Energize your routine

By Judi Ketteler Find the time that works best for you “If you feel so tired that you can barely get through the workout, it’s probably not the best time of day to train,” says Tom Holland, an ACE-certified trainer. If you drag through every morning workout, for example, and never feel quite awake, try training in the afternoon; if evening workouts leave you too pumped up to sleep, give morning workouts a try. YOUR PLAN: Make sure that the time you plan to train fits appropriately with your schedule. For example, if you keep scheduling evening workouts, but you rarely seem to get around to them because your day always gets away from you, reset your brain and your attitude for a morning workout. Set new fitness goals Long after you’ve dropped pounds, exercise will continue to remain a very powerful tool for keeping the fat off as much as maintaining clean-eating habits, says Paul MacLean, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Denver. He and his colleagues recently published a study regarding the effect of exercise in the American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. “We found that regular exercise reduced hunger and appetite during weight-loss maintenance,” he says. YOUR PLAN: Keep your exercise on track – and your energy stores high while maintaining your fat-loss and weight-maintenance efforts – by continuing to set new fitness goals as you meet your fat-loss, goals. Remember, consistent exercisers reach, even exceed, their goals.

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