*important exercise reminders*

*Keep your movements slow when performing any kind of strength training (unless otherwise noted). This will help your targeted muscle do the work instead of momentum or other additional muscles. Fast movement cheats your targeted muscle out of a great workout!

*The best way to lose weight is to keep your body guessing. If an exercise is too easy, add more weights or more repetitions (do the opposite if it's too hard). Combine interval training with your regular cardio.

*Water fuels your cells/muscles to break down and build up properly. To determine how much water you need for each workout, weigh yourself before you begin your workout. As soon as you've finished exercising, weigh yourself again. You'll notice you've lost a few pounds. Start drinking water and continue to weigh yourself until you're back at your original weight. Even though it's nice to see that you've already lost a few pounds after your hard work, in reality you're starving your muscles of what is going to help them. In the long run it's better to rehydrate.

*I swear by intervals in a cardio workout. Intervals (timed periods of different intensity levels) shorten your workout time while maximizing your results and keep your workout interesting so you're not concentrating on time (I have how many minutes left???). You can make intervals more intense or you can increase the amount of time.

*Always begin an interval workout with a warm up, then alternate your intensity levels (medium -- could be a slow jog, hard -- could be running, very hard -- could be sprinting) for a certain period of time (mins or secs), followed by a cool down (slowing from medium intensity to easy). The best thing about intervals; it doesn't matter how fit you are because you're only measuring your intensity levels against what you could previously accomplish!