Exercise choices for beginners and the benefits of aerobic dance

Do you have friends who never exercise? Because they firmly believe in the absurd claim that "a person has a fixed number of heartbeats in their lifetime, and exercise only increases the number of heartbeats consumed." Now, please tell them that, in fact, exercising for every minute can save 10 heartbeats, or in other words, exercising for every hour can save 600 heartbeats. If your heart beats 140 times per minute and you exercise for 30 minutes every day, you can save 10,000 heartbeats in a month.

Beginners should choose at least one indoor exercise and one outdoor exercise. Here, I'd like to especially recommend aerobic dance to my female friends, as it's a very fun exercise with a unique charm that makes it less likely for beginners to get bored. Furthermore, compared to other highly repetitive exercises, the varied movements in aerobic dance can reduce the risk of injury.

Outdoor sports suitable for beginners; Indoor sports suitable for beginners

Walking/Lifting heavy objects while walking at a fixed point by cycling

jogging rowing machine exercise

Cycling and step machine exercise

Climbing mountains and stairs

Skiing, cross-country skiing, and skiing machine sports

Aerobic dance

Video of aerobics class

Beginners can park their cars 700-800 meters from their workplace and walk there for 10-15 minutes each day; or they can jog slowly in place for a few minutes while preparing dinner. I know someone whose lifestyle is similar to many Europeans: she carries a bag to a store 1.6 kilometers away every day to buy her necessities. In this way, she enjoys the benefits of exercise just like those who dedicate time to it daily. In fact, it's very easy to "steal" 10-15 minutes for exercise in your daily life.

You can also try some anaerobic exercises that target muscles, such as sit-ups or playing golf, to achieve the desired fitness effect. However, if you want to control your weight, aerobic dance is the best choice.

Looking at the exercises we've introduced, it's really necessary to give a clear definition of "aerobic exercise" to avoid making exercise ineffective due to misunderstandings.

Characteristics of aerobic exercise:

• Aerobic exercise targets the larger muscles in the lower body, because only by exercising larger muscles can a systemic effect be achieved.

• Aerobic exercise will make your whole body warm up and you breathe a lot, but you will never be out of breath. In other words, your heart rate should remain at 60% to 80% of its maximum after exercise.

• When you do rowing exercises, 12 minutes of continuous activity will get all your muscles working, but a 25-minute walk only works a localized muscle group. In short, to achieve a systemic response throughout the body, you should exercise as many muscle groups as possible, and each exercise session should be as short as possible.

Susan's Weight Loss Diary

When Susan first visited the sports center, I had a real urge to lean down and kiss the back of her hand. Her striking face, gentle voice, and tall figure, combined with her appropriate attire, gave her an air of natural nobility. How captivating she was from the neck up! Her auburn hair shone even brighter against her golden dress.

Her remarkable qualities deeply attracted my attention until she blurted out, "My savior, you absolutely have to save me! I need surgery, but my doctor is hesitant to operate on me because of my smoking habit and my weight of 90 kilograms, unless I can lose weight and quit smoking completely." Susan had been suffering from chronic knee pain, which could only be cured by surgery. However, her doctor insisted that she make these two adjustments first to ensure a faster recovery after surgery, as excessive obesity would increase the difficulty of the operation, and smoking would slow down tissue healing. Many surgeons were unwilling to perform surgery on her if she didn't meet the required standards, unless she could improve these two conditions.

After a long talk with Susan's doctor, he finally agreed to postpone the surgery for six months. He also suggested that Susan do some light exercise to strengthen the muscles around her knee; any form of exercise would be fine, as long as it didn't put excessive pressure on the muscles around her knee.

Susan is 1.75 meters tall and weighs 89 kilograms, with a body fat percentage exceeding 36%. Although her hip circumference is 117 centimeters and her thighs are 71 centimeters thick, she has a unique sense of style in clothing, allowing her to subtly enhance her figure. She has tried to lose weight, but with limited success. She fasts every morning, eats soup for lunch, and drinks a beverage before dinner. While the quantity of her food seems small, the content is predominantly high in fat. As a food expert and culinary master, Susan often uses cheese as a cooking ingredient when entertaining guests.

Exercise didn't seem to help her either, even though she spent an hour and a half every morning doing weight training with her husband. "I'm too fat, so I'm embarrassed to take aerobics classes," she lamented. In addition, as a drug addict, she had to smoke a pack of cigarettes every day.

According to my calculations, if Susan successfully reduces her weight to 73 kg, her body fat percentage will only be 27%. "Don't be ridiculous!" she said. "73 kg is still too heavy. I want to get down to 65 kg; that's the ideal." I didn't say anything after hearing this, because I knew what she needed to change was to increase her muscle mass to help burn fat. Although she would inevitably lose some muscle during the weight loss process, I wanted to minimize it as much as possible. My plan was for Susan to lose weight to 78 kg within 6 months, which meant losing 0.45 kg per week, for a total of 11 kg. A safe weight loss target is a maximum of 0.45 to 0.90 kg per week. If you exceed this range, you're only losing muscle and water, besides fat. I planned to change her eating and exercise habits without affecting Susan's existing lifestyle, so I designed a diet plan, requiring her to follow the guidelines for the next 6 months. This was quite a challenge for a foodie. With the intention of inspiring her creative potential, I told her, "Anyone can cook delicious dishes using the right amount of butter and cheese. Why don't you think about how to use herbs or spices instead?"

This trick worked wonders, successfully unleashing Susan's creativity. She bought numerous low-fat cooking guides, learned new cooking methods, and used them to entertain her guests. Now, she's not only a well-known low-fat cooking expert in the area, but she's also compiled her experiences and is working on writing a low-fat cookbook!

She must change her "one meal a day" eating habit, otherwise it will only intensify fat accumulation. I hope her breakfast will consist mainly of cereals and fruits. Due to work, Susan has difficulty eating a proper lunch, but she promised to eat at least four kinds of fruit or vegetable snacks instead. In this way, she will consume about 7,500 joules of calories per day.

She used to have a small drink before dinner to relieve the day's fatigue. Our calculations showed that her daily alcohol intake provided 420 joules of energy, which could be offset by an hour and a half of stationary cycling. If she replaced her pre-dinner drink with exercise, she could burn 840 joules of energy daily, and the exercise would undoubtedly make her feel better.

If a woman's body fat percentage exceeds 32%, I would ask her to spend more time on gentle exercise, ideally with 4-6 sessions a day, each lasting about 15 minutes. Because Susan had to manage her work and couldn't accommodate this schedule, I adjusted her plan. I gave her two 30-minute sessions a day, with one day off a week. One session replaced her previous habit of drinking alcohol before meals, and the other was in the morning, usually involving light weight training with her husband. This adjustment was entirely due to time constraints. I think Susan wasn't very motivated to continue with aerobics, even though it might be more effective for weight loss. As a temporary measure, Susan started doing aerobics using her home video recorder, which was a good solution for her, as she had to go to work in the morning and didn't like exercising outdoors. She bought many simple, gentle aerobics tutorials and wore sexy bodysuits to overcome the embarrassment of being ridiculed for her weight. Every weekend, she enthusiastically took walks with her husband in the nearby park. These exercise designs not only encouraged her to exercise, but after a period of time, her knee pain also improved significantly.