Combining Fitness with Health

Many individuals believe that fitness equates with health. However, having a healthy body, and being physically fit are two different realities. Individuals that have been able to combine both fitness and health tend to live a lot longer than others, and remain happy through the process.

Living healthy, and being physically fit, are not necessarily the same thing. Many individuals can get healthy by consuming a high quality diet, but their physique might be sorely in need of help. To achieve the best results, it’s important to combine both fitness and health into daily living.

If at all possible, it is crucial to maintain a healthy weight, based on the body mass index (BMI). This typically requires extensive measures such as eliminating a lot of the most favorite types of food including simple carbohydrates, fatty foods, and anything that contains high calories.

Losing Weight

Our bodies are natural fuel burning machines that use unwanted fat to generate energy. As a result, we can eliminate the unwanted and undesired body fat by exercising on a routine basis. However, the process should begin with consuming a healthy diet filled with organic fruits and vegetables, lean meats, and healthy grains and nuts. Attempt to stay away from any type of food that could cause allergies, to maximize the weight loss results.

The first step is to decide exactly how many calories you should consume every day, based on your weight. Typically, women should consume between 1300 and 1800 cal per day. Likewise, men should consume between 1500 and 2500 cal, based on their BMI.

By eliminating just 500 cal every day, both men and women can lose 1 pound of unwanted fat every week. This is because 1 pound of fat equates to 3500 cal, so seven days of eliminating 500 cal equates to 3500.

To accelerate the body’s ability to lose weight, it’s important to get involved in physical exercise. However, performing any type of exercise when overweight always requires that it be approached very cautiously. If extremely overweight, seek the advice of a physician before beginning.

Avoid Scales

Standing on a scale can provide a high level of motivation, but can also make an individual feel very depressed. When losing weight through exercise and proper dieting, try to avoid standing on the scale. Recognize that as you lose weight, you’ll reach certain plateaus, or the body simply is holding onto excess water as it eliminates the unwanted fat. During this time, the scale will not represent exactly how much weight has been lost.

Additionally, through routine exercise, the body will naturally start building up more muscle while eliminating fat. Muscles are significantly heavier than body fat. Therefore, you can look much thinner, and actually way more.

By blending both health and fitness together it is easy to create a phenomenal weight loss program when taken seriously. Choosing one over the other typically result in undesirable results. Set a goal, and stick to it. This will ensure that both health and fitness are complementing each other to help you attain your goals.

Walking Can Bring a Lot of Benefits

The following is a list of the benefits that we all can derive from walking. As parents, we are all concerned about our children. Whether it is their mental makeup or their physical makeup, children benefit by the concern that parents show in this regard. When it comes to the physical makeup of our children, we want them to be active and healthy. The best way that we can do this is by being a role model. If we show a love for exercise, so will they, and walking is one of the best exercises to do.

Walking Can Save You Money

 

With today’s high gas prices, most families are concerned with saving money wherever they can. If you own a car or two, you understand that the cost of fuel is a large portion of the family budget. That is why walking whenever you can is an excellent way to cut down on your fuel costs. A simple trip to the market by walking will soon add up to quite a savings.

Take a  Break

If you are a mother who is house bound for long periods of time due to family responsibilities. Or maybe you are an office employee who sits in front of a computer all day. Both of you will benefit by escaping that confinement by going for a leisurely stroll. It will help you to get through the rest of the day as it will give you a wholesome break away from your daily routine.

 Call on Your Neighbors

Do we really know our neighbors? Have we made an effort to visit them and get to know more about them? If you are in a habit of going for a daily stroll around your neighborhood, you will probably have a great opportunity to bump into them at some time. There will be occasions when they are working in their yards or coming and going from various daily outings. These would be perfect times for you to introduce yourself and thus perhaps start a new friendship.

Helping the Environment

We are all concerned about the health of or planet, mankind’s home. There are so many issues that are in the news about the destruction of the Eco-systems. Year by year it seems to be getting worse. There may be little we can do on a global front about the environment. However, we can do our part wherever we live. by walking whenever we can. This will help to prevent harmful emissions from polluting the atmosphere.

Walking Can Be Enjoyable

There is nothing that is more enjoyable that a stroll to enjoy the beautiful creation that surrounds us. It does not matter if it is a gorgeous evening sunset, or an invigorating scent from a pine forest, or a daily stroll while admiring the beauties of creation, walking does wonders for our psyche.

The best time to think is when we get away from whatever we are doing and take a walk. Walking seems to stimulate the thinking process. We are able to make decisions wisely and see things a lot clearer when we are walking.

Walking is simply the best exercise that you can do for your body. It is a low impact exercise and requires no costly equipment. The benefits derived from walking are second to none when it comes to fitness.

Achieving Fitness and Diet Control

The aspect of fitness that most people miss is the easy part. First we have to define what fitness is. Fitness is the maintenance of the human body so that it functions with a minimum of disease, difficulty and breakdown. That is pretty much like describing a machine, but that is what our body is, a miracle machine.

 Eating Right

As with all machines, what type of fuel we put into the machine is important because if low grade fuel goes into the machine, the result is low grade as well. We live in a society where sugar is the king of the diet scenario. If a baby develops a taste for sugar when it is very young, the parents are in for a difficult time in attempting to get the child to eat anything that is nutritional because of the addicting taste that sugar has.

 Be Choosy

The next time you visit the supermarket, take a look at the ingredients of many of the foods in the aisle. Notice particularly the children’s snack, cereals, and even some of the main courses. Look for fructose and sucrose because those are sugars. Most of the drinks that are geared for kids are full of sugar, not to mention soft drinks.

Choose Wisely

Adults have the same problem, in that much of the foods that we think are nutritious are also sugar laden. We need to focus on lots and lots of vegetables, and some fruits and lean meats such as poultry and fish. Our diets are the first leg of gaining, and maintaining fitness for our bodies. And that is the easy part we mentioned earlier.

Exercise is a Must

Next comes the harder part, but not so much if we get organized a little bit. Exercise is necessary because our bodies are built for it. Our muscles need to be stimulated, our blood vessels need to be cleaned out a little, and our hearts thrive on exercise. All that has to be done is walk a little while each day. None of the marathon running stuff, just take your time and walk for a half and hour per day.

A half hour of walking equals about ¾ to one mile. Take your time and enjoy the scenery, but that one little thing means a lot to your body.

Rest and Hydration

Get plenty of sleep and drink plenty of water. Without enough rest, the body cannot recharge. Almost all healing is accomplished while we sleep. Need we say more? Water flushes our system and is necessary to keep things moving. Our body consists of 50 to 60% water so it is important to keep hydrated.

Discipline Yourself

The hard part about all of this is that we have to decide to do something. Good health and fitness don’t happen automatically. It takes years to get into some of the health difficulties of some people, caused by little or no exercise and eating all of the wrong foods over a period of time. It makes sense that it will take a while to undo all of the harm that has been done.