Thin Made Easy

In the society we live in today, there is a lot of pressure on us (especially women) to maintain a thin figure. Now I’m a little paranoid when it comes to capitalism, so bear with me for a little bit. I really think what’s happening is that people in control of the media parade these super thin models in front of us to make us feel insecure so that they can sell us diet pills, expensive fat-sucking surgery, and even more fashion magazines and the like to make us feel even more insecure. Now, this isn’t the reason I’ve gone through the trouble of all of this, but I think it helps to put it all in perspective.

I have come up with a relatively easy workout to help you lose weight, and maintain the thinness that you may desire. The best part? It costs NOTHING and you don’t have to starve yourself. The only downside is that it might take you a while to lose weight. It took me around 3 months to lose about 20 pounds of undesired midsection fat, doing this exercise roughly 5 times a week. But again, I must remind you of the upsides to this: it is free and healthy.

The genius (pardon me if this seems conceited, but this is unlike any workout I’ve ever seen) of this training plan is that it’s so convenient. It’s flexible, it’s easy. You can do it at the office with your suit on and not break a sweat. My workout focuses on doing easy exercises many times over, spaced throughout your day.

Here is where I started: Every thirty minutes for four hours I would do 100 crunches and 10 push-ups. The reason I chose crunches instead of sit-ups is because they are both easier and more energy efficient. In one day I did 800 crunches and 80 push-ups. That’s quite the exertion if you do it all at once, but it’s easy if you break it up. After a couple of weeks, I increased the workout length to five hours. A few weeks after that, I was ready to do 100 crunches, 10 push-ups, then 100 more crunches every half hour. I was pretty fit to begin with (aside from the aforementioned 20 pounds of excess fat), so it might be wise for you to start at a lower amount of crunches. I suggest doing 50 if you’re not familiar with exercise (and no offense intended, of course).

I started doing this in November. As I’m writing this, it is July. I have long since lost all of my excess fat and now have rock-hard abdominal muscles. I now perform the following workout every 30 minutes for 4 hours, about three days a week: 100 crunches, 10 push-ups, 100 crunches, 10 push-ups, 100 crunches, five pull-ups. My friends think I’m crazy when I tell them about it, but it’s really not as hard as it sounds. You should at least try it for a couple of weeks!

One of the things I love most about this workout pattern is how modifiable it is. If you have weak shoulders, you can lift light weights instead of doing push-ups. If you want to throw in some leg lifts, go for it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention nutrition at all in this article. To a lot of you, this may be the very best part. I eat what I want, when I want. I have a very healthy appetite and enjoy sweets and junk food. As of late, I have been eating more healthily, but that is not my concern with this particular article. There are only a few diet restrictions, and they are not major ones. You should try not to eat too much during the 4 (or however many you choose) hours during which you exercise. The exception is that halfway through I have a snack that has a decent amount of protein, usually a bowl of cereal (and drinking the milk when I’m done). The only other diet-related thing you have to worry about with this plan is to make sure to take in plenty of protein when you’re done. With the minimal workout listed about, 13 grams of protein should be plenty.

The key to any workout is persistence. If you try this for one week and don’t see any results, that’s perfectly normal. If you start to see results after maybe three or four weeks, that’s great. Keep at it, and remember to increase the amount of work you do over time, or increase the length of time over which you do the workout. Good luck!