“I’m following a good diet and working out all the time. I’m exercising for an hour every day on a treadmill but I’m not losing weight. What’s up?”
I don’t know what your diet consists of, but my guess is that you’re suffering from a case of quantity versus quality. There are so many people out there who believe that more is better when it comes to exercise and that just isn’t the case.
What if I told you that you could cut your exercise down to 20 minutes a day, or even 20 minutes every other day, and you’d lose weight?
You’d probably tell me that I’m full of hooey but it is the truth.
It is a fact. You can achieve with 20 minutes of high intensity exercise much more than you can achieve with 60 minutes of medium or low intensity exercise.
Now, by high intensity exercise I do not mean knee pounding, ankle crushing high impact aerobics. High impact and high intensity are two completely different things.
High intensity exercise, if done properly, will trigger your body to burn extra calories not only while you are exercising, but for a good 24 hours after you exercise as well.
Here is how to have a good 20-minute high intensity workout on a treadmill:
Start out at the speed you usually do. Do that for two minutes.
Kick the speed or elevation up a notch (+1) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+2) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+3) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+4) and do that for a minute.
Drop down to where you were at +1 for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+2) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+3) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+4) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+5) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+6) and do that for a minute.
Drop down to where you were at +2 for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+3) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+4) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+5) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+6) and do that for a minute.
Kick the speed or elevation up another notch (+7) and do that for a minute.
Drop down to your starting speed to cool down for the last two minutes.
You can do this just with speed, just with elevation or a combination of the two. In 20 minutes this will give you a great high intensity workout that will make your body burn far more calories during the workout and over the next 24 hours than you ever would just walking along on the treadmill for an hour. The key here is quality over quantity. Why waste an hour when you can do more in 20 minutes?