Health & Fitness
Are you planning to lose weight or just lead a healthier lifestyle? If so, the earlier you can start the better, especially if you are preparing for a special event!
There is only one healthy way to achieve your ideal weight: a combination of diet and exercise that promotes gradual weight loss. Exercise plays a key role, and if you're really serious about getting in shape, you need to strike a balance between healthy eating and exercise.
The formula for weight loss is a simple one: calories burned must exceed calories consumed. So it makes sense that the best way to begin your new lifestyle is by shaping up your diet. To keep your energy level high enough, choose a safe, healthy eating plan that targets a loss of 1 to 2 pounds a week, which, for most of us, means consuming about 1200 calories a day. If you have a significant amount of weight to lose - say 20 pounds – it’ll probably take you between 5 and 6 months to achieve your target weight.
If you are looking to lose weight, exercises that use large muscle groups in a rhythmic or continuous manner such as swimming, cycling, walking, running, or hiking are among the best exercises you can do to burn fat. Exercise at what you gauge to be a moderate pace - one at which you could easily carry on a conversation. Start exercising in 15-minute increments, three times a week. As your endurance improves, increase your exertion level and your length of exercise time.
Resistance training is the perfect complement to aerobic exercises and is great for improving bone strength and sculpting the body. Start your resistance training with relatively low weights so that you feel muscle fatigue after one set of 12 to 15 exercise repetitions. Again, as you build endurance, add more weight and increase the number of repetitions in your set.
The key to long-term weight loss is making healthy eating and fitness part of your lifestyle forever. So, why not decide now to dedicate yourself to a sensible diet and active lifestyle? This doesn't mean that you can't ever enjoy food or indulge yourself once in a while. However, you'll want to avoid reverting to unhealthy eating habits and regaining the weight you'll have worked so hard to lose. If you find it hard to stay motivated on your own - and many people do - consider seeking out a weight loss organisation for advice and support. If you take "weight loss for life" seriously, you'll feel as good about yourself in twenty years time as you will when you reach your target weight in a few months time!