A little bit of exercise really does go a long way. So, even if you can only squeeze in a few minutes here and there, if you do a few intense and effective moves, you'll notice a difference.

Related Stories:
A Fun Way to Inspire Moving in the Morning

Here's a fun way to ensure those short little workouts happen. Grab a whiteboard and hang it in a place you walk by every day, like your living room or next to the TV. Write down five to 10 basic moves — I did bodyweight moves, but you can also do ones using dumbbells, a kettlebell, a TRX, an exercise ball, or a resistance band. Keep these the same, or change them up every few days to prevent boredom. Put the numbers one through three in front of each exercise — do these in permanent marker to save yourself time later. Every time you complete one set of each, cross off the number.

Complete the moves when you can, but just aim to cross everything off by the time you hop into bed. Maybe you only have time to fit in one set of each of the five moves. So, do them three times a day. Or, you have 15 minutes while your veggies roast for dinner and you want to pick and choose a few sets of each. Or, maybe you want to do them all at once while watching some late-night TV. The goal here is to get moving a little each day — just think of how accomplished you'll feel once everything is crossed off!

Don't trash your well-loved fitness tracker just yet! RD Julie Upton, cofounder of Appetite For Health, shares five ways your tracker can actually help with dropping pounds.

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that overweight participants in a diet study who wore fitness trackers actually lost less weight, compared to those who followed the same diet and exercise plan, albeit without any wearable monitoring devices.
While the dieters wearing trackers lost 7.7 pounds in two years, those who didn't have fitness monitors lost 13 pounds. Even though previous research has reported that wearable technology can motivate people to help them lose weight, the authors of this study point out that those studies were short-term and had limited participants.

Related Stories:
Nutritionist-Recommended Foods to Suppress Your Appetite Naturally
Beat Belly Fat: 5 Research-Proven Ways to Trim Inches From Your Middle

If you live by the data from your Fitbit, Jawbone, or other device, here are five ways to use it to help you peel off pounds:

Focus on Food First, Exercise Second

When it comes to losing weight and keeping it off, studies consistently show that diet is more important than exercise. In fact, trying to lose weight through exercise alone is a lousy idea because food packs in so many many calories relative to what you burn off from exercise. And, when it comes to behaviors associated with weight loss, frequent weigh-ins, limiting or avoiding alcohol, and monitoring what you eat are three common keys to success.

Avoid Food Rewards

How many times have you rewarded yourself after noticing how many steps you had or how many calories you burned? Speaking to NPR, the lead researcher of the JAMA study, John Jakicic, PhD, explained: "People would say, 'Oh, I exercised a lot today, now I can eat more.' And they might eat more than they otherwise would have."
According to registered dietitian James Stevens, MS, RD, "Even though trackers easily show you how many calories you've burned, they can't tell you the other side of the energy balance equation — how many calories you've eaten. You need to pay more attention to the 'calories in' portion of the equation to see the scale budge. Just one or two poor food choices can negate all the extra calories burned from exercise." Instead, use non-food "rewards" to celebrate success, like a mani/pedi, reading a chapter in a new book, taking a long bath, downloading new music, or sleeping in!

Be More Mindful

According to Andreas Michaelides, PhD, chief psychology officer at Noom Inc. (a wellness app with a personalized coaching element), trackers alone aren't the best way to help you achieve weight-loss success because they're a passive approach to monitoring, so your brain doesn't fully acknowledge your diet and exercise behaviors. "Being more involved and mindful around eating and exercise is an important part of achieving weight-loss success." To use your tracker in a more meaningful and engaged way, use its web-based interface to download and monitor your activity as well as your daily food intake

Personalize Your Device

For more accurate measures of activity and calories, be sure to enter your age, sex, height, and weight into your tracker when setting it up. These data impact the computations that trackers make to more accurately determine calories burned. Also, as a general rule, wear the device on your non-dominant arm/wrist, because research shows when devices are worn on the dominant hand/arm, they may overestimate activity and calories burned.

It's All Relative

Most monitoring devices — bathroom scales, diet trackers, gym equipment, or wearable fitness trackers — have margins or error. The best way to use data from any device is to consider it relative and compare it to yesterday, last week, last month, or last year. If you see that the scale isn't budging and can tell that your activity has dropped or stalled — you know you need to move more (or eat less or both) to peel off pounds.

When it comes to exercise and achieving the individual fitness goals that we set for ourselves, often we need more fitness equipment than just our own body. Increasing fitness levels and achieving overall health, requires a commitment to a regimented eating and exercise program that will result in the shedding of fat and building of muscle. But in order to achieve these goals we must first identify the type of exercise that is likely to mean success for our particular body – and the type of fitness equipment that will help us do it.

For cardiovascular exercise – the fitness equipment depends on the type of exercise you choose. Runners – and walkers for that matter – require a good pair of shoes as their exercise equipment. Proper shoes can never been underestimated; they will further fitness goals and prevent injury. Whether running or walking, pounding on pavement can put an enormous amount of stress on knees, ankles, feet, and even back. High quality shoes can absorb the shock and make this fitness experience a much more pleasant one.

Other fitness equipment corresponds to other cardiovascular exercise – kickboxing often requires a punching bag; boot camp programs may require a medicine ball; and a high-energy step class will require a sturdy step on which to perform your exercises. For those who prefer to get their exercise by machine, fitness equipment may include the treadmill, stair climber, stationery bicycle, and elliptical machine.

But of course, fitness equipment extends to other forms of exercise as well. Weight training requires a variety of weights – both machine and free weights. Core training – such as yoga and Pilates – requires mats as a part of fitness equipment.

Fitness equipment does not have to be high-end expensive pieces of machinery. Optimum physical fitness can be achieved in the comfort of your home by simply utilizing every day objects around the house in order to supplement your exercise routine. Do dips on a kitchen chair, squats against a wall, or sprints on your stairs – exercise doesn’t have to be confined to a gym. As a matter of fact, many people consider their exercise videos to be the most important piece of fitness equipment that they have.

Fitness equipment can maximize your workout and go a long way towards helping you achieve your fitness goals. Keep your choices in fitness equipment creative – you’ll soon discover that exercise can be quiet enjoyable.

Copied with permission from: http://plrplr.com/5978/the-different-uses-of-fitness-equipment/