Exercise and Balanced Diet for a Healthy Life

A combination of a good exercise regime and a balanced diet will produce lasting results of healthy life. Exercise not only keeps a person fit but makes one feel good about oneself. As the sayings go, "a healthy body has a healthy mind" and "you are what you eat". Exercising regularly stimulates the brain to produce endorphin, a chemical that helps a person feel more relaxed and peaceful. A balanced diet is essential to maintain a healthy weight. Exercise and nutrition go hand in hand.
Studies have shown that aerobics exercises can make your bones strong which in turn helps you age better. Eating a low fat, low carb and high protein diet can be helpful in achieving goals faster. Exercising regularly prevents the risk of developing heart diseases, diabetes and certain types of cancers. To ensure that you are exercising hard enough without straining your heart, calculate heart rate by using the heart rate calculator. The optimum workout requires the heart beat to go up to 75% of heart rate which will burn a lot of calories in little amount of time.

Basic exercises to get you started:
There are three basic components to all exercise routines; Aerobics, Strength training and Flexibility or Stretching.

Aerobics exercise: Walking, jumping and swimming are the best forms of aerobics exercise. Jump rope brings the heart rate up much faster than walking. Hence, ten minutes of jump-rope, is equivalent to twenty minutes of walking. Swimming is considered as the only workout that allows all the muscle groups to work together simultaneously to burn maximum calories.

 

Strength Training: Weights and Pilates are known as muscle toning and strengthening workouts. Weight training should be done at least three times a week. Pilates are getting quite popular nowadays especially in the western countries. It teaches control of mind and body and helps strengthen core muscles.

Flexibility exercises: Yoga and stretching. Yoga is known for relaxation. It calms anxiety and brings about a holistic approach to life. Stretching is highly recommended after every workout. It is a good way to prevent injuries and soothe tired and sore muscles.

Benefits of exercising:
The benefits of exercise are innumerable, to name a few:
• Increased brain performance
• Feel more energetic
• Releases stress
• Keeps diseases at bay
• Makes the heart stronger
• Removes anxiety and depression

Importance of a Balanced Diet:
A balanced diet will provide you the energy your body needs to function properly. It is important to maintain healthy eating habits so that your immune system is strong enough to fight illnesses. Poor diet can hinder the growth and development in children. Kids with bad eating habits are more likely to continue it for the rest of their lives.

 

Easy tips to follow:
A healthy diet is a composition of fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, dairy and whole grains. Here are some simple do's and don'ts to get you started.
• Don't fill yourself up with empty calories, like cakes and cookies, etc.
• Try to make every calorie count by obtaining them from the four major food groups.
• Prefer fresh fruits over store bought juices.
• Try to eat six small meals instead of three large ones.
• Always eat a healthy snack between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and dinner.
• Finally have a small snack just before bed time. That way you won't end up consuming large portions at each meal.
When starting a healthy lifestyle, do some homework on how to calculate heart rate for optimum workout, find out the caloric intake required for your age and try to maintain a food journal in the beginning. Just keep yourself disciplined through exercise, maintain a balanced diet, and you can enjoy a happy life for many years to come. Start bringing a change today by living the healthy way.

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Your Physical Fitness – Keeping Your Body Healthy

It is important to be fit, everyone knows that. Your physical fitness has a big impact upon how you feel about yourself, and how much effort your body has to expend in order to keep working. Lack of physical fitness has supposedly reached an epidemic proportion in America, though the truth is that Americans are obsessed with physical fitness, and TV doctors and celebrities alike make a fortune through selling fitness videos and books to the public. Unless you’re planning to buy ‘em all and use them as weights to lift up and down every day, none of these will ever do your physical fitness any good at all.

The best way to improve your physical fitness is by incorporating regular activity into your daily routine. It is not necessary to take out full membership of your local gym, or even attend one exercise class. What it does mean is choosing an activity that increases your heart rate, or improves your strength and general flexibility. Walking a few more blocks, doing some gardening or housework, climbing the stairs, are all examples of something that can fit quite easily into your routine, but which can also increase your physical fitness. Taking the elevator, driving the car to the shop at the corner of your street, and spending more time in bed are all things that will not improve your fitness level.

A healthy lifestyle cannot be a fad, or something that you will do ‘next year’. It should be on your ‘to-do’ list all year round, not just as a New Year Resolution that you never intend to keep. Once you start on an exercise regime, you will need to keep that up for the rest of your life; or your physical fitness will be lost, and you will have to start all over again. Without regular exercise, the muscles reduce, and fat takes its place (muscles do not become fat, they merely move over to make more room for it if they aren’t used). It is therefore important that you choose a regime that is going to keep you interested in the long term; every year throws up a new ‘fitness fad’, but most people take them up and then discard them after a fortnight. Instead, choose something that you enjoy. If the thought of being instructed on stepping up and down on a plastic board fills you with scorn, then you might try something else – martial arts are always popular, and a physical fitness regime which incorporates some kind of team sport will also help to keep you interested.

Remember: physical activity everyday is the key to fitness, and that is what is important. Improving your physical fitness can provide you with more energy, and will help you to feel more positive about yourself.

Brigi G | by Fit4Health

How to balance indulgences and fitness

The key to a healthy and happy life lies in finding balance, not in denying yourself life’s basic pleasures like comfort food and TV. Provided you can balance things out with exercise and healthier food choices, you can and, arguably, should indulge yourself.
The basic principle of it is familiar because we’ve all had it drummed in us when we were growing up: if you worked for it – you can have it. It’s all about whether you deserve to have an extra hour of playing a video game or eating a chocolate or not. And it works, if you pay for it, first.
Food Indulgence
Food indulgences are tricky since you can’t let yourself have something nice and comforting after every training session otherwise you’ll cancel all out all of your hard work. It really comes down to using a simple formula correctly. If your body is getting the extra food = energy to burn in, it has no reason to dig into your reserves. So it’s not a good idea to have a chocolate after each run unless you have run over 10K and will have a calorific deficit even after a mars bar, for example. You can, however, make your “payment” in installments over several training sessions. So three full training sessions earn you a meal of your choosing or a treat. It doesn’t mean you can have a bucket of ice-cream, of course, but it does mean that in moderation you can have anything you want.
Food indulgences are important for keeping your spirit strong. If you have something to look forward to, it’ll be easier to put up with your training regime and you’ll feel happier and not deprived all the time. I suppose you could say that by doing it this way you can have your cake and eat it - sort of.
TV & Video games
These are fun, especially good quality series and good quality games not something you watch and play out of boredom. The TV or games aren’t the problem, the constant sitting down and idleness is. Our bodies are designed to work and are their happiest when they have been exercised. This is indeed the situation of “use it or lose it”. And most of us spend a lot of time sitting down all day so we need a lot of extra activity to compensate for that already.
There is a good way to fix that, get fit in the process and still indulge in viewing and playing: pay in exercise in advance. As a matter of fact, make a price list for yourself consisting of basic routines that you have to perform before you get to have your fun. So to watch one episode of your favorite series you have to first do 20 burpees or you can’t play a game until you do 40 squats. Every fun, but idle activity has to have a pricetag on it so that all of the sitting down is accounted for.
It's all in the balance

Eventually you get used to the daily exercise and won’t even think about it twice. It’ll become as normal as brushing your teeth; and to be fair it should be just as much part of your life as that for you to get and stay fit.
It’s all in the balance and in being accountable for everything you do. Eating lots of sweets and fries and then promising to be good “on Monday” doesn’t work because come Monday, you’ll be saying “I meant next Monday”. What’s better? To promise be better tomorrow, eat fries and feel good for five minutes or work for your fries first and then feel good long-term? And if everything else fails and things get out of hand, you can always use Scarlett o’Hara’s wise words “I’ll eat it tomorrow” (yes, I am pretty sure that’s what she said).
Earn your play time and you’ll never feel guilty about it ever again.

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Running For Fitness: Top Running Health Plans

Where was the last place you ran to?  Running is easily overlooked as a boring, run of the mill, or repetitive type of exercise.  However, a lot of people are not aware that they could add anywhere between 10 to 15 years to their lives by simply running for fitness.
Running not only helps strengthen your legs, develop your muscles, and keep your body looking lean and tone, but it also helps relieve stress and can improve your focus throughout the day.  If you are eager to reap the benefits that running has to offer, let’s take a look at how you can start running for fitness in 4 simple steps.
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Step 1:  Go Outside and Run

This might seem simple, but a lot of people fall short when it comes to running because they are not motivated enough to get outside and begin.  Start running by simply putting on a pair of running shoes and hitting the pavement.  If you are a running beginner, the repetitive motion of running might seem a little strange for your body at first.  However, keep at it and soon enough your muscles will start to spring into action.

• Form:  When you begin running for fitness, take note of your running form.  Try to keep your body loose and run in a way that feels natural to you.  Make sure that you pick your feet up high enough off the ground and relax your upper body.
• Breathe:  The right form of breathing is important in any kind of exercise, and also when you are running.  Breathe as naturally as possible: inhale oxygen through the nose, fully expanding your lungs, and exhaling through a widely opened mouth.
• Stretch:  Remember to stretch as soon as you finish running and get home.  Stretch out each muscle group for about 15 to 20 seconds if you can.

 

Step 2:  Develop a Routine

While running for fitness, you are going to want to aim to run at least 3 days a week.  This will help you build endurance and space out any recovery time that you have to help your muscles and body develop.

• Extend your time:  As you get more comfortable with your routine of running 3 days a week, push yourself to run further and longer.  For example, if you ran 10 minutes for the first week, then go ahead and try to bump it up to 15 minutes the second week.  The more you increase your running time, the easier it will be for you to run longer without stopping.
• Switch it up:  We will admit that running can get boring overtime, especially if you are running the same track or route, and you can get easily burned out.  To add some spice and adventure to your usual running routine, try to run down a route that you have never been on before. Or, try to incorporate some other exercises in between your running.

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Step 3:  Running for Fitness

After you develop a routine for your running, you will be able to advance your level of fitness when it comes to running.  You can go about this by taking these simple steps that will help you develop as a runner and an athlete.

• Purchase good shoes:  Even if you do not run regularly, you have probably noticed that there are a good amount of running shoes available on the market.  There is no one right shoe for each person; and you will have to see which shoe works best for you.
• Get a running partner:  Running by yourself can get boring, and running with other runners will give you some motivation and make running more fun by making a group activity out of it.  You will be able to find running groups that are solely for recreation, or composed of runners who are training for a race.

Step 4:  Train for a Race

Of course this step is optional, but once you have the running basics under your belt, you can consider training for a race.  Training for a race will help boost your fitness levels, as well keep your motivation levels high.  With racing, once you complete a race, there is a good chance that you are going to want to do another one: racing can be addicting!  Here is a sample racing plan that you can use to train for a 5K race.  A 5K race is just a bit over 3 miles.  This plan follows a weekly schedule 3 days a week for 2 months of training.
Week 1:  Brisk five-minute walk to warm-up.  Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes.
Week 2:  Brisk five-minute walk to warm-up.  Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for the span of 20 minutes.
Week 3:  Brisk five-minute walk to warm-up, then do two repetitions of the following:

• Jog 200 yards / 180 meters (or 90 seconds)
• Walk 200 yards / 180 meters (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 400 yards / 365 meters (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 400 yards / 365 meters (or 3 minutes)
• Week 4: Brisk 5 minute warm-up walk, then:
• Jog 1/4 mile / 400 meters (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile / 200 meters (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile / 800 meters (or 5 minutes)
• Walk 1/4 mile / 400 meters (or 2-1/2 minutes)
• Jog 1/4 mile / 400 meters (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile / 200 meters (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile / 800 meters (or 5 minutes)

Week 5:

1. Brisk 5 minute walk to warm-up walk.
2. Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
3. Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
4. Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
5. Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
6. Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
7. Workout 2: Brisk five-minute warm-up walk, then:
8. Jog 3/4 mile / 1200 meters (or 8 minutes)
9. Walk 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
10. Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)

Week 6:

1. Brisk five-minute warm-up walk.  Then:
2. Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
3. Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
4. Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)
5. Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
6. Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
7. Workout 2: Brisk five-minute warm-up walk, then:
8. Jog 1 mile /1600 meters(or 10 minutes)
9. Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
10. Jog 1 mile (or 10 minutes)

Week 7: Brisk five-minute walk to warm-up, then jog 2.5 miles (or 25 minutes).
Week 8: Brisk five-minute walk to warm-up, then jog 2.75 miles (or 28 minutes).
Week 9: Brisk five-minute walk to warm-up, then jog 3 miles (or 30 minutes).

Run For Fitness

Your own running for fitness program can be as personalized as you want it to be.  To get into the groove of running takes persistence and patience, but if you follow the above steps, you will start building up endurance, stamina, and motivation for running in no time.

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Cardio Workout Routines: Best Cardio Exercises

Our bodies are made to move, and our hearts are made to beat.  Getting our bodies moving and our hearts beating regularly can be as simple as adding in 30 minutes of cardio workout routines into our daily schedule.
Regular cardio exercise has been shown to decrease cholesterol, improve mood, and reduce body fat, among other things.  If you are wondering how you can easily make cardio workout routines a priority, then read on to check out a complete list of the best forms of cardio out there to help you achieve an active, long, and healthy life.

Warm-Up

Before you begin your cardio workout routine, there are various different warm-ups to preface your cardio routines that you can do to stretch your muscles and get your blood flowing.
Power Skipping:  Skipping is not just for the playground.

1. Raise your right knee up to your hip while using your left arm to reach over your head.
2. Land on the balls of your left foot.
3. Alternate the skipping motion using your opposite arm and leg.
4. Aim for 10 to 15 skips going as high as you can off the ground.

Stair Climb:  Stair climbs are a great way to start getting your heart rate up.

1. Walk up and down a stairway briskly until you begin to feel a sweat.
2. Make sure that you do not do too many turn-around motions because this will cause you to become dizzy.

High Knees:

1. With your feet hip-length apart, raise your right knee up as high as it can go.  Then place it back down.
2. Alternate between your two legs and continually pick up the pace as you go.
3. Try doing this for about 30 seconds straight.

Butt Kicks:  These will help to get your glutes into shape.

1. Jog in place and kick your heels up towards your backside as you do.
2. Make sure that your movement is coming from your hamstrings and not from simply kicking your feet up into the dust.
3. Do this for about one minute and pick up the pace as you go.

Jumping Jacks:  This classic cardio move will warm up your entire body.

1. Stand with your feet together and keep your hands at your sides.
2. Make sure that your core is engaged and start jumping with your legs out wider than your hips.  As you jump, raise your arms over your head.
3. Keep your knees as bent as possible and bring your feet back together and arms down as you come back to the ground.
4. Aim to do 20 to 30 jumping jacks.

Cardio Workout Routines (Full Body)

These cardio workout routines will pull and stretch your full body and can be done in the comfort of your own home.  Aim to incorporate at least 3 to 4 of these full body exercises into your cardio workout routine.
Trunk Jump:  This exercise is going to help you catch some air.

1. Stand up tall with your knees slightly bent and jump as high as you can.
2. Bring your knees in towards your chest and extend your arms straight out in front of your body.
3. When you come back to the floor, lower your arms.
4. Aim to do 8 to 10 of these.

Basic Burpee:  People either love or hate these squatting moves.

1. Begin your burpee in a low-squat position with both your hands firmly on the floor.
2. Kick your feet back so that you come into a push-up position.  Quickly return to your squatting position.
3. For your last step, jump as high as you can before squatting back down for your next burpee.
4. Aim to do about 10 strong burpees.

Push-Up Burpee:  This cardio move is a more advanced take on the basic burpee.

1. Begin this burpee as you would a normal one.  However, once you reach push-up position, actually do the push up.
2. Complete the full push up before coming back into a squatting position.
3. Try to complete at least 8 to 10 of these more advanced burpees.

Mountain Climber:  If you want to get the same effect from climbing a mountain without actually going up a mountain, try this cardio workout.

1. Begin this exercise down on your hands and knees and bring your right foot upwards towards your chest.  Keep your left leg straight during this time.
2. While engaging your core, quickly switch your legs up and keep up this rhythm for about 15 to 20 repetitions.

One-leg Burpee:  As you can tell, there are various ways that you can do a regular burpee.

1. First, complete a normal burpee – however, instead of using both your legs, use one leg at a time.
2. Switch sides so you can feel the burn on both of your legs.

Vertical Jump: Get ready to jump as high as possible with this exercise.

1. Stand up straight with a slight bend in your knee and jump up as high as you can.
2. Use your arms to propel yourself upwards and bend your knees while you jump.  When you are jumping, be sure to keep your arms extended up towards the ceiling.
3. Repeat this move for about 10 reps.

Invisible Jump Rope:  You can do this with an actual jump rope if you would like.

1. Pretend you are holding a jump rope in your hands, and while still staying on your toes, push off with the balls of your feet.
2. Keep jumping with swift and quick little jumps.  Keep your wrists moving in small circular motions as if you were holding a rope.
3. Do this for about 60 seconds.

Diver’s Push-Up:  Pretend you are jumping in the ocean with this cardio routine.

1. Start off in a downward-dog position.  Keep your arms planted firmly on the ground and keep your eyes towards the floor.
2. In a fluid, yet controlled motion, swoop your hips towards the floor as your chest rises.
3. Continue moving until your back is fully arched and your gaze is up towards the ceiling.
4. Swoop back down into starting position.
5. Do this motion for about 10 to 15 reps.

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Box Jump:   Take jumping to the next level with these high intensity jumps.

1. Get a box that is sturdy enough to hold your weight, and one that you can land on firmly enough without missing.
2. Keep your feet shoulder-width apart, bend your knees, and use all your strength to jump up onto the box.
3. Secure your footing and landing on the box, and then step back down.
4. Aim to do about 6 to 10 of these jumps.

Frog Jump:  To incorporate squatting with jumping, try this jump.

1. Begin in a squatting position and touch the ground with both of your hands.  Keep your arms straight during this time.
2. Jump as high as you can into the air coming up from your squat.
3. As you come back down from your jump, raise your knees as high as possible.
4. Try to do about 10 to 12 of these frog jumps.

Bicycle:  Here is another exercise where you do not actually need a piece of equipment for.

1. Lie down on your back with your knees inwards towards your chest and with both of your hands behind your head.
2. Bring your right elbow upwards towards your left knee while your right leg straightens.
3. Alternate between your legs as if you were pedaling on a bike.
4. Pedal for about 30 repetitions.

Your Best Cardio Routine

Remember that there is no correct cardio exercise.  The type of cardio workout routines that you choose to incorporate into your exercise will depend on your fitness level and what you want to get out of your workout.  However, any type of movement that gets your blood pumping and glands sweating is going to be beneficial for your body, mind, and overall fitness.  For a total hot body fitness workout, enroll in this course for over 10 hours of workout routines to keep you looking radiant and living longer.

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