With a Master of Science in Dietetics and Exercise Science, 11 years of experience in fitness, and 5 years in nutrition, Hollee Mohni is a professional dedicated to improving individuals' health and confidence through sustainable habits.
How to get fit quick is a question seemingly everyone wants the answer to, but how is it done realistically? Can you get fit fast? Many people are feeling that they need to get moving on their fitness. With today’s fast culture, fast results are expected. Let’s see if it’s possible.
Our “How to get fit quick” guide will show you multiple ways you could achieve improved fitness in realistically a week or month. Any progress toward improved fitness is better than doing nothing. With that in mind, let’s help you get back on track to your healthiest self.
Knowing how to get fit quick doesn’t mean you’ll miraculously be your healthiest version overnight, but you can start taking actual steps toward your best self with goals and gradual improvements. Here’s a quick overview of the 10 steps to get fit fast:
Getting fit fast is the goal, but let’s first show you what fitness means before sharing our tips.
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Fitness means different things to different people. Fitness might mean a flat belly for some and to be able to run five miles without breaking a sweat for others. That said, understand what fitness means to you before taking on the following suggestions.
Canadian experts define fitness as the ability to optimally perform daily activities with endurance and strength while managing disease, stress, and fatigue along with reducing sedentary habits (12). Ultimately, fitness is your ability to be active, handle daily activities, and embrace fatigue better, if you’re typically a healthy but sedentary person.
However, your fitness results will differ, depending on your current state of health, level of daily activity, and the desired activities you wish to carry out daily. This means that you should set fitness goals specific to your envisioned results. Norwegian research shows that internal motivation has two factors: challenging goals and enjoyable workouts (18).
The Cleveland Clinic suggests using the SMART fitness goals system (10). Every fitness goal should follow the SMART rules:
Getting fit fast means more than running or doing yoga. Instead, consider cutting calories and eating the right foods. First, look at whether you wish to lose weight. If so, WebMD recommends a daily 500-calorie deficit to be able to lose 1-2 pounds weekly (3). Women’s calorie goals for getting fit tend to be between 1,200-1,500 calories daily and for men it’s 1,500-1,800 calories.
Next, the lifestyle changes to feel healthier and get fit fast mean you must embrace a well-balanced diet. The CDC recommends eating fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seafood, lean protein, legumes, nuts, seeds, healthy fats, and low-fat or fat-free dairy (7). Also, consume less saturated and trans fats, processed foods, and foods high in sodium and added sugars.
Don’t expect to get fit quick or hit your end goals in 2 weeks. Rather, expect to feel minor changes when you start embracing the necessary exercise to become healthier. The CDC recommends the following exercise weekly for healthy individuals (9):
Beginners should not jump right into the deep end, but these guidelines help you set exercise goals by knowing what you need to work toward.
Setting goals is the first step in motivating yourself to transform your body in a month, but you should also enjoy your workouts. Norwegian scientists found that individuals who embraced both motivational cues were more successful at sticking it out (18). Goals challenge you and enjoyment makes the process easier, but there is another key factor that helps to motivate you.
Social accountability and shared workouts will strongly motivate you to stay on your fitness pursuit. Joining a social workout program or yoga class or having a workout buddy ignites motivation, while keeping you accountable toward your fitness goals.
Additionally, forming habits could help you stick to the program for a month, to transform your body and fitness. A German review confirms that individuals who create healthy habits are more physically active and remain so (2). Follow these tips to form habits (6):
Goals, motivation, habits, and realistic workouts can help you get fit quick at home. That said, the following suggestions include exercises and tips to get the results, and make the habits stick long term (18, 6).
Our “get in shape fast female edition” helps you enter the fitness world gently. However, women can attempt our men’s edition and vice versa. You could also enjoy our 30-day challenge that includes running, which is tons of fun as a social approach.
You may consider incidental exercise as a starting point if you feel too unfit to follow a routine in the first week or two. You won’t burn as many calories, but you’ll start encouraging your body to shift from a sedentary lifestyle to something more active. Here’s a look at how many calories men or women (at 150 pounds) burn in 30 minutes with incidental activities (4):
The Cleveland Clinic says Pilates is a whole-body workout to help you condition your body gently as a beginner (13). The low-impact benefits of yoga and Pilates are ideal for beginners to improve core strength, lean muscle mass, and flexibility while reducing stress. Meanwhile, home videos work fine for beginners, but join a class for the social element.
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Our “get fit fast men’s edition” will suit people starting their fitness journey with more intense goals. However, you may want a gentler form of fitness improvement at home. In that case, you may try our women’s edition to begin to create your healthier self slowly.
HIIT is a high-intensity cardio workout with alternating rest and workout periods for 20-60 minutes. You may follow an exercise for 30 seconds and rest for 20 seconds. However, the popular home video workouts increase your maximal heart rate to 80-95% during the exercise periods (8). Also, your body naturally burns 6-15% more calories for hours post-workout.
Supersets more closely let you train all the major muscle groups twice weekly instead of targeting one every day of the week (9). It lets you alternate between explosive lower and upper-body exercises in a circuit, where one group always works while the other rests.
WebMD says superset exercises reduce resting periods between exercise sets and save time in workout routines while also keeping the heart rate elevated for greater calorie burn, which is ideal for beginners (11). Workout intensity and hypertrophy increase with less time for muscles to rest between exercises.
Here’s a simple full-body superset workout at home. Complete 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps of each exercise in the order they appear:
Read more: Counting Macros for Weight Loss: Pros, Cons, and How-To (A Beginner’s Guide)
The get fit fast running edition or combination workouts from the men’s and women’s editions work well for fitness in 30 days. Combined workouts meet your fitness needs better if you want strength training, social exercises, and an at-home approach to a healthier you (9, 18).
Add brisk walking or running to your chosen workouts from the previous sections to achieve greater results in our 30-day challenge. WebMD suggests that running burns double the calories per minute, compared to walking (15).
Someone who weighs 160 pounds and walks at 3.5 mph will burn 156 calories, but the same person will burn 356 calories running at 6 mph (15). Start brisk walks in your first week before speeding up, according to your comfort levels.
Then, try jogging or running in the last week or two. Still, be careful of injuries as a beginner. Running is high-impact, whereas walking is low-impact. Note, Harvard suggests that weight-bearing exercises improve bone density (14).
Running isn’t the enemy, but diving into high-impact workouts as a beginner could be. Take it slow, and be realistic with your speed increments over 30 days. Combine walking/running with exercises of your choice and comfort level from the first two sections for 30 days to complete our challenge. Make sure you target every body area 2-3 times every week.
Medicine Net suggests you have realistic weight loss goals of 3-4 pounds in two weeks (5). Losing more weight than that in two weeks isn’t healthy or realistic. However, exercise and improved nutrition that creates a 500-1,000-calorie deficit will help you lose 1-2 pounds each week.
Your body starts reshaping in about six weeks, but you may not perceive the changes until later than that. Norwegian researchers found that six weeks of high-intensity upper-body training and cardio helped individuals improve muscle endurance (17). However, Wisconsin researchers discovered that a 6-week training program didn’t change self-rated body image scores (16).
Saudi Arabian scientists found it takes six weeks for your body to improve aerobic capacity and muscular endurance when studying how aerobics helped diabetic individuals (1). Your body will experience positive changes in six weeks or more, even helping you manage diabetes better.
Medicine Net suggests reducing your calories by 500-1,000 daily and exercising to lose 1-2 pounds weekly (5). You need a well-balanced diet to reduce sodium, saturated fat, carbs, alcohol, and sugary drinks while enjoying plenty of water, fiber-rich fruits and vegetables, and protein. You also need good sleep, cardio workouts, and strength training.
Knowing how to get fit quick is about discovering realistic goals, motivation, and habit-forming rituals to support the many exercises towards a healthier you. Start setting your goals, aim for motivating workouts, and choose the home exercises best for you.
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