What is the result you desire for your body and health? Once you establish this then we can work backward to determine what action steps need to be taken in order to achieve this specific result.
If you want to lose 10-15 pounds then you need to create an energy deficit and this is most easily done through nutrition and exercise. If you want to be just generally healthier and live longer then you need to exercise and make smarter food choices like eating whole foods the majority of the time. So, depending on what result we want to achieve we need to implement the correct actions consistently to get there.
There are so many benefits to exercise including decreased all-cause mortality (death from any cause), improved body composition, decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, obesity, etc. that regardless of what the health result we want is exercise needs to be a part of it.
Some of the biggest hurdles for people when it comes to implementing those actions are a lack of time, a lack of knowing what to do and the fear of failure. How do we overcome these? We start by creating some momentum and then we use the momentum to create a habit. A perfect way to create momentum is with a short but effective exercise session.
Believe it or not, we can actually achieve a good level of activity within 7 minutes. If you already have a routine, you can use this 7-minute full-body workout to switch things up and add some variety to your workout. When we exercise, we grow and if we are growing, we are winning.
The 7-minute Full Body Workout:
Hand to Foot Crawl (3 meters forward, 3 meters backward)
10 Russian Twists
10 Glute Bridges
Complete as many cycles of the following exercises as you can in 7 minutes. The goal is to try to move for 7 minutes straight while keeping quality movement throughout.
This may end up with you getting 2 rounds or 5 rounds but if you moved for the 7-minutes and you pushed yourself you won! This means you expanded your capabilities and you are getting fitter. Set a timer for 7-minutes and keep going until it goes off.
The great thing about this workout is it can be done anywhere; you don’t need any equipment so it can even be done at home!
See below on how to perform these exercises.
The Exercises:
Hand to Foot Crawl
Russian Twists
Glute Bridges
Moving Forward:
Once you are done this 7-minute workout it is time to keep this momentum going to get the result you’re going for. If you currently do not have the result then that means things need to change, habits need to change and the way things are currently progressing have to change. It may seem cliche at times, but remember:
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”
– Albert Einstein.
One of the best ways to do this is to buy a program, hire a trainer, a coach or someone to keep you accountable and or to put you on the right path because growth is what we are after. If we aren’t where we want to be then it’s on us, no one else, we need to take accountability, so we need to stop standing in our own way and a lot of the time all we need is some support to get where we want to go.
- Strasser B, et al. Fat loss depends on energy deficit only, independently on the method for weight loss. Annals of nutrition & metabolism. 2007; 51 (5): 428 – 432.
- Blair SN, et al. Changes in physical fitness and all-cause mortality. A prospective study of healthy and unhealthy men. JAMA. 1995 Apr 12; 273 (14): 1093-1098.
- Lukas Schwingschackl, et al. Food groups and risk of all-cause mortality: a systemic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. June 2017; Volume 105, Issue 6: 1462-1473.
- Darren E.R. Warburton, et al. Health benefits of physical activity: the evidence. CMAJ. 2006 Mar 14; 174 (6): 801-809.