5/7 Days a week? o.0

AnnaValek

Is running 5 out of 7 days a week progressive enough to help with weight loss, as long as I stay under my limits on the other 2/7 days? I got into the habit of running after I take my father to work, but he has off on the weekends and I usually end up sleeping in and then losing motivation to go running. Should I not worry too much, or turn up the volume on my alarm and get my butt out of bed?

nytenurse03

I only work out 3-4 days a wk for about 20-30 minutes. Some days I work out for an hour but most times it's 20-30 mins and I have been consistently loosing weight.

SavCal71

Your body needs some time to rest and heal. You need at LEAST one day-of-rest a week. Two is good as well. You should be fine working out 5 days a week. I'd advise adding in some strength training too ...

AnnaValek

Since exercising itself is a foreign concept, what is the difference between strength training and cardio? Is it just basic weightlifting or is there something more?

SavCal71

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_training -- weightlifting is probably the most common and well known, but it can include yoga, pilates, etc as well. Strength training builds lean muscle mass which increases your overall metabolism.

It also keeps you healthier.

Elzecat

running 5 days a week is really hard on the body, unless you're an extremely fit athlete...most running programs for beginners recommend you start with 3 to 4 days a week with rest days in between. Maybe you could just do an easy walk on those other two days...you don't want to overtrain and injure yourself (this just happened to a "real life" friend of mine who recently started running--he's not even overweight and he overtrained and hurt his knee).

Or you could do strength training (weights or weight machines) on those other two days...

Avalonis

Since exercising itself is a foreign concept, what is the difference between strength training and cardio? Is it just basic weightlifting or is there something more?

Strength training doesn't need to be weights. You can do all kinds of exercises to build muscle, such as pushups, situps, lunges, hill sprints, ect.

However, if you have access to weights, they can be nice to add to your workout. Basically, you want to gain muscle all over to stay fit, healthy and athletic. Just being skinny doesn't mean healthy, you also need to have your body functioning at a physically healthy level, which means having muscle all over.

Definitely include some strength training.

Oh, and to answer your original question, days of rest are not a problem. You're body needs them to recover, which is something I need to keep reminding myself, since I tend to not take rest days very often.

AnnaValek

Thank you all so much!