Let's Get Started Towards a Healthier Lifestyle

How many times have you gone to bed to sleep at night, promising yourself that you'll go to the fitness center in the morning and then change your mind when you wake up? Most of us don't feel like exercising in the morning.

While this happens to most of us, it doesn't mean that you should give up altogether and not exercise. We all need to realize that staying active and eating right are crucial for long term health and wellness. You have heard the old saying that goes "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", which means we should do whatever we can to take care of our health and our body. The more you know about your body, the better you can customize a nutrition and exercise plan that is right for you. When you are eating well, you can increase your physical activity, and exercise at the proper intensity level. You are actually informing your body that you want to burn a generous amount of fuel, which translates into burning fat more efficiently for energy.

Proper eating habits plus exercise equals a higher metabolism, which in turn gives you more energy throughout the day and allows you to do more physical and mental work with less effort.

The true purpose of exercise is to send a continual message to the body asking for the improvement of your metabolism, strength, aerobic ability and overall fitness and health. Each time you exercise, your body responds by advancing its capabilities to burn fat throughout the day and night. Exercise does not have to be intense to work for you, but it does mean that you have to be consistent with your exercise.

It is recommended to add a cardiovascular exercise at least 4 times per week for 20 to 30 minutes and resistance training 4 times a week for 20 to 25 minutes. This balanced approach incorporates aerobic exercise to burn the fat and deliver more oxygen, and resistance training to increase your lean body mass and burn more calories around the clock.

Here's a sample exercise program that may work for you:

• Warm Up: 7 to 8 minutes of light aerobic activity intended to increase the blood flow and lubricate and warm up your tendons and joints.
• Resistance Training: Train all major muscle groups. One to two sets of each exercise. Rest 45 seconds between sets.
• Aerobic Exercise: Pick two favorite activities, this could be walking, jogging, biking, or whatever fits your personality or lifestyle. Perform 12 to 15 minutes of the first activity and continue with 10 minutes of the second activity. Cool down for the last 5 minutes.
• Stretching: Wrap up your exercise by stretching, breathing deeply, relaxing and meditation.

When starting an exercise program, it is important to have realistic expectations. Depending on your fitness level, you should expect the following changes early on.

• 1 to 8 weeks: You should feel better and have more energy.
• 2 to 6 months: You should start to notice yourself losing inches. Your clothes will begin to fit more loosely. You are gaining muscle and losing fat. You are beginning to become a leaner person.
• After 6 months: You might notice that you will start losing weight faster.

Once you have made the commitment to exercise several times a week, don't stop there. You should also make a change in your diet and in your eating habits. Counting calories or calculating grams and percentages for certain nutrients is impractical. I suggest these easy to follow guidelines:

• Eat several small meals a day and a couple of snacks through out the day. This keeps you from feeling hungry during the day. This will help avoid binge eating.
• Make sure that every meal is balanced. Eat palm sized proteins like lean meats, fish, egg whites and dairy products, fist sized portions of complex carbohydrates like whole grain bread, pasta, wild rice, multi grain cereal and potatoes, and fist sized vegetables and fruits.
• Limit your fat intake to only what is necessary to flavor your food.
• Drink at least 64 ounces of water a day, which equals eight 8 oz glasses of water.
• Take a multi vitamin every day to ensure that you are getting all the vitamins and minerals that your body needs.

Let's take the time to take care of ourselves so that we can live, long, happy, healthy lives. Let's choose to be thin, fit and healthy so that we can achieve the healthy lifestyle that we are striving for.

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