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Exercise Tips For Beginners
Exercise is essential for a healthy lifestyle; alongside prioritising a nutritious diet, getting into a good exercise routine is one of the best things you can do for your overall health. It’s important when following a fasting diet to help improve your energy levels and muscle retention. In this article, we’re sharing our top exercise tips for beginners to give you a running start!
Benefits of exercise
Exercise has a huge amount of benefits to your physical and mental health. Regular physical movement helps you maintain muscle mass and a healthy body weight, reduce your risk of chronic illnesses, support cardiovascular health, boost your mood, improve your sleep and maintain good energy levels.1,2,3
So, if you’re new to exercise and want to reap these vast health benefits, keep reading for our top exercise tips for beginners.
Common types of exercise
There are two main kinds of exercise: aerobic and anaerobic exercise.
Aerobic exercise is a slower and more continuous form of movement that speeds up your heart rate and breathing, thus increasing endurance. Examples of aerobic exercise include cardio like jogging, walking, swimming, flow-style yoga and dancing.
Anaerobic exercise is higher in intensity than aerobic exercise and is great for burning calories and increasing endurance. Weightlifting, jumping, sprinting, yoga and Pilates, which all require quick bursts of energy, are examples of anaerobic exercise. HIIT training (high intensity interval training) addresses both aerobic and anaerobic fitness so it’s a great all-rounder to explore in your exercise routine.
To help get you started, The Fast 800 Programme has hundreds of guided exercise videos led by experienced fitness experts, including resistance, HIIT, yoga and Pilates classes. Alongside accessing helpful guidance like on our programme, here are our other top exercise tips for beginners.
Get weekly HIIT and resistance training plans that are tailored to you with The Fast 800 Programme.
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Top exercise tips for beginners
- Set realistic goals: As a beginner, make sure you’re setting realistic goals for your exercise journey using attainable goals and steps. These achievable goals will help keep you motivated in your journey as you go. Tracking your health progress via a programme like The Fast 800 Programme can also help remind you of your success along the way.
- Stay hydrated: One of our top exercise tips for beginners is actually one of our top health tips in general, and that is to stay hydrated. Our body needs water to function, particularly when it is expending energy and sweating during exercise.4 Furthermore, water will help aid your post-workout recovery so its benefits reach further than just during exercise.
- Try new types of exercise: Trying different kinds of exercise is a great way to discover what works for you. If you’ve only ever tried cardio like jogging or swimming and have decided you don’t like exercise, then give yoga or Pilates a go; you may find a new love of this kind of movement instead. Finding a form of exercise that you enjoy will help it feel less like a chore and more like a fun hobby. Find a variety of different types of exercises to try on our Programme.
- Get into a routine: Another of our top exercise tips for beginners is to make physical activity your new habit. Studies have shown that replacing unhealthy habits with new healthy ones is the best way to maintain it long term.5 So, if you can plan to work out before or after work everyday instead of sitting down to relax straight away, you’re more likely to stick to your new fitness habits.
- Look at what you eat: What you choose to eat has a major impact on your performance and energy levels during a workout. Studies have shown that a Mediterranean-style diet improves aerobic performance, strength and recovery, so one of our top exercise tips for beginners would be to prioritise a low carb, high protein diet like the one we developed The Fast 800 Programme around.6
- Join a group to stay motivated: Working out as part of a group, whether it’s online or in person, can make your journey more fun and help keep you accountable. The Fast 800 Community was designed to provide an exercise group where you can chat to members and health coaches, providing that helpful network of exercise beginners just like you. Plus our regular exercise challenges help to keep things fun!
How we can help get you started
You really don’t need to spend lots of money or go to fancy gyms and classes to enjoy exercise and its extensive benefits. Doing exercise at home by following guided videos like the ones on our Programme work just as well, and you even have the bonus of being in the comfort of your own home!
Simply sign up to your 7-day free trial of The Fast 800 Programme here to access hundreds of beginner-friendly, guided exercise videos to follow along with at home. For more information and top exercise tips for beginners, head here.
References 
Nystoriak MA, Bhatnagar A. Cardiovascular Effects and Benefits of Exercise. Front Cardiovasc Med. 2018 Sep 28;5:135. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2018.00135. PMID: 30324108; PMCID: PMC6172294.
Dimeo F, Bauer M, Varahram I, et alBenefits from aerobic exercise in patients with major depression: a pilot studyBritish Journal of Sports Medicine 2001;35:114-117.
Coyle EF. Fluid and fuel intake during exercise. J Sports Sci. 2004 Jan;22(1):39-55. doi: 10.1080/0264041031000140545. PMID: 14971432.
Puetz TW. Physical activity and feelings of energy and fatigue: epidemiological evidence. Sports Med. 2006;36(9):767-80. doi: 10.2165/00007256-200636090-00004. PMID: 16937952.
Helvacı G, Uçar A, Çelebi MM, Çetinkaya H, Gündüz AZ. Effect of a Mediterranean-style diet on the exercise performance and lactate elimination on adolescent athletes. Nutr Res Pract. 2023 Aug;17(4):762-779. doi: 10.4162/nrp.2023.17.4.762. Epub 2023 May 11. PMID: 37529265; PMCID: PMC10375324.
