Why Self-Care Can Assist You in Stress Management

 

Many of us have so many duties in life that we neglect to look after our own needs. This is especially true for those who are responsible for a large number of people. Self-care is a vital element of stress management, even if it’s difficult to prioritize when you have so many other things on your to-do list.

How Self-Care Can Help You

When we’re physically and emotionally exhausted, we’re less equipped to handle the challenges that life throws at us. Or, to put it another way, when we are physically and emotionally at our best, we are more robust and capable of handling life’s stress. A massage, a hot bath, or some other type of pampering rejuvenates you on the inside and out. Taking time to maintain self-care provides a number of advantages.

Physical Health Possibly Beneficial

While self-pampering may not necessarily result in significant gains in general health, like a good diet and exercise, the calm it provides might stimulate the relaxation response. As a result, prolonged stress is less likely to harm your health. In this way, self-care benefits you both inside and out.

Can Help You Feel Better Emotionally

Taking time to look after yourself can serve as a reminder to you and others that you and your needs are equally important. Taking care of your body may help you feel better about yourself and your life, as well as show others that you respect yourself. This can lead to long-term sensations of happiness.

Assists You in Being a Better Caregiver

People who ignore their own needs and forget to nurture themselves are at risk of experiencing greater degrees of sadness, low self-esteem, and resentment. People who spend all of their time caring for others are at danger of being burnt out, making it more difficult to care for themselves or others. Taking care of oneself on a regular basis might help you be a better caregiver for others.

Stress Management Through Self-Care

Self-care may be approached in a variety of ways. Making time for sleep, prioritizing good meals, keeping a balance of leisure time in your schedule, and making time for friends are just a few of them.

Having a self-pampering session on a regular basis in your own house is a simple but frequently forgotten type of self-care. Taking a few hours to relax at a spa is a great method to relieve stress.

Provides a Stress-Relieving Break

Having a break in a tub of warm bubbles or under the warm hands of a skilled masseur may make you feel as if you’re fleeing from a difficult situation and taking a mental and emotional vacation. This activates the relaxation response, allowing you to return to your daily life feeling refreshed and calm.

Allows you to spend time alone

While various people have differing degrees of introversion and extroversion, most people need time alone to function well. It’s far simpler to relax by yourself and slip into a state of silent meditation, enjoy some self-reflection, or let your troubles work themselves out in the back of your mind without requiring all of your focused attention.

Produces Relaxing Feelings

Giving your body particular attention is a natural stress reliever. Spa-related activities like massage and warm baths have been found to soothe even little colicky babies, in addition to keeping your skin supple and your body in excellent repair. As we become older, such activities remain useful instruments for relaxation, but we sometimes forget to use them.

Workable Self-Care Techniques

When you’ve decided it’s time to start caring for yourself and your body, set aside some time to do so. Make an effort to set a time when you won’t be disturbed. Try one or more of the self-care methods listed below.

Take a brisk walk: Exercise may be beneficial to your mind as much as your body. Though you may not always feel like you have time to go to the gym or do intense exercise, a brisk stroll may be a great way to take care of yourself.

Engage your senses: Engaging your senses is an excellent method to relax and discover inner calm. Consider soaking in a hot bath, lighting a scented candle, listening to relaxing music, or sipping herbal tea.

Get a massage: This one is really relaxing. If regular massages with a professional are out of your budget, try if you can exchange with a friend or your spouse, or utilize an electronic massager.

Soak in the tub with bubbles, oils, and fragrant soaps till you’re wrinkled.

Maintain your oral hygiene: Dental hygiene is necessary to keep teeth and gums healthy. Brushing twice a day and seeing the dentist on a regular basis are part of it. Oral health, on the other hand, is more than just preventing cavities and gum disease. According to a dentist in Surprise, there is a link between a person’s dental health and their overall health. Oral health problems are increasingly being recognized as a global health problem.

Make time for socializing: Maintaining social ties is an important aspect of self-care. Make an effort to see friends and family on a regular basis.

Deep-condition your hair: Put on a deep-conditioning treatment for your hair in the tub and relax while it works.

Deeply cleanse your pores: Using a clay face masque, you can pull pollutants and tension out of your skin.

Take care of your skin: Rich, luscious lotions smell great and feel silky smooth, especially if you exfoliate your skin in the tub first.

Take care of your nails: File and buff your nails to help them recover from the battering they’ve received from your busy life (particularly if you bite your nails).

Self-care that is more comprehensive and involves healthy lifestyle choices is also vital. For long-term health and stress management, eating a balanced diet, exercising regularly, and getting adequate sleep are all essential.

A Walk a Day

The popularity of walking as a fitness activity is growing by leaps and bounds. Low risk and easy to start, walking has proved its health benefits in numerous studies. A classic eight-year study of 13,000 people conducted at the Institute for Aerobics Research under the direction of Dr. Steven Blair found that those who walked the equivalent of 30 minutes a day had a significantly lower risk of premature death than those who rarely exercised. 

A regular walking program can help:

• Reduce blood cholesterol
• Lower blood pressure
• Increase cardiovascular endurance
• Boost bone strength
• Burn calories and keep weight down

Get Ready

A walking program is simple to start. All you need are comfortable clothes and shoes. It is a good idea to layer loose clothing, keeping in mind that exercise elevates the body’s temperature. Shoes specifically designed for walking are your best option.

Every workout should begin with a brief warm-up and a few simple stretches. Walk around the house or in place for a few minutes to get the blood flowing to the muscles before you attempt to stretch them. Although walking primarily works the major muscles of the legs, don’t forget to stretch your back, shoulders and arms. This will help to loosen up any tension you may be carrying and make your walk more enjoyable, as well as more effective.

Get Moving

Beginning walkers can make their workouts less strenuous by limiting how fast and far they walk. Keep the following in mind:

Walk short distances—Begin with a five-minute stroll and gradually increase your distance.

Forget about speed—Walk at a comfortable pace. Focus on good posture, keeping your head lifted and shoulders relaxed.

Swing your arms naturally—Breathe deeply. If you can’t catch your breath, slow down or avoid hills.

Be sure that you can talk while walking—If you can’t converse, you are walking too fast.

Get Fit!

Walking is one fitness activity that allows you numerous options. Once you have reached a point where you can walk a few miles with relative ease, you can start to vary the intensity.

Walking hills, in addition to increasing your cardiovascular endurance, is a great way to tone the legs. Concentrate on lengthening your stride or increasing your speed. And don’t forget to reward yourself after each workout with a few minutes of relaxing stretches to help prevent sore muscles.

Listening to lively music while you walk is also a great way to energize your workout. But if you wear headphones, keep the volume down and watch out for traffic that you may not hear.

Keep track of your progress. Many experts recommend that you walk a minimum of 30 minutes a day, but there are no hard and fast rules. Fit walking into your schedule whenever you can. That may mean three 10-minute walks each day, or even hour-long walks two to three times a week. The best schedule is one that keeps you walking and keeps you fit!

 

What to Eat to Boost Your Immune System

 

Wouldn’t it be nice if eating a particular food could magically protect you against all the nasty bugs floating around? (Even better, if this magical food happened to be, say, chocolate?)

It’s not that simple, of course. Handwashing remains your best defense against picking up viruses, and sleep is a crucial component of a strong defense too.

But what you eat does play a role in your ability to ward off colds and flu. Though it doesn’t boil down to just one or two foods, the nutrients and other compounds found in your daily diet have an impact on how weak or strong your immunity is. Here are some eating habits that can help you stay healthy:

Eat fruits & vegetables every day: Produce contains key vitamins involved in the immune system. Vitamin C in foods like strawberries, bell peppers, broccoli, and citrus, helps immune system cells function, including phagocytes (the kind that engulfs potentially harmful particles). Vitamin A helps keep tissues in the mouth, intestines, and respiratory tract healthy and is found in sweet potatoes, spinach, carrots, and cantaloupe. Remember that eating the actual fruit or veggie is better than popping single-vitamin supplements since it’s likely that all the components in the food interact to offer protection.

Get plenty of protein: Getting too little protein can weaken your immune system. Protein-rich foods supply the amino acids you need to build essential proteins in the body, including antibodies. Animal foods like beef and pork also contain zinc, a mineral that your body uses to make t-cells (you can find zinc in cashews and chickpeas too).

Include fermented foods: These are foods that are naturally preserved by bacteria, and they’re good for the “microbiome”. That’s the name for the trillions of bacteria that live in your gut, where a lot of cells involved in immunity actually reside. Fermented foods like yogurt (look for the term “live and active cultures” on the label), kefir, sauerkraut, miso, and kimchi help beneficial bacteria flourish in the gut, leaving less room for harmful bugs.

Season your meals: Every plant food has its own unique compounds that offer potential health-boosting benefits. Spices and seasonings like garlic, ginger, oregano, and cinnamon have all been researched for intriguing capabilities as anti-microbials, anti-inflammatories, and cell-protecting antioxidants. They’re not magic cure-alls, and popping them in the form of pills isn’t the same as eating the real deal. But adding flavor to foods with these ingredients means you’re getting even more beneficial compounds in the meals you eat every day.

Spring Into Wellness With Monthly Massage

 

If you’re gardening this spring, you’ve seen firsthand how love and care can help flowers grow and bloom. This is true throughout nature, and it’s true for us too! When we give our bodies, minds, and souls the time and attention they need, they can grow and thrive in amazing ways. 

As with gardening, consistency is key. We need to water plants regularly, not only on birthdays, anniversaries, or during times when everyday stress has become too much. The same is true with massage therapy. Getting monthly (or weekly!) massages sends your body the message that it can rely on you for love and care–and it gives you great benefits too!

The Benefits Of Monthly Massage Sessions

If you get monthly massages, you know the benefits are real, but we can also look to science for confirmation. The Mayo Clinic, widely regarded as some of the best medical care in the world, touts massage therapy as a helpful component of integrative medicine and recognizes its power to help:

• reduce stress and increase relaxation
• relieve pain and muscle soreness and tension
• improve circulation
• improve energy and alertness
• lower heart rate and blood pressure
• improve immune function

They also recognize that regular massage sessions can help those challenged with:

• anxiety
• digestive disorders
• fibromyalgia, headaches
• insomnia related to stress
• low back pain
• myofascial pain syndrome
• nerve pain
• soft tissue injuries
• sports injuries
• temporomandibular joint pain
• upper back or neck pain

Knowing that massage therapy can help address so many ailments, it is not surprising that 70% of American adults use massage therapy for health purposes.

Making massage therapy a regular habit and experience benefits like these over time:

• Help with pain relief
• Help in decreasing anxiety and depression
• Help fighting stress
• Improvement in flexibility and range of motion

Spring Cleaning Your Habits and Your Health

 

As days lengthen and the temperature rises, all of nature seems to wake from its winter dormancy. This could be the perfect time to take a look at your lifestyle and do a bit of spring cleaning. Taking on a few good habits, and losing some not-so-good ones, can bring big benefits to your health and general wellness. Check out some of the actions you can take to “clean-up” some of your habits to better your overall health.

Take inventory of your habits.

Take time to notice and track the things you do daily, weekly, and quarterly to care for your health and safety. This can be as simple as being mindful of your daily activities or as formal as spending time with a lifestyle inventory form or jotting down your daily habits in a notebook or bullet journal.

Notice patterns that emerge. After you’ve spent some time looking at your habits and general self-care practices, ask yourself which patterns or themes emerge.

Write them down!

Discern if these habits and patterns are “good” or “bad” and identify those bad habits you would like to let go. Easier said than done, we know. But if you start small and follow a few simple steps, you might find that it’s not as big a task as you fear.

Let go of bad habits.

Start small and know your cues: Pick one small habit you’d like to kick and prepare to be patient. This habit took repetition to form and it will take repetition to release. If you lessen the opportunities you have to indulge in this “bad” habit, you have a better chance of breaking it once and for all!

Replace a bad habit with a good one: If you tend to scroll social media in bed when you are too stressed to sleep, think about reading a book instead. You’ll still get the relaxing transition time without a lighted screen telling your body to stay awake!

Keep motivated by keeping the benefits top of mind! In fact, you’ll have better luck if the benefit is significant to you and benefits your life in big ways. For instance, you already know eating too many ice cream cones isn’t great for your health, but ate them anyway. Instead, try telling yourself that a heart-healthy diet could potentially give you more years with your family or an increased ability to do things you love. That might be the very motivation you need!

Make healthy new habits.

If you have a bad habit to lose, you can replace it with a great new habit. Whether it’s reading instead of scrolling (as we mentioned before) or stopping by the farmer’s market instead of the ice cream stand (Hey! There’s an idea!) it can be an opportunity to build your strength, nutrition, or happiness instead of hindering it.

Want more ideas on healthy habits? This blog article might help.

Make a plan: Deciding to work out more is great, but your chances of getting the new plan into action increase if you have a plan to do it! Meet with a personal trainer to plan your workouts. If you want to make it a habit to relax more, don’t wait for it to happen. Book a series of massages and get them on your calendar! Once they’re booked, they’re much more likely to happen with regularity and become a habit!

Get consistent. Habits require repetition to form. Attaching your new habit to a time of the day or day of the week will support you in making this new habit almost automatic. Need a little extra support? Consider setting a reminder on your smartphone or penciling it in on your analog planner or calendar–that’s a great way to chart your success too!

Now that you know what to do, it’s time to do it! Experts agree you’ll help set yourself up for success if you start small (1 or 2 habits at a time), track your success (use a calendar, bullet journal, or another accountability strategy) and think in terms of progress, not perfection.

Start small: This is so important it bears being said twice! Here’s why: it’s easy to look at your inventory and declare you’ll change everything starting tomorrow! But as we’ve all learned, it won’t be so easy tomorrow when you try to start. Picking just one or two habits to adjust at a time is a much better plan. Once you’ve mastered them, you can always add more!

Track your success: Every time you keep a good habit (or avoid a bad one) mark it on a calendar, notebook, or habit tracker. They remind you to act, motivate you to continue, and provide immediate satisfaction by showing you how far you come (you know the satisfaction you feel when marking something off your to-do list? It’s like that, but better)! Try bullet journaling, a habit tracker app, or a simple paper habit tracker for easy (and rewarding) ways to record your success.

Celebrate the wins: As your relationship with better habits continues, be on the lookout for good outcomes like feeling healthier, noticing positive changes in your body, improvements in mood, sleep, performance, and maybe even aspects of your life that you hadn’t expected! These potential benefits are what it’s all about, and appreciating them might be the best tool you could have in your habit-changing arsenal!

Check-in at important intervals. Make a date with yourself to revisit your inventory and your progress in a few weeks. Ask yourself if your plan is working and if you’re seeing the results you hoped you’d see. You may find you’ve taken on too much. You may discover you could have taken on a bit more. You may realize you’ve done none of the things you hoped you’d do and you’re back at square one.

If things are going well, CELEBRATE! Congratulate yourself on a job well done. Enjoy the benefits you’ve experienced so far and those you see coming your way in the future. You might even decide you’re ready to move on to the next habit on your list! Things are going well, and they’re about to go even better!

If things aren’t going well FORGIVE YOURSELF. When we’re talking about habits it’s easy to fall into an all-or-nothing attitude. After all, you either kept your habit or you didn’t, right? Either way, be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself. If you find that difficult to do, consider reading this article on mindset. It might help you feel better and find new paths to success!

If you’re keeping your habit most of the time, or even some of the time you’re still getting benefits you wouldn’t get if you hadn’t tried at all! Improving your lifestyle starts with improving your habits, little by little, day by day. And remember, if your goals center on improved physical, emotional or mental wellness, 

15 Best Foods for Gut Health

 

It’s no secret that what you eat every day has a direct impact on your digestive system – and that some foods (hello, greasy takeout!) can make your belly feel worse than others.

But certain foods have superpowers in the gut, actually upgrading the health of your microbiome (the trillions of bacteria that live there) – plus keeping you regular so you’re not struggling with constipation. Consider adding some of these to your grocery cart and putting them on your plate!

Fermented foods: These are probiotic-rich foods that have been naturally preserved by bacteria, so they help the beneficial bacteria in your gut to grow. That leaves less room for the kinds of harmful bacteria that can cause illness.

Fermented foods include:

Yogurt: Look for the phrase “live and active cultures” on the label. Even if you have lactose intolerance, there’s a good chance you can handle yogurt, since the bacteria also ferments and breaks down the lactose.

Kefir: It’s a thick, tangy, fermented milk drink (pronounced kuh-FEAR) that’s been around for thousands of years. Look for it in the dairy aisle in plain and flavored varieties, and drink it straight or in smoothies.

Miso: This thick paste made from soybeans and grain has a savory “umami” flavor. Stir it into salad dressings, marinades, and soup stock.

Tempeh: Like tofu, this is made from soybeans, but it’s also fermented. It’s firmer and chewier than tofu and a great source of protein. Cut it into slices to bake or stir-fry.

Sauerkraut: It naturally contains healthy bacteria. Check labels for simple products that contain only cabbage and salt.

Prebiotic foods: These plant foods actually work like “food” for probiotics, helping those good bacteria to grow and flourish in your gut. 

Foods that naturally contain prebiotics include:

Onions: Whether you eat them raw or cooked, they help feed healthy gut bacteria.

Bananas: Very ripe bananas are sweeter, but less ripe bananas will have more prebiotic power.

Sweet potatoes: They work as a prebiotic and are a great source of fiber.

Apples: They contain pectin, a starch that acts as a prebiotic. (Bonus: They’re one of the most filling fruits, so they’re good at satisfying hunger.)

Chicory root: You can spot this ingredient on food labels. It’s often added to foods marketed as healthy or low-carb to add fiber. (Note: Some people can be sensitive to chicory root.)

High-fiber foods: Fiber does a lot of good things for your gut, like softening stools so they’re easier to pass. Just be sure to slowly add high-fiber foods to your diet, as too much fiber too quickly can give you bloating and gas.

Beans: They’re a high-protein swap for meat and deliver loads of fiber.

Raspberries: All berries are good sources of fiber, but raspberries are one of the highest-fiber fruits around. Buy frozen if fresh are hard to find.

Seeds like flaxseed and chia seeds: Add these fiber-rich seeds to oatmeal and smoothies. (Just be sure to choose ground flaxseed to get the benefits.)

Oats: No matter what kind you choose – old-fashioned, quick, or steel-cut –they’re fiber-rich and also work as a prebiotic.

Whole grains: For more fiber, trade white rice for brown, white pasta for whole-wheat, and egg noodles for barley noodles in soup.

How Many Days a Week Should I Work Out?

 

What Should My Weekly Workout Schedule Look Like?

The Ideal Weekly Workout Schedule, Based on Your Goals

How Often You Should Work Out, Based on Your Goals

With all the exciting and intriguing workout options available these days—whether in-studio or streaming at home, from barbell lifts to bodyweight HIIT—it’s easy to feel a little decision fatigue on what your week of workouts should look like. Factor in figuring out exactly how many days you should dedicate to strength, cardio, and those necessary rest days and forget it. Too many choices; too little time.

That’s why we’re doing the weekly planning for you—so you can jump in and enjoy the sweat. You do have to tackle one crucial task, though: Decide what you want to accomplish in the next few weeks. Looking to build muscle all over? Working to run a little faster? Just want to stay healthy and feel good? No matter your goal, nailing down a weekly plan is the best way to achieve it.

Of course, everyone’s workout schedule will look a little different. Exercise isn’t one-size-fits all, because it depends on your fitness level, how fast your body recovers, and how quickly your body responds to movement. But a general outline—one designed based on your goals—should get you where you want to go.

Your Goal: Stay Fit and Feel Good

Your Weekly Workout Rx:

Strength train: 2-5 days at moderate intensity

Strength training is a super important part of staying healthy. Resistance training does everything from protect your bones to improve your sleep. Try doing combination exercises to work multiple muscle groups at one time, with moves like squat to press or lunge to bicep curl. You can also superset exercises of opposing muscle groups, such as chest presses (for your chest) followed by rows (working your back).

If you prefer doing strength three days a week, 30 minutes each day will do. Research backs this up, showing that it’s the volume (think total reps and sets) of resistance exercises that matters more than how often you do it. Participants in the study who did just three days of lifting a week gained the same strength and muscle gains as those who focused on strength training six days a week—but the volume remained the same for both.

The amount of weight you lift and for how many reps depends on your fitness level, but that’s where that “moderate” intensity comes into play, says Davis. You want to shoot for somewhere in the 5-7 range on a scale of 1-10 in terms of rate of perceived exertion, meaning you’re not at max effort, but you’re not as comfy as sitting on the couch either. You strike right in the middle or teetering a little higher.

Cardio: every day

While doing cardio every day might sound intimidating, it’s really not. Just shoot for 20 minutes a day and that can be as simple as a walk around town. It can also be some time on the rower, though, or a quick jog. Your goal is sustained cardio, no matter the activity you want to get done.

Rest: when you’re sore or when you’re tired

If you’re feeling super sore or you’re just wiped out, don’t be afraid to take the day off completely. 

Your Goal: Get Strong

Your Weekly Workout Rx:

Strength: 4-5 days

When planning your strength sessions, consider switching up your movement patterns because you're going to be lifting heavy. For instance, Monday try doing upper body push and pull exercises (moves like overhead presses and lat pull downs) and on Tuesday focus on lower body (like glute bridges and squats). Do the same thing for Thursday and Friday. One day a week, add in power movements like kettlebell swings, wall balls, or box jumps. Those power exercises will help you generate force with more speed.

For strength building, focus on lifting heavier weights too. You should feel tired by rep six or eight of each set, says McCall. Increase the volume by doing four or five sets, taking breaks between each to recover.

Cardio: 1 day

Choose whether you want to do a quick bout of interval training or a moderate-intensity steady-state workout. Lots of cardio training can offset strength gains, you still want to work on improving your aerobic efficiency. So take one day to focus on getting that heart rate up. On the other days, just aim to get some steps in while you’re out of your seat.

Rest: 1 day, plus one day for mobility

If you follow the strength plan mentioned, Wednesday is a good day to take a yoga class. It’s easy to lose some range of motion when you’re lifting heavy, so yoga can help avoid that. (You can also try these dynamic mobility moves.) While you can work mobility any day, take at least 24 hours off during the week too.

Your Goal: Build Muscle

Your Weekly Workout Rx:

Strength: 5 days, adding more volume

The very best way to build muscle: lift weights. That means you want to up your strength days, focusing on hitting that five-day-a-week mark, and adding more reps and sets each week. Starting with 30 minutes a day, then going up to 45 in a week or two, and then up to an hour. This will continue to challenge your body and add muscle as you go.

When trying to figure out the reps for each exercise you do, go until you can’t go anymore. 

Also, because you’ll be training two days in a row, switch up the plane of motion you work in—say, reverse lunges one day and side lunges the next or deadlifts one day and glute bridges the next. 

Cardio: 1 day, but focus more on step count

Instead of trying to schedule in a spin class or log miles on the road, just try to get those 10,000 steps. .

That said, if you love cardio, get after a HIIT workout. Make it Tabata style with just four minutes of total work, moving through 20-second all-out pushes and 10 seconds of rest. You’ll add to your cardio capacity while training fast-twitch muscle fibers that help improve your power.

Rest: 2 days

Do two days back to back of your strength training, then taking a full day to rest. Repeat that sequence all month long.

Your Goal: Improve Endurance

Your Weekly Workout Rx:

Strength: 2-5 days, focusing on higher reps

You still need strong muscles to go the distance and work out for longer—aka to build that endurance. So, don’t skip out on strength training. The only switch is focusing on adding more reps, so you build muscular endurance. Aim for the 20 to 30 rep range, doing total-body exercises.

Working through circuits, in which you perform several exercises back to back. Try to reduce the time you rest between each one to train those type I muscle fibers (the ones you need prepped for long endurance work).

Cardio: 3 days, with 1 interval day

Interval training works great for building endurance, and it’s smart to add longer intervals so you continue to build up your cardio. 

Then, on the other days, focus on steady state cardio and working for longer as you keep pushing the distance. You should be able to hold a brief convo during those more moderate paced runs, walks, or rides.

Rest: at least 1 day

Whether you’re binging on Netflix, going to yoga, or heading out for a walk around the block, make sure you get at least one day for recovery.

Your Goal: Increase Your Speed

Your Weekly Workout Rx:

Strength: at least 2 days

Even if you’re working to get faster at a lower body-dominated sport, you still want to train your entire body to get strong. 

Working power movements into your strength workouts, in addition to regular lifts. Power—marrying strength and speed to produce force as quickly as possible—involves movements like kettlebell swings and med ball tosses and can train your muscles to dominate those faster times you’re after.

Cardio: 3 days, with 2 interval days

High-intensity interval training is the way to go to train for speed. Just eight to 10 minutes of alternating all-out work periods with quick rest breaks will train the type II muscle fibers (those responsible for taking on sprints), which you need to pick up your pace and score a new personal best.

While you should schedule two days for HIIT, with at least one rest day between, take another day for steady state cardio, working at your aerobic threshold. That means you should only be able to hold a brief convo while you’re moving. For comparison, you shouldn’t be able to talk during your HIIT workouts.

Rest: 2 days

You want to wind down after those HIIT workouts, so use the next day to take a yoga class or a nice, slow stroll.

Your Goal: Lose Weight

Your Weekly Workout Rx:

Strength: 3-5 times a week at moderate intensity

Just like those looking to maintain or improve their health, those looking to shed pounds should focus on total-body strength training at least three days a week. 

You still want to aim for moderate intensity too, lifting weights that feel challenging, elevate your heart rate and make you a bit breathless. Doing combo exercises (like squat to curl or deadlift with a row) will increase the intensity, too.

Cardio: focus on step count and 1-2 days of intervals

If you want to turn up the calorie burn, intervals work best. You want to make sure you’re working at a high level through the intervals, going at an all-out effort. You don’t need more than 30 minutes for a HIIT workout and you can even start with just four or eight minutes, Tabata style. That involves working for 20 seconds and resting for 10 seconds and repeating for eight rounds.

Rest: after each interval day

You can make these active recovery days the day after you did your HIIT workout by taking a walk or heading to yoga. You need those 24 hours to let your body recoup, help your muscles repair and rebuild, and avoid overtraining (and injury).

The Best Way to Simply Move Better

Mobility is definitely a buzzword in fitness these days. So if your main objective comes down to simply moving better (that’s what mobility is after all), strength training will get you there—as long as you're moving through a full range of motion during each move. For any goal, you want to warm up with mobility exercises that prime the body for heavier lifts (or if you’re interval training, those more intense sprints), but that’s especially important if you’re looking to move with more ease. In other words: If mobility is your goal, don't ditch the warm-up or cool down. Try dynamic or active stretches before you sweat, more static stretches after, and foam rolling whenever you can. You can even find recovery classes at gyms and studios now, dedicate at least one day to moving better—whether it’s on your list of goals or not.