5-day way to get the student body of the month

Let's start with this, 30 to 45 minutes a day can be fit into even the busiest college schedule. Be smart on food choices, when eating a salad, drowning in ranch isn't healthy, you have to balance your food intake. Set goals, 2,000 calories a day, take the stairs instead of the elevator, walk across campus, and guess what, girls, cardio doesn’t work. Let me explain, walking an hour on a treadmill burns about 350 calories at best. It takes burning 3,500 calories to burn one pound of body fat. This is what works: nutrition, cardio, and weight training all together make for the best results. A pound of muscle is a little bigger than a quarter, a pound of fat is the size of an 8" sub, both long and around.

Let's talk about everyone's least favorite: nutrition.

I hate the word diet because everyone is on one and they don't work, but your nutrition goals can get you where you need to be. Start with LOWERING your sodium, read a label of all your foods and add up the salt, it's scary how much we take in. Best to keep to foods that say low sodium or set a boundary not to go over, 300mg is obviously going to be hard to keep, but the effort is what's going to get you results. Carbs, keep to foods in single digest or cut them out completely, some days you choose to eat bread mainly. Whole grains, not multigrain, watch calories don't count them you will go insane.

Have a cheat day -- don't hook up a butter and bacon IV in your arm but you can have some of your favorite foods. Stick to chicken breast, turkey, fish and other seafood for your protein and nice lean meats. Sorry, but on the meats, sliced deli meat doesn't count, it's soaked in salt water and often is in the 700mg's of sodium. Salads are great if you add cut up meats to them but stay away from salad dressings, try Italian or a vinaigrette, if you use dressings stick to the serving size in the back of the bottle, as you should with all foods, dip your fork in the dressing, then take your bite. Dark leafy vegetables are the best for you and find a light snack food, like a grain and fruit bar.

Cardio

Cardio is great for your cardiovascular system, "heart rate", it gets that blood pumping. Walking is better than nothing, but get to the gym and use the free bikes for a longer cardio experience. Anything but a treadmill, they are so light on you, unless your running. Sweat is a good thing, it shows your working hard, so wearing things that keep you cool only slows your progress down. Try to get 30 minutes of cardio a day in, especially on workout days. I recommend cardio after your work out, because you've burned all your calories lifting that your burning fat once you hit the cardio part. Sports are a great way to get in cardio without running in a gym or biking in place. Play a sport like basketball, touch football, soft or baseball, or soccer, they are all fun ways to workout, gather your friends and go out and get active.

Weight Training

I will send some examples of exercises as well as what to do. Find a focus, doing sit ups won't trim your belly, they will make your abs stronger. It's hard to kick that logic but it's the truth. muscle focus doesn't burn fat in that area, it strengthens the muscle, which is good. I suggest 5 days a week with doing an extra 6th day, light if you can. Do your upper body first to start out, go to the gym and find every machine that focuses on the upper part and do 3 sets of 10 reps. This is a good baseline to get you in the groove. Free weights are great for curls and focusing on certain muscles. Spy on the fit people in the room and copy their workouts, they clearly work. Google is your friend in this, you can look up new things to try.

Don't skip leg day, most people do because fat is on their belly but the more muscle you have the more fat you burn, ladies I don't mean bulk, nice lean muscle burns your fat reserves to keep in shape. Do abs every day for a little bit. Have an ab focus day while doing one or two things for upper and lower body to stretch them out. Muscles have to heal as you break them down, they need a day off to rebuild and be stronger, men focus on bigger and women focus on leaner, that's why you don't work everything out every day. Once a week, do a day devoted to the whole body, work it all! I suggest two days after leg day especially when you are first starting, as you will be sore. Soreness is just lactic acid build up in your body from the workout, it will go away the more you exercise, swimming and stretching helps with the soreness. Active rest is perfect for those of you trying to slim down. Go in with a workout plan, so if you’re going to do squats, in between your sets, do jumping jacks, that's your active rest. Doing this keeps your heart rate up while resting that muscle group between sets, but also working another for better results.

Workout ideas

Curls

Hammer curls

Wide curls

Triceps press

Seated military press

Triceps pull down

Bar pull ups

3 angles

Lateral press

Lateral pull down

Push up Lateral raises

Calf raises both leg presses

Squats

Leg curls

Leg extension

Girls leg machine/leg press

Jump squats

Wood chips ball

6 in

Ball sit ups

Cliff hangers

One leg plank

Figure 8

Tomahawks

Ab roll out

Oblique curls to feet

Chop feet and turn "cardio"

Jumping jacks

For other tricks and tips, e-mail me and we can set up a season: ricewiser88@yahoo.com.