How Much Exercise Does It Take to Lose Weight and Also Improve Your Health?

This is a question I get all the time and the good news is, you can get results with a lot less exercise than you might think.

With a properly designed resistance circuit training workout, you can actually lose weight, boost your metabolism, and improve your cardiovascular fitness while exercising as little as 30 minutes, 3 times per week. But the key to getting results with short workouts is to focus on quality over quantity.

When it comes to quality of exercise, you want your exercise to be intense enough to create the stress needed to break down muscle tissue but you don't want your workouts to be so intense that they leave you feeling drained, depleted and exhausted. If you exercise at the right intensity you will improve your body's tolerance to physical activity (which will actually decrease your day to day stress), you'll burn fat and improve your heart health. Exercising at the right intensity will also activate your body's natural healing and regeneration process. However, going for a stroll around your park or walking at a pace that you can comfortably talk at is not going to give you the results you want.

The best way to gauge your exercise intensity is to use a scale from 1-10. If you were to be at rest you'd be at a level 1 and if you were to be sprinting and running at full speed you would be exercising at a level 10; the ideal intensity for getting the best results for weight loss and general health is about a level 7 or so. You want to be slightly winded, but you don't want to be totally out of breath. Most important, when your workout is done you want to feel energized and refreshed. A telltale sign you are over-exerting yourself is if you feel exhausted and depleted after your workout. If you put too much physical strain on your body with exercise you'll do more harm than good; your body will also produce free radicals that accelerate the aging process.

If you want to get fitter and firmer faster and improve your health you really only need to exercise (at the right intensity!!) thirty minutes, three days a week. That of course is the absolute minimum, but it should be encouraging to know you can still get results exercising as little as 30-minutes, 3 days a week. However, if you are only going to workout 3 days a week you need to make sure you do the most time-efficient, effective workout program where you don't rest, where your heart rate is pumping and you are simultaneously training every single major muscle in your body.

The most time-efficient 30-minute workout program is a circuit training workout. You can do a wide variety of different exercises in a circuit format such as yoga circuit workouts, ballet inspired workouts, calisthenic style workouts, traditional weight training workouts, cardio circuit workouts, etc. For optimal results you should switch your workouts up as this creates "muscle confusion" and prevents you from reaching the dreaded plateau.

Keep in mind, when it comes to getting fit fast, it's about exercising smarter, not harder. And you can get results in 30 minutes, 3 times per week, so there's no excuse to say you don't have time for that!

To learn more now about how to eat clean, clean cuisine recipes, cooking and workout video demos, fitness advice, healthy living product reviews and more visit Ivy Larson at cleancuisineandmore.com Clean Cuisine and More.com.

Ivy is a healthy lifestyle coach who runs Clean Cuisine and More.com. Along with her husband, Andy Larson, M.D., Ivy is the author of the bestselling Gold Coast Cure, Fitter Firmer Faster and Whole Foods Diet Cookbook. A popular figure among national media outlets, Ivy has appeared on such shows as Good Morning America, CNN, and Fox News. She also currently makes regular appearances on Lifetime Television.