The 14-Day No Sugar Diet(36)
Wednesday
30-minute HIIT walk
Thursday
Strength workout
Friday
30-minute HIIT walk
Saturday
The Big Burn 60-minute steady walk
Sunday
Rest
Week 2
Monday
Strength workout
Tuesday
30-minute HIIT walk
Wednesday
30-minute HIIT walk
Thursday
Strength workout
Friday
30-minute HIIT walk
Saturday
The Big Burn 60-minute steady walk
Sunday
Rest
Plus, do this every day: Enjoy a short, 15-minute stroll after dinner. Taking a walk within a half hour of eating will help you manage the post-meal surge of blood sugar.
14-Day No Sugar Diet High Intensity Interval Training Walking Workout
How to do it:
? Wear a pair of supportive walking shoes or running shoes and clothing appropriate to the weather and activity that’ll break a sweat.
? You can do this workout on a treadmill, but I recommend getting outside if weather permits.
? Start with a 5-minute warm-up. That’s a slow-to-easy pace to loosen up and warm your muscles.
? Increase your speed, walking as fast as you comfortably can for 60 seconds. Your effort level should be brisk but not so strenuous that you cannot carry on a conversation of short sentences. Slow down if you are too winded to comment on how beautiful the day is. Speed up if you are not breathing hard enough. Bend your arms and swing them to get your upper body into the act to burn more calories. Doing so will also move your legs faster.
? After a minute, slow to a moderate “recovery” pace for 2 minutes. Repeat the sequence five more times plus add a finisher, a 2-minute fast-paced segment before your 5-minute slow-pace cool-down. That’s a 30-minute workout.
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Take-the-Stairs Interval Workout
For a short but intense interval workout that delivers the benefits of a 30-minute exercise session, try stair climbing. Go to the stairwell of your workplace or the bleachers of a local athletic stadium. Walk up the stairs quickly but in control, and walk down at a moderate pace. Repeat. Staircases have roughly a 65 percent grade, which will make climbing harder on your legs and lungs than walking on flat ground. Keep going at this pace for 10 minutes. Make it harder by taking every other stair step going up. Be sure to warm up and cool down.
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The Big Burn Walk
On the weekends when you have more time, do a 60-minute walking workout. Choose a scenic route and invite friends along to make it interesting. Walk at a steady pace the entire time. It should be moderately brisk but not as fast as your HIIT walks. You should be able to carry on a normal conversation (long sentences).
Week 2 Challenge
This tweak for your 30-minute HIIT walk is optional but I recommend trying it. The key to improving fitness is pushing yourself a little more each time.
After a 5-minute easy-pace warm-up, walk as fast as you can for 60 seconds. Then, as you did last week, switch to the moderate-pace recovery segment. This time, however, cut this part of the interval to just 60 seconds. So, you’ll be alternating your pace between fast and moderate every 60 seconds. This boosts your exertion level, making your workout more efficient. Don’t worry if you can’t keep this up for a full 30 minutes. Do as much as you can and then cool-down for five minutes. Each time you do this quicker-paced HIIT walk, try to go a bit longer.
Strength-Building Exercise Plan
Stressing your muscles with physical activity regularly is important for good blood sugar control. But there are a lot of other reasons resistance exercise is good for you:
? The more muscle you have on your skeleton, the more calories you burn even when your body is sitting on the couch.
? As you age, your body naturally loses muscle mass. Doing strength exercises slows down the process that replaces lost muscle with fat tissue.
? Preventing muscle loss will help you stay strong enough to maintain independence in your senior years.
? Toned arms and legs look good on you!
(Don’t worry: The type of strength training workout in this plan will not bulk you up like a superhero.)
For the No Sugar Diet exercise plan, you will do two 15-to 30-minute strength exercise sessions per week. If you haven’t done this kind of exercise before, don’t sweat it. There’s little or nothing to buy. You don’t have to go to a gym if you don’t want to. You can do everything at home using your own body weight to work your muscles.
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WORKOUT TERMS
Know the Lingo
Warm-up: Just what it sounds like—you warm up your body.
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Cool-down: You slow down your effort and bring your heart rate down after a workout.
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Repetitions or reps: The number of times you perform a complete exercise.
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Sets: The number of times you perform the required repetitions.
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Circuit: A round of three or more exercises performed one after another, with little to no rest in between.