BarBelles is designed to help you get into shape from the comfort of your own home. The site is 100% FREE and features video workouts, cardio workouts, and printable routines every week. The videos are a complete 10-30 minute workout with instruction and explanation and are designed to help you get results in as little time as possible. Realistic workouts for realistic women (and men can do them too)!
In addition to the workouts, this site also has healthy, but yummy, recipes that are good for the whole family (even those picky husbands or children), as well as healthy options at restaurants (Restaurant reviews) for you foodies who love to eat out but don’t love the inches that the rich food adds to your waist.
I realize that most women in today’s world have a full schedule and very minimal time to workout and stay on top of a healthy lifestyle. This is why I decided to bring you my knowledge about exercising and eating healthy in a way that is easy to understand and easy to incorporate into your life. By following a proper exercise routine and eating habits, you will be sure to lose weight, tone up, or stay fit depending on your goals.
I am going to walk you through an exercise and eating plan to give you all of the tools needed to get started and get moving. It is really quite easy to become a BarBelle/BarBellie.
If you are just getting started, you need to understand how diet and exercise works. First of all, when I say diet, you should not get hung up on the word diet, it simply means focusing on eating healthier, lower calorie meals. The key to successful weight loss or toning is developing healthy eating and exercise habits. People often focus on either diet or exercise and not both. This is a huge mistake. You should eat FIVE, yes FIVE, low calorie “meals/snacks” per day. Cutting calories through diet helps you lose weight faster when you add exercise into the mix. Why, you ask? Think of it this way: calories consumed are energy that needs to be burned off in some form. The key is burning more calories than you consume. You are probably thinking I am crazy! Because who can really workout to burn 1500-2000 calories in one day?! You can’t, unless you are an extreme athlete who exercises for a living. However, you can cut 500 calories from your daily caloric intake and if you do this 7 days out of the week, well, you’ve just cut out 3500 calories (which equal 1 pound, by the way). So, for most people it is way to difficult to eliminate the amount of calories ONLY through exercise that you could be doing through dieting as well. This is why cutting a few calories out of your diet and exercising for about an hour a day will significantly increase your chances of losing weight and toning up (fat loss while maintaing muscle). Let me break it down for you:
Wake Up and Eat Breakfast!!! (your most important meal of the day): You should eat about 400 calories.
Snack 1: Eaten about 2-3 hours after you eat breakfast. This should consist of approx 200 calories.
Lunch: You should eat about 400 calories.
Snack 2: Eaten about 2-3 hours after you eat lunch or before a workout (if you do this in the afternoon).
Dinner: You should eat about 400 calories.
**800 calories per day should come from carbohydrates. 400 calories should come from protein and 300 calories should come from fat. If you are shooting for a lower carb diet, decrese your carbohydrate intake and increase your lean protein intake.
**Also, make sure you are drinking plenty of water (about 100 oz per day and more on the days you are working out). Often times we can feel hungry when we are just dehydrated and thirsty.
You should also include structured exercise into your daily routine. Things like house chores, yard work, and activities like golfing (unless you’re walking) do not count. Aim for a minimum of 150 minutes of exercise (including weight lifting) at a moderate intensity and 75 minutes of vigorous cardiovascular/plyometric* exercise and 30 minutes of very hard exercise each week. Let me break this down for you now:
Monday: 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise at a moderate intensity (see heart rate video to determine moderate heart rate) + 20 minutes of weight/band/bodyweight training
Tuesday: 30 minutes Very Hard cardio vascular activity + 10 minutes AB/Core work
Wednesday: 45 minutes of vigorous cardiovascular exercise
Thursday: 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise at a moderate intensity (see heart rate video to determine moderate heart rate) + 20 minutes of weight/band/bodyweight training
Friday: 30 minute of vigorous cardiovascular exercise + 20 minutes of plyometrics
Saturday: 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise at a moderate intensity (see heart rate video to determine moderate heart rate) + 20 minutes of weight/band/bodyweight training
*Plyometrics: is a type of exercise training designed to produce fast, powerful movements, mainly used for the purpose of improving performance in sports. (jump squats, box jumps, frog jumps, running stairs, hopping, etc)