I had a sneaking feeling that I’d get the most resistance about working out in the morning and by golly, I was right! If you already know that there is no way that you’ll wake up to exercise, who am I to tell you otherwise?

Before my husband and I started Brendita’s Body Works, I was SO not a morning person, it wasn’t even funny. I would wait until the absolute last second to get out of bed and get my day started. If I was awake before 11:30 on a Saturday, I was up early. Now I have to wake up early out of pure necessity, but believe me, it wasn’t easy. These days, though, I am very much a morning person, but believe me, I can relate to not wanting to get up early. If you’re sure that you will not skip your workout then by all means, exercise at whatever time works for you. In this regard, kindly note that exercising too close to bedtime is not recommended.

One of the many benefits of aerobic exercise is that increases the rate at which your heart pumps. While the actual increase in heart rate returns to normal at the end of your workout, the increase in blood circulation continues for several hours. If you do an aerobic workout too close to bedtime, it can interfere and/or disrupt your body’s natural sleep rhythm.

As promised, I will address the first two points of our Turn Over A New Leaf Goals. Actually, I’m going to go ahead and address the first three, because I’m SO unpredictable! I’m like a box of chocolates….. you never know what you’re gonna get.

As many of you know, I began teaching exercise in 1983, while I was attending college. Over the years, I have taught many different forms of exercise ranging from high impact aerobics to Hatha Yoga. I was also a competitive body builder as well as a personal trainer. When I stopped working full time at health clubs and started an office job, I realized how much pleasure I got from teaching exercise. I was happy to be given the privilege of leading a lunch time exercise class for my colleagues. The class was a compilation of everything I learned over the years.

• Make exercise a regular part of your life: “Event dieting” is a term I made up when I was teaching exercise. When one of my students would show up to every class (I taught three classes a week) after not coming to class for several weeks or even months, the reason was almost ALWAYS a vacation at a location where she’d be wearing a bathing suit, a wedding (her own or as a bridesmaid or maid of honor), a family reunion, etc. Repeated drastic changes in weight are unhealthy. There have been countless articles on the subject, so I will not restate what most of you already know. Regular exercise (three times a week, minimum) needs to become a regular part of your life if you want to be healthy. Nuff said.

• Think of and know that “DIET” is a bad, bad word!!!  This is sort of a continuation of my statement above. “Going on a diet” is probably the single biggest way to ensure that any weight loss will not be permanent. The human body is a wonderful work of art. It is engineered with very intricate systems to designed to protect itself. One of these systems safeguards us against starvation.  Our body stores fat to insulate vital organs and also to burn for when there is no food in the stomach. Any food eaten in excess of what the body needs to function is stored as fat.  When you do not eat the sufficient (minimum) amount of calories your body needs to function, it will hold off on burning/using it’s excess fat stores. It does this because you have, in sense, forced it into “survival mode”. The only thing your body knows is that it is not getting enough calories and it’s not sure when it will. As a survival mechanism,  it will actually slow down the rate at which it burns up excess fat stores for energy. That, my friends, is the main reason why starvation diets do not work. The best diet in the world is eating well rounded, healthful, nutritious meals throughout the day. I will try to get you to rethink your definition of a “meal”. Most people need more than three meals a day. Having said that, U.S. Americans standard portion sizes for meals are SO large, it’s kind of scary. Before we begin our 30 day challenge, I will give you all what I believe to be the ideal daily eating plan. It will consist of 5 “meals” a day. You will not have to weigh your food, nor will you have to count calories.

• “Teach” your body to burn fat for energy:  I touched on this in my statement above. A woman needs to ingest approximately 1550 claries per day. Anything in excess of this will be stored as fat. Aerobic exercise (any exercise that keeps the heart beating in its target range for a minimum of 20 minutes) causes the body to burn excess fat for energy. The wonderful thing about aerobic exercise is that the body continues to burn fat for several hours post workout is over. This amount of fat that is burned after your workout is, of course, not as high as when you are actively exercising, but it is a pretty substantial amount.

I ended my blog entry yesterday with advice to you NOT to weigh yourself and I promised I would explain why:  I weigh about 155 pounds: I can’t tell you for sure because I only get weighed at my annual gynecologist appointments. I’m 5’ 6” tall and I wear a size 4 or 6 suit.  You may have heard the term “muscle weighs more than fat”. This is a physical impossibility.  A pound of bricks and a pound of feathers both weigh the same, but it takes a lot more feathers to equal a pound when compared to a brick. The same is true with muscle vs. fat. Muscle tissue is denser and takes up less room, so as you firm and strengthen your muscles, you may notice that the number on the scale is going up. You might also notice that your clothes are feeling looser. This is because you are burning fat and increasing the density (not size) of your muscle. Another added bonus to increasing lean muscle tissue is your body will burn more calories at rest. The reason is muscles move and require energy to do so. Fat, on the other hand, just hangs around waiting to be called upon for energy.

Brendita’s 45 Minute Body Work Out

This workout is perfect for the 30 Day Fitness Challenge.  You can  preview the 45 minute workout DVD and if you decide to use it for the Challenge, I am offering a 30% discount off the regular price of the DVD .  Just enter 30DayChallenge in the coupon code when you check out. (This coupon code is good through 2 October 2009, midnight, Eastern Standard Time.)

In addition to doing my 45 Minute Workout three days a week, I will be posting various exercises that I will want you to perform on your “off” days (the days in between your DVD workouts). After the 30 day challenge is over, I don’t plan on leaving you on your own.  It is my hope that we will all continue to support each other in our new, active and super healthy lifestyles!

Until tomorrow, have a really, really AWESOME DAY! And, for those of you who will be waking up early, please remember to set your alarm clock back by seven MORE minutes.

Kindest regards,

Brendita