“Maybe you love to eat but hate to exercise,” Jim Karas proposes.
For most of us, that about sums it up.
“The biggest hurdle you will ever face in losing weight isn’t sticking to a diet or going to the gym every day. It’s simply this: getting started,” he says.
Can you spare 15 minutes, three times a week? Trainer and author Karas, who blogs at jimkaras.com, says that’s enough to get you off to a good start.
Just those 45 minutes weekly will rev up your metabolism, increase your energy, and make you look and feel better, he says.
“You don’t have to have equipment. You don’t have to go to the gym,” he says.
Instead, Karas recommends taking three basic exercises — pushups, Pilates planks, and squats or lunges — and doing each until “you’re almost out of breath.” Then repeat the series “until you fill up 15 minutes” three times weekly. Instructions for these exercises are all over the Internet.
In most exercise regimens, “the neglected variable is intensity,” Karas says. “If you really get in there and get the job done, you optimize results and you save yourself time.”
Ellen Warren, Chicago Tribune
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