Breathe hard!

Or, get your heart rate up - however you want to phrase it! The point is that no serious, long-term fitness progress ever came out of "taking a stroll" on the treadmill, or by meandering around your neighborhood after dinner.

Although it is true that ANY exercise is better than NO exercise, if you truly want to melt off excess bodyweight and bodyfat, you are going to have to crank that heart rate up to about 70% of your maximum level several times each week, and consider taking it even further than that once you are conditioned for it.

To figure out your max heart rate, subtract your age from 220. For example, if you are 40, your maximum heart rate is 180 (220-40).

Monitor your heart rate with a low-cost, easy to use Polar Heart Rate Monitor.