No time for exercise? No worries! A number of studies showed that short periods of exercise really add up. Say, if you ran just 10 minutes in the morning, walked another 15 in the afternoon, and did some active house cleaning in the evening - that all add up to additional 30 minutes of exercise.

It doesn't have to be strenuous hear-pumping and sweat-dripping exercise class with your gym instructor. In fact, moderate intensity activities, such as walking, are the best predictors of consistency. Shift from the 'all or none' principle, where you think that it's either going high-intensity or do nothing at all. Focus on how good exercise makes you feel rather than how much energy you burn or how you would like to look.

Many people are afraid of building muscles thinking that it will make them “bulky, big and thick”. The truth is that building muscle not only makes stronger in the body and mind, improves your self esteem and confidence, but helps you speed up your metabolism and burn some extra calories even when your body is in complete rest. Muscle is the most active metabolic tissue in your body.

The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, even when you are not exercising. Your body has to work hard to maintain your muscle tissue, that is why it needs more energy to supply blood, oxygen and nutrients to every muscle cell. As you get older, your resting metabolic rate drops because you naturally lose muscle mass.

The easiest way to tone up your muscles is to train against resistance, namely with free weights or weight training machines. Find out which exercises to do, how to construct your workouts, try some of the most innovative techniques in weight training, explore latest researches about muscle building and just get terrific ideas from this Weight Training section.