what your training heart rate is at these Perceived Exertion levels and when you do your recovery as soon as you hit your recovery heart rate you immediately go back to the higher intensity effort.  I find the HIT training is a love/hate thing for me.  It's hard!  When I first started doing it I was so tired too, but that only lasted a few days then you see yourself getting better and stronger.  I've barely scratched the surface but to get the biggest bang for your buck in your workouts change it up.  Mostly I talked about changing things in your cardio but you need to change it up in your weight workouts as well.  Try doing your weight training exercises in a different order or just try a different exercise for that body part each week, month or session.  Most of all tell yourself it's ok not to spend hours working out.  A little bit can go a long way.