17 Ideas For Your Fitness Bucket List

The cornerstone of a good life is fitness and health. Although eating healthy foods and leading an active lifestyle can be a challenge, making continuous healthy choices will make your life better now and in the future. Below you’ll discover 17 ideas for your fitness bucket list.

The ideas were taken from my eBook, “Idea Book – 500 Ideas For Your Fitness Bucket List”.

 

1. Lose fifteen pounds by losing one pound a week. Start by determining how many calories you need in order to keep your weight constant, which is called your calories maintenance level.

Then, create a 500 calorie deficit each day by eating 500 fewer calories, burning 500 more calories through exercise, or a doing a combination of the two which equals 500 calories.

2. Focus on your abdomen. Lose weight from your abdomen so that you have a healthy waist circumference. Carrying weight on your abdomen is much worse for your health than carrying weight on your hips and thighs.

The former puts you at risk for premature cardiovascular disease and death. This is because the fat surrounding the abdominal organs releases fatty acids, inflammatory agents, and hormones that ultimately lead to higher LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose, and blood pressure.

For your health’s sake, you want your waist size to be less than 35 inches if you’re a woman and less than 40 inches if you’re a man.

3. Take those steps. Get a pedometer and make sure that you’re taking 10,000 walking steps every day. You want a pedometer that counts steps accurately. There are some that you don’t even need to clip on your belt: you just drop it in your pocket or purse and forget about it.

 

4. Do some form of exercise every day for at least thirty minutes. This includes things such as raking the yard, shooting hoops with your kids, and so on. According to the Harvard Medical School, “As long as you’re doing some form of aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, and you include two days of strength training a week, you can consider yourself an ‘active’ person.”

5. Learn how to do a perfect push up. Push-ups are considered by many to be the ultimate barometer of fitness. Done properly, push-ups use muscles in the chest, shoulders, triceps, back, abs and even the legs.

Push-ups are performed in a prone position, lying horizontal and face down, raising and lowering the body using the arms. You can get very strong just using your own body weight for resistance. In addition, determine the number of push-ups you should be able to do based on your age and gender.

6. Be able to hold a plank for a minute. The plank tightens the deepest core muscles. It’s a static exercise in which  you use your arms to raise yourself off the floor and hold the whole body straight and rigid, like a plank of wood .

To do a plank, start in a push-up position, palms under the shoulders, feet hip-width apart, and toes tucked. Push up so that your arms are straight and you back is flat. Hold that position for one minute.

7. Follow a circuit workout. Do an at-home cardio circuit which includes jumping jacks. Other moves you can incorporate include burpees, marching in place, push-ups, wall squats, and even jumping rope. You can also add speed skaters.

8. Turn your workout into a game. Get Zombies, Run! It’s an eight-week training app that gets you ready for a 5K race or just improves your overall physical activity. But it’s also a game featuring various story lines in which you need to run away from zombies.

9. Try CrossFit. CrossFit is a mix of aerobic exercise, body weight exercises, gymnastics, and weight lifting. It’s along the lines of circuit training. Brad Pitt reportedly uses this interval training to get in shape for movie roles. Other celebrities who stay in shape with CrossFit include Jessica Biel and Vanessa Hudgens.

10. Try yoga. Do 5 sun salutations each morning. Sun salutation is a series of 12 yoga asanas, or poses, which is traditionally done in the morning in order to greet the sun. Sun salutation is regarded as the core of yoga practice.

11. Swap biking to work for driving. Instead of driving to work each morning—when the weather is nice—try biking to work instead. You’ll save on gas and get a nice work out. In addition, you’ll even be doing your bit to combat global warming.

12. Don’t go into the deli. Stop eating processed meats, or at least reduce the amount that you eat. Processed meats include any meat that has been salted or endured a chemical process – such as hot dogs and lunch meats.

Ham, salami, pastrami, bacon, and other processed meats are high in calories, fat and sodium. Diets that are high in processed meats have been linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer and early deaths. Healthier alternatives for sandwiches and wraps include tuna, salmon, hummus and veggies, or fresh cooked poultry.

13. Start drinking green tea on a regular basis. Studies have found an association between consuming green tea and a reduced risk for several cancers, including, skin, breast, lung, colon, esophageal, and bladder.

In addition, there are many health benefits to drinking matcha, which is the finely ground green tea used in Japanese tea ceremonies. Matcha has been found to prevent cancer and heart disease, and to slow down aging. It also provides an energy boost, so it’s a good substitute for your afternoon coffee.

14. Add vegetables to your breakfast. Vegetables are rich in vitamins and minerals that help you to stay healthy and energized. Start getting the recommended daily servings of vegetables with your very first meal of the day.

For example, you could add spinach and roasted tomatoes to a quiche. Another idea is to mix watercress into your scrambled eggs.

15. Eat one to two tablespoons of flax seeds a day. The oil in flaxseeds is the richest plant source of healthy omega-3 fats which do all of the following:

• They help reduce inflammation;
• They balance hormones;
• They protect against mood swings and depression.

In addition, omega-3 fats help prevent heart disease, diabetes, and inflammatory diseases like arthritis. One way to eat flax seeds is to start adding them to your salads.

16. Use portion control for weight loss. Portion control is understanding how much a serving size of food is and how many servings of each type of food—carbohydrates, protein, fats, and so on—you should have each day.

Portion sizes can be estimated by using objects as a point of reference. For example, (cooked) meat the size of a deck of cards is equivalent to 25g of protein. Adult men need about 56 grams of protein a day, and adult women need about 46 grams of protein a day.

17. Know what you’re putting into your mouth. Learn to read food nutrition labels. Note the size of a single serving and how many servings are in the package. Then, check the total calories per serving. In addition, check the total fat, cholesterol, and sodium; you want to limit these. Lastly, look at the nutrients section. Obviously, the more nutrients it has, the better.

500 Ideas for Your Fitness Bucket List

Use my eBook,  “Idea Book – 500 Ideas For Your Fitness Bucket List” to create your ultimate fitness bucket list. “Idea Book – 500 Ideas For Your Fitness Bucket List” has ideas to cover every aspect of your fitness and health. Inside you’ll find the following:

• 500 Ideas for Your Fitness Bucket List
• Divided Into 3 Main Categories (Fitness, Healthy Eating, and Longevity)
• Further Divided Into 50 Subcategories
• 104 Page PDF
• 250 Images
• Practical Descriptions For Each Idea
• Over 20,000 Words
• 220 Links to Videos and Helpful Websites

 

Here are two sample pages:

Get “Idea Book -500 Ideas For Your Fitness Bucket List” for just $9.95. It’s a digital product, so you’ll receive it immediately upon purchase.

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