Face it: if you want to lose weight, you need to exercise regularly. As in, several times a week. Not overeating, and eating the correct kinds of foods is a start, but it is only half the plan for any effective weight loss program. The other half is getting your body in motion. If you have been lax about that, it may be that you have difficulty finding time to fit in an exercise routine. Or you may have heard that you must complete an entire routine in thirty straight minutes, or it “doesn’t count.”

As for the latter point, anything you do that works your muscles and gets your heart rate up at least a little does count. But the fact is, you can burn more calories in less time than what is typically recommended for a work out. You simply have to get a little creative, and go beyond a simple walk around the neighborhood.

Following are four ways that you can burn more calories, even if your busy schedule makes exercise difficult.

1. Jump rope.

When you jump rope, you burn about 11 calories per minute. That’s three times more than walking about three miles per hour. In other words, you can burn as many calories jumping rope in one third the time. Of course, jumping rope is a lot more intensive than walking – or even jogging – and so it will take you probably a few weeks and a lot of persistence to be able to jump rope for a reasonable period of time.

2. Run up and down stairs.

Especially, when you go up the stairs at the quickest pace possible, you are burning more calories than with many other kinds of exercise because of the effort to push your body uphill. A great side benefit to this exercise is that it will trim and strengthen your thighs. If you don’t believe me, go up and down a flight of stairs for a few minutes and tell me you don’t have a burn in your thighs!

3. Strength training.

Strength training can be done in several different ways. You can do the old-fashioned weight-lifting, perform weight-less exercises by pushing, for example, your hands against each other, or you can do resistance stretching exercises such as what Bob Cooley teaches in his book, The Genius of Flexibility. The beauty of strength training – and why it is a vital part of any healthy weight loss program – is that it keeps your metabolism higher for longer periods than aerobic exercise, allowing you to burn more calories even after the exercise time is finished.

4. Go as fast as you can for one minute.

Whatever exercise you choose – walking, running, swimming, biking, etc. – every three to five minutes or so of the routine, go as fast as you can for an entire minute. Go from walking to sprinting; pedal as hard as you can; swim like a shark is after you. Then go back to the regular speed, and repeat. Like strength training, this boosts your metabolism for hours, and also burns more calories than if you had stayed at the same speed.

Finding time to exercise isn’t rocket science. Ten minutes two to three times a day of any of the above ideas will help you to lose weight, increase your energy levels, and feel better overall.

What is the importance of exercise? Is regular exercise really necessary, or some lie made up by the sports and gym industry to make sure they continually increase their bottom line?

Think of your body the way you think of your car. When a few lucky individuals acquire a sports car that boasts of the best automotive engineering available today, they read the maintenance manuals religiously.

They take their car for inspection even if it purrs like a kitten, and take it in for repairs as soon as something does not feel right. And they’re very concerned.

That car is their most prized possession, a symbol of all the long and hard hours they put on the job so they could finally acquire it. It cost an arm and a leg, so taking care of it is a high priority.

But how important is the person that drives that car? Shouldn’t that person – shouldn’t you – be the number one priority?

Lifespan and Physical Appearance

The average human life span of Westerners today is around eighty years, give or take a few. The painful truth is, a significant number of men and women look and feel 80 before they even make it to the first half of their life! You can spot the tell-tale signs just by a glance:

• sagging dry skin;
• unsightly posture;
• uneven and unsteady walk (they need to drag around those heavy pounds);
• slowed movements due to aching joints;
• sporting the “I’m not happy because I look terrible” look.

Now, if their appearance is this bad, imagine what the inside machinery is like! Most likely, it’s even worse:

• clogged vessels;
• inefficient heart, just waiting to fail;
• mounds of fat parked in or around vital organs;
• high blood sugar;
• free radical cells that are  silently growing into malignant tumors.

Are you getting the picture of the importance of exercise? If fitness authorities had it their way, they’d create legislation to make exercise mandatory as soon as a baby leaves the cradle. Instead, many children live – like their parents – a sedentary lifestyle, and develop obesity by their teenage years.

But even if you’ve never exercised before in your life, it’s not too late to start! Just as quitting smoking dramatically decreases the high risk of lung cancer you’ve incurred over the years by the habit, beginning to exercise can begin to reverse some of the unhealthy conditions existing in your body.

Of course, if you’ve hung around The Crunchy Coach for any length of time, you know that I will insist that a pristine diet is as equally important as fitness in living longer with less illness and disease. But the importance of exercise cannot be overstated, and if you have been a couch potato it is time to don those tennis shoes and take a good walk!

“How can I boost my metabolism?”

One of my friends asked me this question over lunch the other day. It’s a question I’ve heard echoed repeatedly by various people, online and off, over the past few years.

I have a couple problems with the question. First, what research shows works for many people, may not work for you. Second, most people who ask this question are hoping to get a “magic bullet” kind of answer: just do this one really easy thing, and your extra pounds will fall off like ice cream melting from a cone on a hot summer’s day.

But if you will read this article with the understanding that first, the answer is different for everyone and requires experimentation; and that second, boosting your metabolism will require sacrifice and work, then I am happy to share with you ten ways to boost metabolism.

1. Eat several small meals per day.

Dave Ramsey says that if you want to know how to be thin, ask a thin person. So take a hint from me: I eat three square meals a day consisting of three to four hundred calories each, along with a mid-morning snack and mid-afternoon snack consisting of three hundred calories each. (How many calories you consume depends on your size and activity level.)

DO NOT DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF FOOD. Eating every three to four hours actually keeps your metabolism going. As long as your body has something to process, it will keep the calories burning. But when you make yourself go hungry for even five hours, this can cause your body to instinctively go into survival mode and slow down its metabolism.

2. Exercise first thing in the morning.

Before you have even one bite of breakfast, do your daily exercise (yes, I said daily, not three times a week). Without any food in your system, your body has to burn the fat that is on your body, rather than the calories you just ate. Plus, your body gets revved up and keeps up a higher metabolism all day than if you had waited until later to exercise.

3. Do some kind of strength training three days per week.

Research shows that lifting weights or performing other kinds of strength training is better at boosting your metabolism, and keeps your metabolism going at a higher rate for a longer period of time than aerobic exercise.

4. Refrain from alcoholic and caffienated beverages.

Yes, coffee and black tea too. Sorry. I didn’t do the study. The only exception is green tea. Because of its chemical make-up, the caffeine in green tea does not slow down metabolism . Water should always be your drink of choice, followed by herbal teas and fresh green juices.

5. Take a maqui berry supplement.

People who drink the Be Young superfood juice Masaji have reported to constantly lose wieght. This would be because of the maqui berry it contains. This one superfood has been shown in studies to boost metaoblism and increase weight loss.

Plus Masaji will give you that burst of energy you’ve been using coffee for.

6. Get rid of processed foods.

I told you that learning how to boost your metabolism would take sacrifice. Processed foods often contain chemicals and “bad” fats that slow down metabolism. Learn how to eat a whole foods diet.

7. Eat at least twenty grams of saturated or monounsaturated fat every day.

Organic butter, virgin coconut oil, raw nuts and seeds, extra virgin olive oil…all of these fats actually stimulate the fat-burning hormone in your brain. Other kinds of fats, or low-fat diets, slow down the fat-burning process.

8. Move throughout the day.

Just because you did thirty minutes of exercise in the morning before breakfast doesn’t mean you can stay sedentary the rest of the day and expect great weight loss results. Get up and walk around, or at least stretch every thirty to sixty minutes throughout the day. Park a distance away from the store’s entry. Take the stairs. Etc.

9. Don’t eat before bed.

Be done eating your several small meals/snacks two hours before bedtime. If that’s impossible because of your schedule, make it at least one hour before bed. If your system has to spend the nighttime hours digesting food, the metabolism becomes sluggish.

10. Have some kind of protein with every meal or snack.

The protein in nuts and seeds counts, if you’re not the kind who wants to eat hard-boiled eggs, cheese and beef jerky all day long. But if you include some protein and cut back on the starch, your body’s metabolism gets a nice boost.

At least three or four of these ideas should work for you to answer your burning question, “How do I boost my metabolism?” Try them out today, and be sure to comment below to let me how these ideas worked for you.

Do diets really work – long term, that is? If you’ve ever tried a diet, you will probably answer with a confident and vehement “No!”

Yet, Americans – especially women – continue to believe that weight loss is a matter of reducing calories and generally feeling hungry and deprived. I listened to a podcast the other day where the host and her guest went off on a tangent about losing weight. It was the same old thing, talking about cutting back and avoiding fast food and forcing herself to exercise.

They – like so many other Americans – are totally missing the boat. Medical conditions such as hypothyroidism aside, maintaining a healthy weight consists of three main elements.

1. Eat a whole foods diet low in starchy foods.

If you’re idea of losing is eating two pieces of whole wheat bread a day instead of four, or replacing ice cream with store-bought strawberry yogurt, chances are you will have a hard time losing all the weight you want. Chances are also high that you will eventually regain whatever weight you lost, and then some.

I go much more into detail in my e-book, Weird Health, about how starches and processed foods affect weight. Suffice it to say that both contain chemical elements – either natural or synthetic  – that promote weight gain.

And by the way, yes, whole wheat bread is a processed food, not a health food.

2. Focus on raw foods.

Raw foods are bursting with nutrients and – in the case of vegetables and some fruit – fiber. They make your body feel satiated sooner and take longer to chew, which lessen your tendency to overeat. Eating more raw foods will also give your more energy.

3. Take a walk every day.

You don’t have to kill yourself at a gym when you’re trying to lose weight. If you’ve been a couch potato, start with ten minutes around the block at a leisurely pace. Build up until you’re walking at a brisk pace for thirty minutes four times per week. Take your iPod or mp3 player with you to help time go faster. Better yet, walk with a friend. Weird Health lays out a basic work out schedule that anyone can do.

Nix the processed foods, eat more raw food and take a walk. Follow these principles and you will not only lose weight, but also be a lot healthier in general.

Depression is a hard thing to shake. It may be considered the antithesis to healthy living.  But there is a natural treatment for depression that is not only free, but provides many other health benefits besides.

This treatment is regular exercise.

Yup.

You know that exercise helps you to maintain a healthy weight and a healthy heart. You may also be aware that it helps to raise your HDL and lower your LDL. But were you aware of the mental health benefits of exercise?

How exercise can prevent/diminish depression

1. Exercise boost the levels of “feel good” hormones – seratonin, dopamine, norepinephrine – in the brain and body.
2. In studies exercise has alleviated the symptoms of depression as effectively as an anti-depressant drug.
3. Exercise improves learning. When your brain is growing, your mind is more alive, and you are more interested in life.
4. When you exercise, you both feel and look better, which boosts your self-esteem, which reduces feelings of depression.
5. Exercising intensely – such as running as fast as you can for thirty seconds in the middle of a walk – brings on feelings of euphoria.

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Learn the principles that not only keep the longest-lived people in the world free from depression, but free from any degenerative diseases up until the day they move on to another life. It’s all in my e-book, Weird Health. Download the first few pages for FREE!

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“But wait! There’s more.”

Like with any health condition, there is no silver bullet that will automatically cure depression. Especially if your depression is severe, you need to do several other things along with getting regular exercise.

• Eliminate processed foods from your diet. They contain chemicals that can adversely affect brain function. They also lack the nutrients your brain needs for optimum function.
• Take a whole-foods based supplement that is high in B-vitamins. The B-vitamin complex is powerful in improving both mood and brain function.
• Eat more raw foods. A diet high in cooked foods depletes your body from the energy vital to your sense of well-being. Raw foods also contain more nutrients.
• Force yourself to socialize. Even if all you do is have lunch with one friend once a week, that sense of connection and community will do wonders for your self-esteem and help you to have a more positive perspective on life.
• Fight off depression with essential oils. Whether rubbed into your scalp or taken internally, several essential oils such as chamomile, lavender and rosemary can turn a bad mood within minutes.

Your natural treatment for depression is just a pair of tennis shoes and a sidewalk away! Combined with the other treatments listed above, the mental health benefits of exercise will do miracles in your mind.

Is weight loss something you need in order to be at the epitome of healthy living?

This is a perennially hot topic, but never as much as during this time of year. As this post goes live, it is a week into the New Year, the time when resolve and determination to lose weight is at its peak.

For about three weeks. Maybe. Then the trips to the gym start getting old, you get tired of having a continually growling stomach, and you start to wonder whether losing weight is all that important.

Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I don’t know how overweight you are, nor how healthy you are otherwise. But if you want to be able lose a few pounds, I have some tips that will help you stick to your New Year’s Resolution. Why? You won’t feel like you are sacrificing time, money and taste.

1. Avoid starches and refined sugar at least four days per week.

Starches include grains and any products made with grains, as well as yams and potatoes. Raw honey and raw agave nectar are acceptable sweeteners, if consumed in moderation. Stevia, a super-sweet herb, may be used as liberally as you want–although not everyone appreciates its flavor.

2. Eat to satisfaction.

Translation: neither starve nor stuff yourself.

3. Eat healthy, low-glycemic snacks.

Low-glycemic fruit (basically anything that isn’t a tropical or dried fruit) with nuts and/or sunflower seeds is easy to prepare, tasty and satisfying. You might also try celery and carrot sticks with tahini or almond butter, or an ounce or two of raw cheese (this article explains why I recommend steering clear of all pasteurized dairy, organic or not).

4. Do the right kind of exercise, at the right time.

To burn fat and boost your metabolism for up to 48 hours, exercise before eating in the morning. Do strength training at least three days per week, as this can significantly increase your metabolism over doing aerobic exercises. No gym membership or expensive equipment necessary–a few dumbbells of varying weight is all you need.

These tips will quickly get you on the road to weight loss. For a comprehensive resource that helps you not only to lose weight, but also dramatically decrease your vulnerability to illness and disease, please visit this page.

Normally, when one thinks about healthy living one automatically assumes that regular exercise is a part  of that.

But according to a recent Times article, the supposed health benefits of exercise have been blown out of proportion. The best way to lose weight is to sit around and pick your nose, as nose-picking will burn some calories but not enough to make you hungry.

Okay, that’s not really what it said. But it came close. The article quotes an exercise researcher at LSU, Eric Ravussin, as saying that “exercise is useless” for weight loss. Why? The answer should be obvious. When you exercise, you burn more calories, and therefore get hungry, and therefore gorge on pizza and potato chips and ice cream right after your workout.

Horse feces.

I don’t know about you, but I am less hungry immediately after exercising. And in the summer, I have to make myself eat more, because I am outside more often and get more exercise and–would you believe (Mr. Ravussin wouldn’t)–I begin to LOSE WEIGHT!

Many studies have repeatedly shown that exercise is essential for good health for many reasons. These reasons include:

• Exercise burns fat.
• It increases muscle mass.
• It decreases one’s appetite–at least short-term.
• It reduces one’s risk of developing chronic/degenerative disease.
• It increases longevity.

I have known (at least) two men who gained weight to the point of obesity at one point in their respective lives. Both of them returned to a healthy weight by doing two things:

1. Reducing caloric intake, and
2. Wait…can you guess?…(oh, Mr. R, you just won’t approve of this)…EXERCISING!

The one man took up country-western dancing; the other, running and weight-lifting. Both continue to exercise regularly, and neither one has ever regained the weight they lost.

I briefly interviewed one of those men regarding exercise and appetite. Our conversation went something like this:

CRUNCHY COACH: When you were in the process of losing weight, did you find your appetite increased after exercising?

MAN: Immediately after exercising, no, it actually decreased.

CRUNCHY COACH: What happened to your appetite overall?

MAN: Overall, it may have increased, especially on days when I did a lot more exercising.

CRUNCHY COACH: But you still lost weight.

MAN: That’s because eventually you figure out the caloric intake you need and spread it out through the day.

CRUNCHY COACH: And generally people who exercise regularly are more careful about what they eat, right? When somebody decides to improve their health they’re not going to eat fast food all day long.

MAN: That, and commitment. You have to be committed to losing weight.

CRUNCHY COACH: So, what do you think of this Eric Ravussin guy?

MAN: He needs to be committed.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Exercise is a vital part of weight loss, a necessary habit for anyone seeking optimum health.

If you are interested in learning the principles of optimum health that will not only help you get to a healthy weight, but decrease your risk of degenerative disease as well, don’t miss my e-book, Weird Health.

And should you ever run into Mr. Ravussin, you might think of suggesting that book to him as well.

Last Thursday, I began a two-part series on how to stay fit when the autumn winds begin to blow and you decide to put your outdoor fitness routine on the shelf for a few months. However, your body needs exercise, no matter what season it is. In part one, I mentioned three of the more well-known traditional indoor fitness ideas: using a treadmill, rebounding, and jump roping.

Today, I want to introduce you three additional indoor fitness ideas that can add some spice to your workout routine.

1. The WorkOutPass. Were you aware that you could download fitness routines from the Internet, then play and follow them from your computer? The WorkOutPass, for one single price, allows you to access 43 (and growing) websites that provide various online workouts. Want to burn more fat? They’ve got a workout for you. Tighten your abs? That, too. Want workouts especially designed for baseball players, wrestlers, and pregnant women? Got it, got it, got it.

For just pennies a day, you can choose from a variety of workouts to do in the comfort of your home. The WorkOutPass is cheaper and more convenient than a gym.

2.Yoga DVDs. When the weather turns cold, our bodies naturally want to slow down and take life a little easier. What better way to continue on in your fitness routine in a more relaxed way than yoga?

If you’ve never tried yoga before, but always been intrigued by the poses, it’s a great way to tone muscle, improve flexibility, and reduce stress. You can find DVDs that target particular body parts, like this one, as well as prenatal yoga DVDs and yoga for beginners DVDs.

3. Dance! Turn on your favorite tunes and get your body moving to the beat! Or, if you prefer, you can find a wide variety of dance workouts on DVD. From hip-hop to belly dancing, DVD dance routines provide a lot of fun and a great cardiovascular workout. You can even get couples dance instruction DVDs. Can you think of a more romantic way to begin or end the day with your spouse, and get your heartbeat moving and those calories burning?

Actually, yes, we can. Moving right along…

Now you have no excuse to ditch your fitness routine just because the weather turns cold. Whether you want to run on a treadmill, download a specialized workout online, or dance around your living room, you now have a good idea of how to stay fit when the cold weather hits.

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Learn the principles of living in optimum health.

Autumn will soon be upon us, and staying fit when the pre-winter chill descends will become a challenge for many people, for several reasons.

• The days are shorter, making outdoor workouts tricky for people who have day jobs.
• Many people dread walking or running in colder temperatures–and exercising in extreme cold can actually be dangerous to your health (I used to get bouts of pleurisy in the winter when I lived in my home state of Minnesota and exerted myself too much while outdoors).
• It’s just easier to snuggle under a blanket on the couch and read or watch T.V. as a frosty wind blows outside.

However, staying fit during the colder seasons is not only doable and important to your health, but can also be fun. And since your winter fitness routine may consist of exercises that use more of certain muscle groups than your outdoor routines, the commitment to maintain physical fitness during cold weather could enhance your overall strength and flexibility.

Indoor exercise equipment and fitness ideas abound. Today I will mention three of the most popular and heart-healthy ways to staying fit in cold weather. Next Thursday, in part two, I will bring up some other indoor fitness ideas that can help keep your fitness routine fresh and exciting.

Indoor fitness idea number one: the treadmill

Not an incredibly ingenius idea, but if you are a dedicated walker/runner/jogger and have a place for one in your house, this may be the perfect fit for you. (Well, even if you don’t have a place for one in your house, you can now buy treadmills that fold up). Until a few years ago, my husband had a state-of-the-art treadmill that had a bunch of different speeds, as many degrees of incline (to really burn off the calories), and would even figure out how many “miles” you’d gone and calories you’d spent.

Of course, you can save money and be greener by sticking with an “old-fashioned” non-electric treadmill.

Indoor fitness idea number two: the rebounder

Why rebound? Rebounding is a much gentler exercise than any aerobic exercise that’s done on a surface, as it doesn’t impact the various leg joints. Like all aerobic exercises, it strengthens your heart, improves circulation, and–due to its gentle rhythmic bounce–is a great stress reducer. Better yet–if you’re a weight-watcher–it can burn more calories than jogging.

Another great benefit to using a rebounder is that it cleanses the lymphatic system, which is the body’s waste system. The up and down movement helps to push the built-up toxins out of the lymph nodes and get flushed out of the body.

Indoor fitness idea number three: jump roping

You want to really give your heart a work out? Try jump roping for two minutes! (If you’ve been outside in the freezing cold jump roping will also warm you up in a hurry.) The only required equipment for this exercise is a jump rope, a mat on which to jump, and a decent pair of athletic shoes.

Jump roping not only gives you a great cardiovascular workout, but it also helps improve coordination and bone health.

See, you can stay in shape when the cold weather starts to hit! Be sure to check back next Thursday for even more great indoor fitness ideas.