We’ve all been told to eat right and stay active in order to get into better shape or maintain the shape that we already have. However, it can be easy to overtrain and hurt yourself or not use the right techniques, as well as eat too much from one food group and not enough from another. We’re here to let you know how you should handle your regiment to get the best results.
Managing when and how much you work out ensures that you have a goal to reach and a way to avoid injuries. Understand what you should intake so you know how it can affect you in the long and short term. Check out our three tips below so that you can finally look the way you want to in the mirror.
Manage Your Diet
Fruits and vegetables are obviously something to include in your diet, but knowing which ones to consume and how much helps produce results better than just going for any that are available. Apples, bananas, carrots, and celery should definitely be on your list if you’re not used to consuming members of these food groups on a daily basis. However, these options are known to have more sugar and salt than others such as blueberries, strawberries, spinach, and broccoli. Balance your options so that you can the best that all fruits and vegetables have to offer and a variety of helpful minerals.
Knowing your options for meat helps manage the amount of protein you consume on a daily basis. Burgers and steaks are good to have once in a while, but chicken and salmon and better to have for lunch and dinner during the week so that you get lean meat and reduce the waistline quicker. Be sure to keep snacks around to treat yourself every now and then, as dark chocolate comes in handy when you don’t have yogurt and trail mix lying around. Supplements can also be helpful if you have higher fitness goals, especially if you’re an athlete or engage in activities more than the average individual. Knowing which supplements work for your specific needs before you try them out will also help in the long run.
Educate Yourself on Illnesses
You may be young and/or have a good track record for staying in good shape or bouncing back from your off days, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to stay that easy. Your ability to lose weight after staying off your diet for a week or month is going to decrease once you reach your thirties. Making poor food choices affects your ability not only to look good in the mirror, but ward off severe health problems. You don’t want to wait until you have a heart attack or mini-stroke to start eating right or get in the gym. Educating yourself on heart and brain illnesses, as well as how your daily habits can affect your chances of getting cancer in the long run will help you avoid them in the future.
There are certain foods that you can start eating that will help you avert certain illnesses, some of which may surprise you. It also helps to know your family’s history of certain health issues to figure out what your chances are of experiencing them and the best ways to avert them. Your parents may have some helpful tips on how they were able to avoid them. Talking to health professionals also comes in handy. Your doctor can explain the facts about prostate cancer or other problems that are common in your family, as well as provide the right tools to diminishing their effect on you.
Schedule a Training Regiment
Relying solely on eating the right foods isn’t enough to look and feel good. You need to find a way to get or stay active, as it has proven to help control your weight as well as maintain a healthy mental and emotional state. Start by joining your local gym and scheduling time before or after work and school to lift some weights and do some cardio. An hour should be enough to get a good deal of lifting done. If you’re new to these activities, it helps to start low and do more repetitions in order to produce results before you go up in weight.
If you start to get bored with the weekly trip to the gym and need a challenge, pick an event to train for. A marathon will suit you if you’re having more trouble with boosting your cardio than lifting heavier. If you need a little more variety in your physical routine, then you can try a triathlon or obstacle-style event that tests your endurance and ability to switch between activities. Preparing yourself for one of these events will allow you to dedicate the rest of your week to different activities, which will allow you to reserve your energy and avoid injury for the event.
Finding activities that are fun will help you look forward to breaking a sweat. Among the activities that provide a good time is dancing. This not only allows you to improve your heart rate, flexibility, and cardio, but also to reenact your favorite dance scenes from movies. There are spots across the country, such as this dance center in Naperville and Oakbrook Terrace, IL, where you can learn new dances and improve on the ones you already know. This is also a chance to be part of a club and make new friends, which helps with improving the emotional and mental aspect of your health.
Keep these tips in mind so that you can start looking and feeling good as soon as possible.