Part 3 of 3: Exercise

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   Work exercise into your lifestyle. It shouldn’t be a chore! Little changes make a big difference, and will keep the weight from coming back. Walk or jog to school instead of driving. Run with your dog. Do crunches during commercial breaks on TV. Cycle with friends/family.

   • Plan your week. Have 3 days where you do intense exercise like running or a spin class at the gym. The other 3 days, do low-intensity exercise like a long walk. The other day is your day off.
   • Don’t spend your days sitting on the couch watching TV. Try exercising! Fast weight loss will only be achieved with diet and exercise.
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   Make your exercises last. An exercise “session” should go for about 30 minutes to an hour. You should burn around 400 calories in a high intensity workout session. If you aren’t sweating while doing a high intensity workout, you’re not working hard enough. You’re working hard enough if you’re sweating profusely, breathless (not the whole time, but a good part of the time), and when you’re done you can drink lots of water with no effort because you need it that badly.

   • Stretch! Always, always, always stretch before and after you exercise. It’s really hard to lose weight when you’re injured. Stretching also helps your growing muscles not to bunch up so you might look like a weight lifter. If you did stretch right, it would have an effect of a ballerina.
   • Do some weight training. Muscles burn calories by just being there. The more muscles you have, the faster you’ll lose weight.
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   Invest in sports or hobbies that burn calories. Sports are great because they tap into our competitive energy, getting us to dig deeper than we normally would have. Don’t worry about what people say, or whether you’re “skilled” enough to join a team; just find a group of girls doing something that you’re interested in and ask if you can join. Here are some sports that are big-time calorie busters:

   • Spinning/elliptical trainer. Spinning or using the elliptical burns the most^[5] calories for the average U.S. woman, who weighs 163 pounds. The average female burns 841 calories per hour spinning or doing the elliptical.
   • Downhill skiing. According to the same source, downhill skiing is another great way to burn tons of calories, except skiing is generally considered fun, whereas spinning can be (wonderful, beautiful) hell. The average female burns 645-841 calories skiing per hour.
   • Full-court basketball. Basketball, as we all know, requires good hand-eye coordination and the ability to run up and down the court. The average female playing basket blasts around 812 calories an hour.
   • Competitive soccer. Soccer players are known for being among the most fit athletes in the world. No wonder: You’re running up and down a really long field! Female soccer players burn 742 calories of grit and determination per hour.
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   Try yoga or Pilates. Deciding that you don’t want to do a super-rigorous sport doesn’t mean that you have no other options. Lots of girls and women prefer to do lower-intensity workouts such as yoga or Pilates. Both are good for calorie-busting, and leave you feeling refreshed and energized.

   • Yoga is a series of stretching exercises that originated in ancient India. There are different kinds of yoga, each burning a different amount of calories:
     • Hatha Yoga, where the student goes through a series of gentle exercises focusing on posture and breathing, can expect to burn 175 calories per hour in an average female.^[6]
     • Vinyasa Yoga, in which poses are tougher and linked together faster, can expect to burn 445 calories per hour in an average female.
     • Bikram Yoga, where the room in which the yoga takes place is heated up to 105 degrees, burns about 635 calories in the average female.
   • Pilates is a stretching and body conditioning routine that works the core. It was designed by a German in the early 20th century, and boasts over 10 million practitioners today. Pilates for beginners burns around 200 calories per hour^[7], burning more as you advance in difficulty.