Eating right, cardio and toning are the best ways to help get your body into shape and to feel better about yourself. Personally, I enjoy cardio workouts more than toning just because I feel like I’m working harder at burning off calories and fat when I do my two hours of cardio on the elliptical. It’s also nice because I can see how many calories I am burning, how many miles I have gone and what my heart rate is. The machines also show you a little diagram to let you know if you are pushing your body hard enough, or too much, by displaying where your heart rate should fall. Pretty nifty, if you ask me.
Don’t get me wrong though, toning, or strength training, is just as important. Toning tightens your muscles to give you a smoother shape and it also helps remove pesky, unwanted inches. So if you are fine with the weight you are, but have a few places that need tightening, focus more on strength-training moves.
I have a free membership to the Alcoa gym where my dad works, but they are only open Monday through Friday. This means no weekend workouts, right? Wrong. On the weekends, I do the old school Tae-Bo tapes with Billy Blanks. When I did these, after a few weeks I could see my body slowly getting in the toned-shape and looking smoother. The tape I did was the Advanced Tae-Bo version, which is about an hour long. But if you’re into working out with a buddy, make sure you check out the group exercise classes available on campus through the fitness centers. (Which, by the way, is open seven days a week. Score!) There’s a schedule at the front desk, and each class has a description that tells you what each class focuses on so you can pick and choose what you like! All you have to do is figure out when you are free to start transforming that body!