Burning Fat at Home

So you've decided that you're going to burn off your excess body fat at home, instead of with a trainer at a gym? If so, you can definitely save money - however, you're going to need to make sure you possess the motivation to continue on your plan alone. Spending your hard-earned cash on a trainer and gym membership can be good motivation to work out (you don't want that investment to go to waste, do you?), but if the finances are just not there, or the thought of working out in a public place makes you queasy, then a home workout plan is for you.

The first thing you'll need to evaluate when you decide to "go it alone" is the space requirements of your plan. If you are planning on doing yoga, make sure you have enough space to lay out a yoga mat, plus move around that mat as necessary. If you're doing more cardio work, such as kickboxing, obviously you'll need fairly large clear space around you as you work out. If you're going to work on strength exercises, especially weightlifting, you just need the space to do the exercise, and the space to store the weights and/or bench.

The other thing you should think about early on is making sure you have a place to run - whether it's a path, trail, street, park, etc., etc., near to your house, it's important to think about where you'd want to go and who should have contact with you while you run/walk. Also, you'll want to think about the time of the day. If your perfectly safe-in-the-daylight path is not well-lit at night, women especially should find another place to get their run/walk in.

You'll also want a pen and paper to keep track of your exercise as you work to one of your two most important tools - your goal! By writing down your goal, you help to make it real and measurable, and once you can measure something you can track it, and if you can track it you can improve it. This will also tie directly to your second most important tool - your deadline! Everybody seems to do better when they know they have to get something done by a certain deadline, and while some people like to cram everything in at the last minute, with exercise it's definitely something that's not practical to do. The trick is to pick a deadline for your goal, write it down, (tell someone about it - having other people know your goal & deadline puts even more positive pressure on you to get it done), and then get a calendar and pick out some milestones along the way for you to hit. Now you have a road-map for getting from where you're at, to where you want to be.

Those are the essential things you need to start a fat burning program at home. Some things that are definitely nice to have if you're able include free weights for strength training (although there are programs out there that don't require a lot of weight for strength training - they use your body as the weight), DVD exercise programs (good if you're unsure how to do some exercises, or feel like you need to follow along instead of doing it yourself), a yoga mat (even if you're not doing yoga, just the little bit of padding makes a big difference for ab workouts), a treadmill or elliptical machine (really not a high priority, but if you have the space and budget for one, they can really help with cardio workouts, especially in bad weather). Finally, one more thing that's great to have in a home-based workout is a partner, whether or not you're doing the same exercise program. Even if your spouse just wants to run on the treadmill while you do your program, or a friend is doing some cardio/kick-boxing program that's different than yours, if you have a partner to keep you motivated you're more likely to stick with the program, and push yourself a little harder than you would if you were working out solo.

Finally, there are a couple of things that people like to think they need to have for a home-based workout, but are really unnecessary. The number one item that people get stuck into buying are expensive workout machines that either a) don't match the workout program that they're on (or simply don't work as advertised), or b) end up sitting un-used in the corner of the basement because they're either too complicated to use effectively or only work part of the body, instead of the whole system. Another thing people think they need to run out and buy right away is a large free weight set. While free weights are great to have, and the bigger the selection of weights the better, you can make positive changes in your body with just a few weights used correctly. If you don't have or can't afford even a few used free weights, look around your house for ideas - cans of food, rocks, buckets full of sand, etc, etc - anything that you can grasp that has weight to it can be used for resistance.

Remember - there's a lot of hype in the fat burning business, and really, the important thing is to watch your nutrition and do some sort of exercise. Getting your body moving and burning calories is the name of the game, and however you do that is better than not doing anything at all!

My name is Fred Klauke, and if you'd like more information on burning fat and improving your muscle tone visit bestquickfatlossprogram.com bestquickfatlossprogram.com.