Most of us will readily admit that trying to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle is not easy. This New Years, my own personal resolution is just that. I want to focus on my Fitness, health and good nutrition. In order to prepare myself I have spent a lot of time researching these topics and have put together a small guide that I have been following since the beginning of the New Year and I must admit I do feel a big difference. I have a lot more energy, my body looks better and I have noticed a big improvement in my posture. Don't get me wrong I still have lots of work ahead of me... a lifetime would be a more accurate statement, but I am already reaping the benefits of just a couple months of determination and simple lifestyle changes. If these simple Fitness Basics can help me I am sure that others can benefits from them as well. I have tried to provide definitions of some basic terms as well as provide some easy exercises. Most of us are already doing some of these examples everyday without even realizing it only perhaps you just need to do some fin tuning to make them more fitness orientated.

                                            First and foremost you need to start by MAKING A COMMITMENT to yourself!

     Did you know that just by reading this my simple Fitness Guide you have already taken an important step in starting down the path to good physical fitness? That's right, just by seeking information! Your next step will be to decide if you are willing to make that commitment to do whatever is required to become physically fit. I have put together lots of interesting facts, definitions and some basic need to know fitness basics, in order to make those decisions and set those goals needed to start a healthier more active lifestyle. Your decision to start a fitness program is not going to be easy I won't lie, but with your commitment and a lot of determination, persistence  and lets not forget will power (you will need lots of that) you are sure to succeed. Becoming fit is something that takes a lifetime of work, it is a never ending battle. I just realized I am probably scaring a lot of you, but please do not get discouraged! I know it sounds like you are selling your soul to the devil but it is simple  lifestyle changes that you will need to adapt to. Try and think of the positives, increased energy, stronger immune system, you will look and feel better... keep positive and reap the rewards!

     Exercise, Fitness, becoming Health Conscience must become something that comes naturally such as showering, brushing your teeth or even eating. If you persist long enough it will become a  lifestyle that  no longer requires your undivided attention. Without understanding the short and long term benefits of Fitness and risks of being Unfit you will have an extremely hard time succeeding. Patience and persistence are two key elements, but you must not try to do to much to fast and don't quit before you have the opportunity to experience the benefits of your Improved Fitness. Also remember that you cannot repair in a few days what has become of your body with years of a sedentary life. It takes your commitment to get your body back. Remember the end result is your prize.

     Hopefully my guide will help get you motivated and will start you on your way to choosing and maintaining a Personal Physical Fitness Program that best suits your needs and Fitness Level. I will hopefully help you set some goals, how often, how hard and how long you will need to exercise to achieve them. I have included tips that should make your workouts easier, safer and more satisfying. The rest is up to you!

* FACT * If you are over 35, overweight and have been inactive for several years you should consulting with a doctor before starting any kind of Fitness or Exercise Programs.

    Lets start with this. What is Physical Fitness exactly? Here is a definition I read that always comes to mind when I ask that question. " Physical Fitness is to the human body what fine tuning is to an engine." That is a perfect example. Being Fit enables us to perform to our full potential.
Fitness can also be described as a condition that helps us, look, feel and do our best. More specifically it is " The ability to preform daily tasks vigorously and alertly, with energy left over for enjoying leisure, time activities and meeting emergency demands. It is the ability to endure, to bear up, to withstand stress, to carry on in circumstances where an unfit person could not continue, and is a major basis for good health and well-being." Physical Fitness works many of your bodies major such as your heart, lungs, muscles... Fitness can even influence to some degree qualities such as your mental alertness and emotional stability.

     As you are about to looking into starting a Fitness Program, it is important to keep in mind that Fitness is also an individual quality and it does vary from person to person. It is also influenced by both controllable and uncontrollable factors such as your age, gender, heredity, exercise and both personal and eating habits. Unfortunately you cannot control the first three factors but you can change and improve the others where you deem necessary.

     Here are what I call "THE BASICS". I have come to believe that Physical Fitness can be most easily understood by follows these  Basic Components.
1. Cardiorespiratory Endurance-Defined as " The ability to  deliver oxygen and nutrients to tissues and to remove wastes over             
                                                                     sustained periods of time." Some simple examples would be running or even swimming. These are
                                                                     common ways used to measure this component.
2. Muscular Strength-   Defined as " The ability of a muscle to exert force for a brief period of time." You can measure the strength                    
                                                       of your different muscles by doing various weight lifting exercises.
3. Muscular Endurance-   Defined as " The ability of a muscle, or group of muscles, to sustain repeated contractions or to continue applying
                                                           force against a fixed object."  An example of how to test the endurance in your arm or shoulder muscles
                                                          would be by doing push-ups.
4. Flexibility-   Defined as  " The ability to move joints and use muscles through their full range of motion." An example would be that you can
                                           use the basic sit and reach  (for those of you who don't know this one you sit one you basically keep your legs straight, no
                                           bending at the knee and try and touch your toes) this can be used to measure the flexibility in your lower back and upper
                                           legs.
5. Body Composition-  Defined as " Makeup of the body in terms of lean mass (examples; muscle, bone, vital tissue and organs) and fat
                                                       mass." An optimal ratio of fat to lean is an indication of Fitness. If you do the right type of exercises you can
                                                       decrease body fat and increase muscle mass. This can be affected by how often, how long and how hard you
                                                       exercise. What kind of exercises you should choose should be chosen based on the results you are trying to
                                                       achieve. You will be surprised by the amount of factors you need to consider when choosing the right exercises,
                                                       examples of some of these factors are your goals, your present fitness level, age, health, skills and even you     
                                                       interests.
By understanding the "formula" behind Fitness you will be able to choose the right exercises that best suit your goals. It should make it a lot easier to move on to the next step which is to set up a workout program that is right for you.

    Now there are many steps to a safe Fitness Routine. I will give you the steps and a basic foundation to follow in order achieve the amount of activity necessary to maintain a minimum level of overall Fitness.
 -It is important that all exercise start with a WARM UP ROUTINE - This is to warm up your muscles and get them ready for your work out. By not warming up you could cause yourself serious injuries. Your WARM UP should be approximately 5-10 minutes of light exercise. Examples of this are walking, slow jogging, knee lifts, arm circles or even jumping-jax. You need to do low intensity movements that stimulate your muscles.
- Following your warm up you should have MUSCULAR STRENGTH exercises. This should be a minimum of two 20 minute workouts per week that include exercises that work all your major muscle groups. A great way to do this is by lifting weights.
- Next you need MUSCULAR ENDURANCE exercises. This should be at least three 30 minute workouts each week. This can include exercises such as push ups, sit ups, pull ups and weight training again they need to work all your major muscle groups.
- You need to include in your weekly routine CARDIORESPIRATORY ENDURANCE exercises. This should be three 20 minute workouts of continuous aerobics exercise. Popular aerobic exercises include brisk walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, jumping rope, rowing, cross country skiing or even continuous action games such as racquetball.
- You need to include in your workouts some FLEXIBILITY exercises. It is recomended that you do 10-12 minutes of streching exercises on a daily basis. You need to do these exercises slowly and with no bouncing. You can incorpororat streching into your workout either after your warm up or during your cool down.

     As you can see most of these exercises can be done in and around your home. You don't necessarily need to invest in a gym membership or fancy equipment. I will share with you my secret and you will probably laugh...  I work out on a daily basis using the WII FIT! That's right I do aerobic and strength training exercises as well as yoga all while playing a VIDEO game! Try and make your work outs fun then it won't feel like you are really exercising. I am also doing TAE BO workouts using the Billy Blanks Boot Camp DVD's 3-5 times a week. It's a great way to work out as well as an excellent way to relieve stress. Who doesn't want to pretend to be punching or kicking someone? That is my exercise routine at the moment and it may sound silly but it is working. It meets all the Basic components of my fitness guide.

    Now what works for me will not necessarily work for everyone else. Like I said earlier the key to choosing the right exercises for you are by following these simple principles.

- Pick activities and exercises that affect each component. A way to keep things fun is if you are interested in any specific activities or sports base your
work out program on them. Train as if you were preparing for one of them. Try and put together a work out program that you look forward to doing, this will make it easier to follow.
- It`s important to work hard enough and at levels that are vigorous and long enough to overload your body above it`s resting level in order to see improvement. You need to increase your heart rate, get you blood pumping a good indication that you are working hard is sweat! That`s right in this case sweat is good!
- You should be doing a minimum of three complete (balanced) workouts a week in order to maintain your desirable level of Fitness.
- Very Important - Make sure that you continuously increase the intensity, frequency and duration of your workouts in order to improve and create new challenges. Some activities can be used to fulfill more than one of your basic exercise components. For example running builds muscular endurance in the legs and swimming develops the arm, shoulder and chest muscles. If you choose your activities wisely it is possible to fit parts of your muscular endurance workout into your cardiorespiratory workout and save yourself some time.

CONTROLLING YOUR WEIGHT is the step that requires LOTS of WILLPOWER! This might even be more difficult than maintaining your Fitness. You must control those urges! The key to controlling your weight is to keep your energy intake (food consumption) and your energy output (physical activity) in balance. If you were to only eat as many calories as your body needed your weight should technically remain constant. When you eat more than you need to that`s when gain excess fat. This is were exercise plays an important role in controlling your weight. The more you exercise the more you use your stored calories, in other words that is when you start burning excess fat.  Recent studies show that not only does exercise increase your metabolism during your workout but that it also remains elevated for some time after your workout. That allows you to burn more Calories. To find out how much exercise you need to do to help reduce your weight all depends on the amounts and types of exercise you do, as well as how much you eat.

- A medium sized adult would have to walk more than 30 miles in order to burn 3,500 calories. That might seem like a lot of walking but keep in mind you do not need to do all that in one day. Did you know that by walking 1 mile every day for 30 days will give you the  same results. (That is providing you do not over eat, that will only cancel the out the effects of your walking.)
- You would never believe that just by eating 100 calories a day more than your body requires, will cause you to gain 10 pounds in 1 year! Imagine how many extra calories that many of us consume on a daily basis... You can easily go and burn those extra calories simply by doing 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day.
- A proper combination of exercise and diet offers the most flexible and effective way of controlling your weight.

     I know I had trouble understanding why when I was doing so much exercise, watching what I ate, counting calories I was not losing weight but had in-fact gained a few pounds. I remember telling my husband I just don`t get it, talk about demotivating... Then I did some research and discovered it is not necessarily a bad thing. So if this happens to you please do not get discouraged just remember that muscle is heavier than body fat. Since muscle tissue weights more than fat tissue and exercise develops muscle (to a certain extent) you are simply turning body fat into muscle and that is why your weight will fluctuate up and down only slightly. Your body composition is a better indicator  of your bodies condition rather than your weight. You may be thinking at this point ` what is the point of all this exercise if I am not losing weight ` but keep in mind this guide is to help you increase your Fitness Level and make Healthier Lifestyle Choices.

     Certain factors you should also keep in mind when planning your workout schedule is your personal life, job and family responsibilities, the availability of exercise equipment (if your using) and the weather. It is important to schedule your workouts for a time were you will have little chance you will have to skip, be interrupted or be rushed because of other demands on your time. You should not exercise strenuously during extremely hot or humid weather or within 2 hours of eating.

     That is all the advice and information I have for now. Thank you for taking the time to read my guide I hope it is as helpful for you as it was for me. Please your comments are greatly appreciated, feel free to communicate with me if you have any questions, maybe you are uncertain and need some guidance or even if you just want to chat. Don`t ever feel as though you are in this fight alone, there are many of us out there and together we can achieve our goals!

    If your interested please take a peek at my store Solutions To Resolutions- were you can browse fitness equipment and accessories .