Smutty Fitness: A Walk To Run program

Welcome to Health & Fitness, a new feature on LifeStyle! There will be two posts today that will show up on the main page but going forward, Health & Fitness features will be uploaded directly to LifeStyle and not on home gossip.

Our H&F columns will be contributed by Hayley McGowan. Here’s her Facebook. Hayley has been training me for 4 years. She pretty much changed my body. I never thought I could run for more than a few minutes and now 10k races are not really a problem. Click here for more on Hayley. And click here and here and here for other times I’ve written about Hayley.

Many of you emailed in response to the workout posts from Hayley last year while preparing for the Oscars. Travel was really intense the last half of 2011. And then over the holidays I just f-cked around and did nothing but eat pork and the consequences of all that are sitting on my ass and around my waist. Which is fine except that I work on television and can’t fit into my clothes.

Anyway, I need to get in shape to start shooting during award season. Can’t do it alone. And that’s why Hayley’s around to kick my ass. Looking at my inbox, sounds like some of you may need some help with that too.

Received this message from Esther the other day:

Hi Lainey,
I don't know about you but I pigged out like there's no tomorrow over the holidays. One of my new year resolution is to get to the gym and be able to fit into my skinnies.

I loved the posts you did over the summer about your trainer and your workouts. Could you please ask her for any tips/advice for gym newbies and any workout for beginners? I'm ashamed to say but my gym workouts have been walking on the treadmill (1.0 incline) interspersed with light running.

Hayley has designed a program for Esther. Email me at lainey(at)laineygossip.com for more questions for Hayley. And here are a few photos of Hugh Jackman heading to his workout this morning for motivation.

Esther,

First off, we are all in the same boat come January 1 - everyone overindulges throughout the holidays, it is what the holidays are for! So, my advice to you - just forget about the holidays, what is done is done and now let's start to move forward.  I read a quote a week ago that said this: people are so concerned with what they eat between Christmas and New Year’s Eve when really we should be concerned with what we eat between New Year’s and Christmas".  True right?
 
Here is some advice to help jump-start your workouts for 2012.  It seems as though you already created the habit of being active, so you are 1 step ahead already.  Now you just need to tweak your workouts a bit.  You said in your email that you mainly just walk on the treadmill - well, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! Did you know that your body will consume the same amount of energy walking a mile as it will running a mile? It just takes longer to walk the mile.  So, what I suggest you do is increase your incline a bit more, try 4%.  This is going to increase your MET (your body's energy cost) - in other words it is going to increase the amount of calories your body burns in the workout.  Also, you will challenge your cardiovascular system a bit more so you can eventually start to run.  Start your workouts at 1% but as you warm up (after 5 minutes) begin to increase your incline and see how hard you can push.  Just make sure that you are not holding on to the treadmill so if you find the incline is so high you have to hold on, drop the incline a bit.
 
Another suggestion is start a walk/run program.  The key with these is you MUST be consistent with them and follow them exactly because if you don't you will fall behind as the program progresses. Here is a Learn To Run program for you.  I did something very similar to this 10 years ago when I wasn't able to run around the block (seriously - I could not run longer than 10 minutes).  Now I am a top 5 age group competitor in marathons and about to do the Boston Marathon this year.  We all have to start somewhere! The brisk walking in the routine below should be done at a minimum 2% incline and the cycling is put in there to help build your aerobic power. If they have manual bikes at your gym (spin bikes) then choose those bikes instead of the powered ones as the latter tend to be a lot easier and you will have more benefit from riding a spin bike. Good luck with those skinnys!