Interval Cardio ??

I would not say I am a a die hard fitness freak, I have my days or months :). However, having said that I am passionate about fitness and research and read for hours together about things I can do differently to achieve the best results. Also, to motivate myself. I have found numerous articles, websites where you can read what to do and what not to. However, I thought it would be good to know what has actually worked for some!

I strongly feel excercise becomes easier if it's somehow made part of something you enjoy doing. For example, I love dancing but it never got beyond night clubs! Recently, I decided to invest sometime in trying out Zumba! (a salsa workout). I found myself bursting with energy and motivated the entire day to get all my chores out of the way just in time for a shimmy. An hour and fifteen minutes of cardio and I didn't even realise when it got done. I definately recommend it to those who tend to hate cardio machines. For others, I strongly suggest finding your passion, be it a sport, biking, rock climbing, swimming even window shopping for hours :) Yes ladies, studies show we burn calories while shopping too...
Now for cardio that actually works for me: Interval Cardio. It's basically short bursts, high energy cardio on any machine of choice: treadmill, elliptical, stepper etc. There's a lot out there about interval training but how many really practice it? Through some personal training sessions I took back in Australia, I realised that similar results can be achieved in lesser time by interval training.

One that I have been following now is on a treamill: 5 min warm up, 1 minute run at 6.5mph & 5 slope followed by 1 min run at 4 mph & 2.5 slope. This to be continued for 6-8 minutes. I usually then continue the run at a steady speed of 5 mph and slope at 1 for another ten minutes. I have found this helps to build my stamina as well.
It's an amazing total cardio workout!!