Don’t confuse recreation or house work with exercise. Recreation is for fun and house work is a chore to be done. Exercise is for producing changes – application of measurable stimuli to decrease fat, increase muscle or increase performance. Do as little exercise as needed, not as much as you can. Three or even two days a week is enough. Exercise one hour after a light protein rich breakfast. You may add ‘Kapal Bhatti’ and ‘Pranayama’ breathing exercises and some Yoga (including ‘Surya Namaskar’ exercise) or Tai Chi on all days or only on non-exercise days as you deem fit. You should also include 15 to 20 minutes of meditation every day at a time convenient for you, for stress relief.

Research has noted some intriguing facts about how the daily cycles effects the human body – our hands are hottest around 0200 hrs (2.00 AM), we weigh the most at 1900 hrs (7.00 PM). We have the strongest physical power and endurance in the early evening hours, and breathing problems tend to be more pronounced in the early morning hours.

Low intensity exercise is comparable to walking at a pace that allows you to talk in short sentences even as you walk. Approximately about 100 cal of energy are expended per mile of walking at such a pace. Moderate intensity exercise is comparable to the greatest running pace sustainable for 2 to 4 hours. High intensity exercise is comparable to the greatest running pace sustainable for 30 to 60 mins. (See – “Glossary and Explanation of Terms”).

For most people low intensity exercise is good enough. However, brief bursts of high or medium intensity activity during otherwise low intensity exercise will encourage greater weight loss.

Recent research has also shown that when healthy but inactive people exercise intensely, even if the exercise is brief, it produces an immediate gene activation effect to the DNA molecules within the muscles promoting the production of fat bursting proteins reprogramming the muscles for strength and other structural metabolic benefits associated with exercise.

Researchers have also found that you can even exercise as little as 15 mins a day to stay healthy, as little as 30 mins a day to stay fit and lean, and that you don’t get any extra benefit once you exceed 90 mins per day.

High Intensity Interval Training, where your exercise schedule incorporates bursts of high intensity exercise is not only the most effective and efficient form of cardio exercise, it also boosts the production of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and fat loss, increases muscle growth and improves insulin sensitivity.

High Intensity exercises are so efficient that you can get all the benefits you need in just a 20 min session, performed twice or a maximum of three times a week.

Recent research has shown that even as little as 3 min of intense exertion per week can deliver many of the health and fitness benefits you get from hours of conventional exercise, including improved insulin sensitivity by an average of 24 percent.

One minute of brisk walking, followed by another minute of strolling, repeated 6 times (total 12 mins and some warmup and cooling down time) allowed people at risk of diabetes to control their blood sugar better than a continuous 30 min walk. Even a one-minute workout consisting of 20 sec intervals of very intense exercise between 2 min of low intensity exercise repeated three times leads to robust improvements in endurance and health of over weight, out of shape volunteers.

Scientists at the McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario found,as published in PLOS ONE, that even a single minute of intense exercise can show benefits in those who only seek health and fitness improvements. Athletes obviously need longer exercise periods.

One minute of arduous exercise is comparable in its physiological effects to 45 mins of general sweating.

The key factor that makes interval training so effective is intensity. However sprinting in your running period, may lead to injuries unless proper stretching is done before starting.

Another effective way to turn you weight routine into a high intensity exercise is by drastically slowing down each movement. The super-slow movement allows your muscles, at the microscopic level, to access the maximum number of cross-bridges between the protein fibres that produce movement in the muscle.

It is important that you avoid sugar and fructose, especially within 2 hours of high intensity training as this would inhibit the production of Human Growth Hormone in the body. Water is what we should be having, though if sweating profusely you may also take some electrolyte drink or some coconut water, though its sugar content can be counterproductive, if taken in excess.

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