It's time to start living a healthy
lifestyle: your 7-day plan
How many times
have you gone to bed vowing to go to the gym first thing in the morning, only
to change your mind eight hours later because you don't feel like working out?
While this may
happen to the best of us, it doesn't mean you should abandon your fitness goals
entirely. People need to understand that being active and eating properly is
essential for long-term health and wellness, and that prevention is better than
treatment.
The more you understand how your body reacts to your lifestyle choices, the better you'll be
able to create a nutrition and activity plan that works for you. You are
alerting your body that you want to burn a significant quantity of fuel when
you eat correctly, raise your level of physical activity, and exercise at the
appropriate intensity. As a result, fat is burned more effectively for energy.
In other words,
a healthy diet combined with regular exercise results in a quick metabolism,
which provides you more energy throughout the day and allows you to accomplish
more physical labor with less effort.
The fundamental
goal of the exercise is to convey a constant message to the body, requesting that
it enhance metabolism, strength, aerobic capacity, and general fitness and
health. Your body responds to exercise by improving its ability to burn fat
throughout the day and night. Exercise does not have to be strenuous to be
effective, but it must be constant.
Regular aerobic
activity, lasting 20 to 30 minutes each session, and weight training, lasting
20 to 25 minutes per session, are recommended four times per week. This
well-balanced technique combines aerobic exercise to burn fat and boost oxygen
delivery, as well as strength training to increase lean body mass and burn more
calories around the block.
Here's an example of a workout
regimen that can be useful to you:
- Warm-Up: seven to eight minutes of mild aerobic activity to stimulate blood flow, lubricate, and warm-up tendons and joints.
- Resistance Training: This is a
great way to work out all of your major muscle groups. Each exercise should be
done in one to two sets. Between sets, take a 45-second break.
- Aerobic Exercise: Choose two activities that match your lifestyle, such as running, rowing, bicycling, or cross-country skiing. Perform the first action for 12 to 15 minutes before moving on to the second activity for 10 minutes. Finish with a five-minute cool-down.
- Stretching: Finish your workout with stretching, deep breathing, relaxing, and meditating.
It's critical to set realistic goals
while beginning an exercise regimen. Early on, you should expect the following
adjustments, depending on your fitness level.
- Feel better and have more energy in one to eight weeks.
- Between two and six months: Lose weight and inches while slimming down. Clothes start to feel looser. You're growing muscle and shedding fat at the same time.
- After six months, you'll notice that you're dropping weight quickly.
- Don't quit after you've committed to exercising multiple times each week. Change your nutrition and/or eating habits as well,' advises Zwiefel. It's impossible to count calories or calculate grams and percentages for some nutrients. Instead, I recommend following these simple guidelines:
- Throughout the day, eat multiple little meals (ideally four) and a couple of small snacks.
- Include palm-sized proteins such as lean meats, fish, egg whites, and dairy products, fist-sized servings of complex carbs such as whole-wheat bread and pasta, wild rice, multigrain cereal, and potatoes, and fist-sized portions of vegetables and fruits at every meal.
- Only consume as much fat as is required for adequate flavor.
- Throughout the day, drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water.
- I also recommend taking a multivitamin every day to ensure you get all of the vitamins and minerals your body needs.