Exercise Your Imagination and Burn Calories!

When you leave Pritikin, you go home with an exercise program that works for you. Hopefully, you’ve taken our advice and scheduled exercise time, the same way you schedule other important appointments.  For example, you do cardio 6 days a week, right after breakfast, and you work with weights Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening before dinner.  By now, you’re feeling stronger, energized, and wearing your favorite jeans again!

Expand your exercise horizons beyond your formal exercise times to step your program “up a notch”.  Use your imagination to find ways to add more movement throughout the day. Research shows that people who think of themselves exercisers enhance weight loss, because new thoughts generate new behaviors!  Find a way to get movement into your day, and you’ll see movement on the scales and in your level of fitness.

When you park your car, park further away from the store than you normally would.  Don’t fight the other car for the space “right in front”!  You get a bigger prize by walking more and collecting more steps on your pedometer.  Or when you’re alone with your favorite tunes on the iPod,, go ahead and ask yourself to dance.  Two songs will give you fifteen more minutes of cardio, and a mood boost as well.  Take the stairs up to your office, and do some stretches at your desk, an easy way to move more and stress less at the office.

When you increase your physical activity in any way, you increase your awareness of your body.  And that’s an added benefit! When you feel more connected to your body, you’ll treat it with more respect.  You’ll be much more likely to feed it healthy foods instead of stuffing it with junk food.  Be good to your body, and it will be good to you!