How Much Exercise Do We Really Need Each Day?

Journaling your food intake is incredibly powerful for weight loss. Similarly, journaling your workouts is a great way to help you reach new fitness levels and weight loss goals. Ideally your workouts will be 30+ minutes. A solid workout means you're working hard and breaking a sweat. This is how you make progress.

In order to break the threshold you have to push the envelope...

However! 10 minutes of all out effort can really rock your world. The last thing I want you to think is that if you don't have 30 minutes you can't workout... that's wrong. Make it your new routine to do something for 10 minutes before you hop in the shower: Jump rope, indoor roweing, burpees, cycle, jumping jacks, or a combination of exercises that challenges you for 10 minutes (or 15 or 20...).

Here is what does not constitute as a workout: yard work, walking your dog, cleaning the house, etc. These are fantastic activities, but the idea of logging your workouts is to dedicate specific time and effort to exercise ­ not just activity.

If you do all these active things, great! Then you're super active and that will help you over all reach your goals. Make sure to write these down in your journal, but remember they do not qualify as a workout.

Reflecting on your successes is important for staying motivated and feeling good about your work. A success may be as small as turning down the cookie, or as big as getting in all your water, or as huge as dropping the 10 pounds in 10 weeks.