Weight Loss: Customize, Personalize, Spice up!

You know you have weighted, err, waited more than enough. So you decide to get yourself started on some weight loss programs and regimens. In all likelihood you would draft yourself with the ones that promise you sure-hit quick weight loss tips.

So you sweat and strain with your chosen weight loss program, perhaps ecstatically so at the start. Sure your body gets all aching with all your joints and knuckles cracking in epic proportions like ungreased door hinges of horror movies.

Looking at yourself in the mirror, you cringe at the sight of this blob staring back miserably at you still with the extra flabs flapping around somewhere there. You sigh in exasperation. Whatever happened to the weight loss program that promised to sculpt your body to whistle-bait shape? You scream in desperation. You know you have just been weigh-layed, err again, way-laid by some pseudo weight loss masters.

Truth is, we tend to pattern our weight loss mindset after the mentality of that of some backyard gym instructors. We torture ourselves with the age-old dictum "No pain, no gain." Let's face it, while it did miracles for Rocky, it sure did get him crippled (or, killed) in the final picture.

We are no Rocky. We are ordinary human beings with not-so-ordinary day-to-day affairs. Some are multi-tasked like the housewife who has to master doing diapers in one hand, pitching copies in the other, while applying tantric massage on her hubby with her feet. All throughout she is troubled between going for weight loss surgery and taking weight loss pills.

"No pain, no gain" is foolishly macho and downright false. Of course, there's bound to be some discomfort when you're just getting started with your own weight loss program, and later when you start to reach out for new weight loss goals.

But there's an important difference between discomfort and pain. Learn it. Listen to your body say, "Moderation in all things." Pain means injury. Pain makes you quit the weight loss program.

If you don't like your chosen program of weight loss exercises, you won't stick with it. It will become a chore, you'll slack off and finally give up the entire weight loss program. Tailor your weight loss exercise to yourself, not to what others do or to some false image generated from within or without. Of course when you're just getting started, weight loss may seem like a chore. But appearances are not always reality. Realize that your body and mind would always prefer being a couch potato, and will rebel at the thought of exertion in the weight loss program, so you've got to give any form of exercise a chance to grow on you before you start analyzing whether it's for you or not! The key is to turn weight loss exercise into play, then you'll succeed and persist. Lack of joy makes you quit.

So spice up your own program of weight loss exercises by customizing it according to your our own weight loss needs. Variety is still the spice of weight loss. You should'nt be satisfied just with pounding the pavement or sweating in a gym. Variety makes you learn how much you're capable of. Play around, pick and choose, experiment with your own customized personal weight loss program.

Whatever weight loss exercises you choose from the following, try to get your heart rate up to about 70 percent of your safe maximum. You can do that by using this formula: 220 minus your age equals your Maximum Safe Heart Rate. Keep it at this rate for a solid half-hour. Don't go over the 85 percent rate for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Of course, heart rate doesn't figure into strength builders such as weigh lifting.

Note : The calories-burned figures that follow are for a 110-pounder. A 154-pounder should add on another 28 percent to that number, while a 198-pounder should add 55 percent.

Walking : Calories burned at 2 mph is 145 per hour; 3 mph is 235 per hour; at 5 mph is 435 per hour.

Jogging : Calories burned at 5mph is 530 per hour which is roughly about a 12-minute mile.

Jumping Rope : Calories burned is 600 calories per hour.

Swimming : At 30 yards per minute (about one lap of an Olympic-size pool), calories burned is 330 per hour.

Water-walking : Calories burned is 360 per hour in a fast game.

Bicycling : Calories burned at 10 mph is 390 per hour.

Aerobic Dancing : For low impact, calories burned is 240 per hour and for moderate impact, 350 per hour.

Square Dancing : Calories burned is 350 and up - way up! - per hour.

Table Tennis : Calories burned is 450 hour.

Rowing : Calories burned is 600 per hour.

Cross-country skiing : Calories burned at 10 mph is 600 per hour.

Weight Lifting : Calories burned is 250 per hour.

Martial Arts : Calories burned is 620 per hour.

You really won't know what you like unless you try it. And if you haven't tried it don't knock it. Try mixing gardening with walking, housework with rowing, bicycling with weight lifting, dancing with martial arts, table-tennis with cross-country skiing, outdoors with indoors, team sports with solitary sports. Without variety, humans get bored and stale. They stop reaching. Boredom makes human beings quit.

©Charlene J. Nuble 2005. For updated links and information about weight loss, please go to: http://weight-loss.besthealthlink.net/ or for updated links and information on all health related topics, go to: http://www.besthealthlink.net/