Read & write

Many people are looking to get fit. But not everyone knows you need to do more than go to the gym once in a while and cut back on the fast food. Fitness isn't something that's hard to do, but it's something you need to put a lot of effort into. I'll give you a few tips to help you get in shape.

Drink water and only water! Make sure you're drinking eight eight ounce glasses of water every day. If you want to get the most out of this, only drink water. Don't drink fruit juices, soda, or coffee. Whenever you're thirsty, drink some ice cold water. This is the easiest way for you to shed weight.

Get at least thirty minutes of cardio every single day. If you're just starting to exercise, you can go for walks or swim for your cardio. As you get more used to it, start increasing the intensity of your cardio workout. Start jogging or biking instead of walking. Then step it up again and start running for half an hour. Once this starts getting easy for you, you can exercise for longer or just keep pushing yourself to go faster.

You also should be going strength training every other day. Cardio is a great way to get yourself in decent shape. It'll also give your body a temporary calorie burning boost. But that boost wears off as the day goes on. Muscle burns more calories at a rest than fat does. So by doing strength training, you replace that fat with muscle. Your body then has to work harder to maintain that muscle.

I said work out every other day for a reason. Your body can handle cardio every day for the most part since it doesn't put a lot of stress on it. But it can't handle serious muscle building every day. As you lift weights, you're doing a small amount of damage to the muscles involved, that's why you're sore afterwards. The way you build muscle is by doing that little bit of damage and allowing your body to repair it. As the body repairs the muscles it strengthens it so they don't get damaged again.

So while lifting twenty pounds would've damaged it in the beginning, after a few workouts twenty pounds won't do anything. That's why you have to increase the weight. But if your body doesn't get rest between each workout, it won't have the time to repair all of the damage. So if you keep working out day after day, those muscles are eventually going to sustain serious damage. Then you'll be worse off than you were when you started.

Fitness isn't necessarily hard, but it does require a lot of effort. It's also something you have to maintain. Once you've achieved your goals, if you don't keep working out, your body will go right back to where it was when you started. It's easier to maintain your workout than to have to start at the beginning again!