We all want to look great and feel great. But it’s not easy to fit in hours and hours of exercise each day in order to achieve the bikini model look. Luckily, there is a solution.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that you need to slog yourself through grueling daily workouts to get the body you’ve always wanted. There is an easier, simpler and less time-intensive solution: the Lazy Girl’s Guide to Working Out. Join us as we walk you through the how-to guide to get the body of your dreams, without the hard labor.
Change the way you think about exercise
So you think fitness can only be achieved through religious gym attendance? Pfft, hardly. As cliché as this sounds, fitness isn’t just a daily habit, it’s part of your lifestyle.
So transforming your perception of fitness to be less about a single habit and more about how you live your life is crucial. Now, before you panic and think that this philosophy goes against the premise of the lazy girl’s guide to working out, relax. Because it doesn’t. In fact, it supports it even more.
Because this means you don’t have to do marathon runs every day to stay fit. You don’t need to cycle 100 miles or swim 10 miles. You just have to sprinkle in some complementary physical activity – not exercise – into your day.
For example, I know you’ve heard this before, but there are really easy things you can do and incorporate into your day to make it more fitness savvy. Things like taking the stairs up to your workplace instead of the elevator. Getting off the train or bus a stop earlier so you can get some extra walking in. Going outside at lunch time and taking a walk around the park. These things are easy, fuss-free and best of all, lazy girl suitable.
Changing the way you think about exercise will help you identify potential fitness blocks in your day where you can easily and effectively stay fit.
Get a pedometer
Our ancestors (the hunting and gathering ones, not our cute grandparents in the old people’s homes) took 10,000 steps a day. To put that in real terms, that’s close to five miles, or eight km.
It doesn’t sound like a lot, but most people in office jobs take only 500 to 1,000 steps a day. If you’re cringing right now, you should be. 1,000 steps a day is deplorable.
A good way to check out your daily steps is to pick up a pedometer. There’s a brand called FitBit that syncs with your iPhone so you can track your daily movements. It also sends you little inspirations when you’re close to achieving your goal.
We recommend trialing the pedometer for a few days to see what your average daily steps looks like. From there, you can start planning how to get your steps up to 10,000.
To get to 10,000 steps, it’s going to take around two hours of walking, depending on how fast you move. The lazy aspect of this is that you can add in small bursts of walking to get to that target throughout the day. You don’t need to set out to walk for two hours straight a day, just make sure that your accumulated step total adds up to 10,000.
And besides, you can’t get much lazier than walking. Unless of course, you just flopped down on the couch. Speaking of which …
Watch more TV
One of the best parts of the lazy girl’s guide to working out is that it encourages you, no requiresyou, to watch more TV. Hallelujah, right? Now before you get too excited, there is a small catch: ad breaks.
It’s a bit of swap really. Ten or so minutes of lounging bliss for a two to three minute work out. Sounds easy though, doesn’t it? Because it is.
All you have to do is get off your butt during the ad breaks and do some form of physical activity. It could be lunges, squats, push-ups, sit-ups or even jogging around the house. You can jump rope, do ballet plies or use dumbbells.
You can even make a game of it and turn it into a time trial. So you did 20 sit-ups during an ad break yesterday. What can you do today? Make it fun, interactive and more to the point interesting. Don’t just do the same old thing during every ad break. Not only will it limit the workout you get, but it’s dull too.
So mix it up, change it up and turn ad time into exercise time.
Note: Don’t think you can work around this one by fast-forwarding through the ad breaks if you have cable. Clever thinking, but it’s not going to get you any fitter.
Have more sex
Yep, you heard correctly: a key component of keeping lazy girl’s fit is that you make time for lots and lots of sex. Having sex burns 144 calories per half hour. It also boosts your flexibility (grin), develops muscle tone and increases cardiovascular fitness if you’re especially vigorous. Sex also gives you a healthy glow and boosts the endorphins in your body to add in the ‘feel great’ aspect.
Oh, and it’s not just sex that will melt the calories either. Kissing burns 68 calories an hour (just be careful of beard rash), making out burns 238 calories an hour, undressing burns 8 calories, oral sex burns 100 calories an hour and massaging burns 80 calories an hour. Add it all together, and that’s one pleasurably effective work out!
And if you’re sexily single, don’t worry – you can benefit from this one too. Masturbation burns up to 150 calories and leaves you with a happy grin on your face.
So for maximum fitness effectiveness, indulge in at least one of these sexy calorie burners per day.
Go shopping
This article is making you very happy, isn’t it? After all, you’ve been told to watch more TV, have more sex and now to go shopping. Isn’t this just the coolest work out plan ever? You can thank me later.
For now, I want you to grab some sneakers and head off to your local mall. Whether it’s grocery shopping, shoe shopping or clothes shopping, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you’re passionate about or what needs to be done is fine.
Then, I want you to shop. Easy, right?
It’s estimated that if you spend three hours shopping, you’ll burn at least 400 calories (if you weigh just 100 pounds, if you weigh more you burn more). Pretty neat, huh? And the best part is that if you buy stuff, you have to carry it around. Which means, wait for it … weight lifting! Yay!
So for a weekly dose of cardiovascular activity and weight training – go shopping.
Hire an expert
If you’re reading this article, then you probably suffer from a little something called ‘lack of motivation’. Lack of motivation is the little sucker responsible for the regular snoozing of your alarm clock when you were meant to go jogging. It encourages you to have a movie marathon rather than go rock climbing and to skip that weekly spin class. Lack of motivation is essentially responsible for at least part of our laziness.
And that’s fine. Some of us just aren’t as naturally motivated as others (although I do think that motivation is a bit of a myth, but more on that another day). But how are you meant to exercise when you’re unmotivated? Exercise is hard enough when you are motivated.
Well you could force yourself (or your partner) to pull on some joggers and get outside. But even then, the chances are high that your work out will be sub-par at best.
Or, you could hire an expert. Someone that handles the motivation piece for you. Someone who knows how to get the maximum results in the minimum time. Someone who has no qualms about kicking your ass.
Now sure, this isn’t exactly the lazy way out. The lazy way out would be to ignore this advice completely.
But if you’re looking for an easy way to stay fit and lose weight, then you might want to look at hiring a personal trainer. Having a regular weekly timeslot with a personal trainer will ensure that at least one day of the week, you’re working towards your fitness. Your trainer will be able to guide you on the right things to do and when to do them and ensure that you stay injury free.
It’s a great, no-fuss way to boost your results. Sure, for half an hour or so you’ll work your little tush off. But wouldn’t you like your tush to be little? Invest in a trainer and invest in your overall health and wellbeing.
There you go, the lazy girl’s guide to working out. What do you think? Do you have any lazy girl tips for staying fit?
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