Getting F.I.T.T. Is Easy

For most people the hardest part of exercising is just getting started. Hectic schedules and lack of time certainly contribute to the excuses. But for many people, lack of basic workout knowledge intimidates them and prevents them from even getting started.

It’s easy to understand why some feel overwhelmed about beginning a new fitness routine. Virtually every day the media is bombarding the public with the latest “diet research” often times contradicting what may have been reported just weeks earlier. And infomercials swear that 20 minutes of this or 15 minutes of that is all that is required to look like a Hollywood star.

With so much information (and misinformation), it can be hard to decipher what fitness regimen will really deliver results. But truthfully, it’s not difficult at all to determine what workout will provide health benefits.

An easy way to get started is utilizing the F.I.T.T. principle. This acronym stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time and Type.

Frequency: As you might expect, this refers to how often you will exercise. After any form of exercise is performed your body completes a process of rebuilding and repairing. So, determining the frequency of exercise is important in order to find a balance that provides just enough stress for the body to adapt and also allows enough rest time for healing.

Intensity: Defined as the amount of effort or work that must be invested in a specific exercise workout. This too requires a good balance to ensure that the intensity is hard enough to overload the body but not so difficult that it results in overtraining, injury or burnout.

Time: Again, this is rather self-explanatory. Time is simply how long each individual session should last. This will vary based on the intensity and type.

Type: What type of exercise will you be doing? Will an exercise session be primarily cardiovascular, resistance training or a combination of both? And, what specific exercises will you perform.

Now you know the F.I.T.T. principle so planning a workout program and getting started should be a breeze. The ACSM (American College of Sport Medicine) has F.I.T.T. guidelines both for cardiovascular work and strength training. For cardiovascular benefits, they recommend exercising for a frequency of 3-5 times per week, at an intensity equal to 60-85 percent of your maximum heart rate for a time of 20-60 minutes. For strength straining they recommend working out a minimum of two times per week at an intensity that is equal to 70-85 percent of your one rep maximum (maximum weight you can use for one rep) for 8-10 reps and 1-3 sets.

Planning a new fitness routine by breaking it into the four F.I.T.T. principle pieces allows you to quickly create a workout plan that will truly provide you with results.

For beginner exercisers choosing the Type of exercise may be the best place to start mapping out your routine. After all, if you have the perfect frequency, intensity and time but hate the actual exercise then you’ll never do it. So, start with something you like. This may be walking, biking, swimming or something else.

Next determine the Frequency. Consider how much time each week you truly will devote to this workout. Be realistic. There’s no purpose in setting expectations so high that you likely will fail. Remember, the ACSM guidelines are 3-5 times per week, so a good start would be three days.

If you are very limited in your schedule then determining your Time would be the appropriate next step. Otherwise, choose your Intensity level, which will help determine how long your workout session should be. For example, a higher intensity will typically provide more benefit (such as burning more calories in a shorter amount of time). So, choosing to jog may require only 30 minutes of commitment versus walking which may require 45-60 minutes.

Here’s a quick example of both a cardiovascular and resistance workout program that utilizes the F.I.T.T. principle. Walk (Type) at 4 MPH (Intensity) for 45 minutes (Time) four times per week (Frequency). Perform exercises with dumbbells (Type) at 70% of your maximum 1 rep strength (Intensity) for 8-12 reps (Time) 3 times per week (Frequency).

That’s all there is to it. Now get out there and get FITT!

Fat Burning Exercises

Fat burning exercises are the slow, aerobic, long duration types of exercise that involve most of the major muscle groups. Your body will burn a higher percentage of calories from fat with lower intensity cardio exercises.

Fat burning exercises include walking, jogging, running, elliptical exercise trainer workouts, cycling and swimming. The key factor to keep in mind is the more muscle groups you use, the more fat you'll burn.

Different type of exercises will burn more sugar rather than burning fat. Sugar burning exercises involve brief spurts of movement followed by rest which results in more sugar that is used for fuel instead of fat.

Sugar burning exercises include sprinting, tennis, racquetball, basketball, and golf. While these are great sports that benefit your overall fitness condition, they are different type of exercises that will not burn as much fat like fat burning exercises will.

To burn fat effectively, exercise at a moderate pace for a longer period of time. The residual effect of this type of aerobic exercise gives you the most benefits.

These aerobic fat burning exercises increase your metabolism which means you'll burn calories long after you exercise. People who exercise on a regular basis develop more fat burning enzymes than people who don't exercise at all.

By doing just twenty minutes of fat burning exercises you get those fat burning enzymes working. So if you are just starting out, exercise for at least twenty minutes and work up from there as your fitness level improves. Try to set 3 days a week as your goal to workout and work up to 5 days as you become more fit.

Home treadmills and elliptical exercise trainers are perfect for fat burning exercises. These fitness machines will give you the slow, aerobic, long duration types of exercise that work best to burn fat.

They are the most popular pieces for home gyms because they allow you to stay fit in any weather condition. They are easy to use and cost efficient because quality fitness equipment will last for many years.

If you want to reduce body fat, eating properly will always help. But by combining it with fat burning exercises, it will give you the excellent results you are looking for.

Better Work Out

1.Stop and Go

If you play a sport that requires a full sprint, remember that a full sprint strains the muscles of the lower body. To combat this, do stop-and-go exercises. For example, run 30 meters at about 80 percent of your effort, slow to a jog for five to 10 meters, then run again for another 30 meters. Repeat this process five times.

2.On bended knees

Almost 3 out of four ACL injury occurs when players are landing or turning. If your knees are bent instead of straight, the risk of injury is greatly reduced according to a report in the JAAOS (Journal of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons).

3.Cool down

Heatstroke is not something that can be easily cured like headache. To avoid it, stay cool and hydrated. Be sure the combined temp an humidity is less than 160. This is according to Dr. Dave Janda of the IPSM.

4.Get the proper equipment

Badly fitting gears or ill sized equipment can be a cause of training injuries. The extra money spent on proper equipment goes a long way.

5.Do it the right way

Bad technique is just as bad as, well, bad equipment. Seek advice from pros and trainer, this advice are invaluable to your exercises or training.

6.Go West (or whichever direction)

If you're playing or training in multiple directions, your warm up should also. Move sideways, backward, forward and all the motions you might be doing. This allows your body to be prepared.

7.Have yourself filmed

The camera doesn't lie. Show your video to a person well verse in your training, so he can give a critic of your fitness regimen.

8.Loosen the shoulders.

Even a slightly injured rotator cuff can shut down the function of a shoulder. You might want to include stretching to protect your rotator cuffs.

9.take An early dip

Schedule your swimming sessions early. The less people in the pool means less of everything in the pool.

10. Protect yourself

Wearing custom-fitted mouth guards reduces the risk of injuries by as much as 82 percent, according to a study at UNC at Chapel Hill. Plunk out the cash for a custom-fitted mouth guard and it'll last for years including your smile and teeth.

11. Smooth out your tendon

Inquire about ultrasound needle therapy. These procedure is minimally by using ultrasound to guide a needle. The needle smoothens the bone, breaks up calcifications, and fixes scar tissue. Thirteen out of twenty patients saw improvement, and the session takes only about 15 minutes of your time.

12. Buy your running shoes after work.

Shop in the evening, the feet are swollen after a day of work. It approximates how your feet will be after three miles of running.

13. Do off road running.

If the surface is unstable, it trains the ankles to be stable.

14. Know where you're going.

Whether its biking, or skiing, be sure to have a dry run down any path first. A lot of injuries can be avoided when you're familiar with the route taken.

15. Train hard.

Anxiety reduces your peripheral vision by three degrees and slows the reaction time by almost 120 milliseconds, according to an article of the Journal of Sports Sciences. When the going gets difficult, the veteran athlete rely on skills they've trained for and practiced. It keeps them cooler under pressure, widening their vision so they can see react much faster.

Aerobic Training

How to start your aerobic training program:


Consider first setting your goals for sometime in the future; make sure they are realistic. Start easy, be kind to yourself. Many of us start out joining a gym and telling ourselves that now we will train every day! Six out of ten people going to gyms drop out in the first month. That's a staggering 60% of the people. The numbers are just as high for those that buy exercise equipment and don't use it. So you need several ingredients, not necessarily in order of importance, but because you want to be successful in your training.

1. Desire or motivation that is from who you are, not to get something.

2. Energy: This means you need to start thinking about eating better. No matter where you are with nutrition you can always improve (see nutrition for details). You need nutrients as well. Vitamins, power foods, high technology nutrition is available; you just need to make the effort. Without good fuel it's hard to get the energy to train.

3. Set your goals within yourself and make them realistic. Remember, there is no cause and effect so you can't cause health; you can only live it.

4. Make the time, create a loose schedule with alternatives, if need be.

5. Stick to it. Remember, consistency is more important than intensity.

6. Understand the basics of bio-mechanics, even for walking (posture, the muscles, the stretching, the meditation and imagery) to get the most from your efforts.

7. If you are in a family or a relationship, you need support and encouragement, not grief for leaving them alone so often. Get them to start with you (that's really tough sometimes). It's always easier if your partner is doing a similar program with you.

8. If you smoke, start making an effort to cut down, if that's really what you want to do. If not, it will not make a huge difference so much as your attitude towards it will. Use coltsfoot, an herb you can buy in health food stores and smoke it. It will cleanse your lungs, and help you to get off tobacco. You will find the desire will slowly fade away as you get healthier. We don't need to harp about it. JUST DO IT! QUIT.

9. If you eat more than a plate at a sitting, just start eating less, and limit snacks to fruit.

10. Maybe it's some of the food you eat. Cut down on fats, sugar, liquor, canned food, and packaged food full of hidden fats and sugars. I'm sure you already know the stuff that doesn't really help your body.

11. Eat more of the good stuff: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole foods, grains, etc.

12. Drink more water, read more books, and have more fun in your life. Why not?

A Healthy Diet Plan

How do you plan to lose weight?


Losing weight, gaining weight or maintaining a healthy weight can be a difficult task. However, if you learn to eat healthy and exercise regularly, and you train your body to accept that - instead of a daily task, it can become a "way of life."

Here is a simple 5 step plan that can help you learn how to live a healthier life:

Get into a Healthy Eating Mindset:

If you are going to lose weight or gain weight you must believe that you can do it. If you are discouraged, you will not be able to do it. You must think, I CAN LOSE WEIGHT. I WILL LOSE WEIGHT. I WILL GET HEALTHY STARTING RIGHT NOW!

This may seem a little over the top - but it's not. You need to get yourself into a healthy mindset. You need to give yourself positive reinforcement and pump yourself up.

You may need some help to get into a healthy mindset. It is not a weakness to admit that you need help. In order to be a healthy person, you have to admit that sometimes you just can't do it by yourself. You may need the help of a trained professional (a doctor, a dietician, a personal trainer) or simply a support network of friendly people. If you have tried to do it on your own and have failed, then it is time to get the help that you need - start with your family physician.

Your support network can be composed of people that are available for you to talk to, they should be positive people and they should believe in YOU.

If you don't want to count on your friends and family - you may need to go out and pay for a diet plan - Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutriSystem are a few of the programs that also provide a support network of actual people you can talk to and find encouragement from.

Find Motivation, Set Goals, and Reward Yourself:

Motivation to lose weight or get healthier is going to be completely up to you! Whether you are just trying to lose a few pounds to go to your high school class reunion or you are trying to lose fifty pounds so that you can be a healthy person and play with your children... You need to find a motivation.

Once you have a motivation, set attainable goals. Set goals that you know you can achieve. In other words, don't try to lose five pounds in one week. One or two pounds per week is a small, attainable goal.

Also, plan to reward yourself when you've reached your goal. For instance, if your motivation is to shed ten pounds to go to your class reunion, then reward yourself with a new outfit to wear to the reunion. Or, if your motivation is to lose 50 pounds so that you will feel healthier, plan one fun day going to an amusement park when you've reached your goal weight.

Take little steps. Motivate yourself using rewards every step of the way. Set goals and rewards. For instance, "When I lose 5 lbs, I will reward myself with a new pair of shoes."

Set your own rewards based on what you really, really want. Follow through - don't just say you will reward yourself and then conveniently forget because there are more important things to buy or do - GO THROUGH WITH YOUR REWARD PLAN.

Plan to Eat Healthy Foods and Healthy Serving Sizes:

The US government has provided us with a healthy "food pyramid." This plan works! So don't be afraid to use it. It's simple, too. If you are an adult, each day you should have the following allotment:

Fats, Oils and Sweets - use sparingly. Milk, Yogurt, Cheese - 2 to 3 servings. Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Nuts, Eggs - 2 to 3 servings. Vegetables - 3 to 5 servings. Fruits - 2 to 3 servings.
Grains, Bread, Cereal, Rice, Pasta - 6 to 11 servings.

6 to 11 servings is a wide range. The amount of servings you need per day will be based on your daily activity and special needs:

A breast-feeding mother will need the highest amounts - 3 servings of milk and cheese, 3 servings of meat.

A middle aged woman who has a desk job will probably need the lower servings suggested - 6 servings of the grain/bread group, 2 servings of meat.

6 servings of grains may seem like a lot of food - but - you must be careful on the serving size. A pasta meal at a restaurant may equal 6 servings of pasta. Watching the amount of food is as important as the kinds of food. Serving sizes follow:

milk group - - 1 cup 2%, 1 cup yogurt, 1 1/2 oz of cheese meat group -- 2-3 oz. of meat, 1/2 cup cooked dry beans, vegetable group -- 1/2 cup of cooked or raw cut up, 1 cup raw leafy fruit group -- medium sized piece of fruit or 1/2 cup cut up, 3/4 cup of juice grain group -- a serving is 1/2 cup of cooked pasta or rice, 1 slice of bread, 1 oz.
dry cereal.

Do not assume that the serving sizes on packaged products are the same as the above. Use common sense. Be honest with yourself about serving sizes.

Here is a cool visual chart that makes for great printing. Print it out and tack it up on your refrigerator! Another great motivator is tacking up a picture of
yourself on the fridge - as you are now or as you would like to be.

Plan to Exercise:

You don't need to run a marathon every day in order to get exercise. There are little ways that you can get the exercise you need everyday. Here are some suggestions - choose at least one of these and do it everyday or at least once a week. I guarantee that after a couple months - if you don't get your exercise, you will MISS it!

Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park the farthest away spot from the store every time you go. Take a 30 minute walk everyday. (This is the one that I do - I love my walk, if I don't get my walk, I really feel at a loss - and I am definitely NOT an exercise fanatic, but I never miss my walking even on vacation - and I feel GREAT because of it.) Take an aerobics class or a dance class. (Do you have a partner? Take ballroom dancing! Not only will you get some exercise, you will also learn a useful, fun skill.) Get off the subway or bus stop one stop before where you normally get off and walk the rest of the way home. Decide to take up a sport like Tennis, Racquetball, or even join a Softball team. Check out your community athletic center or the YMCA for sports that you think you might like to participate in. Buy a work out video and commit to working out 20 minutes a day.
There are some awesome workout programs for free on the internet. Here's one at Drop a Dress Size in Six Weeks. (I like the free ones you can do at home, because if you're like me, you're a clutz and are embarrassed to be seen doing any of those exercises in public!)

The Right Tools:

Support Network -

In the first part of the plan, we discussed a support network. This network may be made up of health professionals or simply a group of family or friends that you can talk to. They are positive people that will help you over the rough spots.

Healthy Eating Guide -

You need to know the right balance of foods to eat. Use this cool food pyramid. This pyramid is taken from the US Government Recommended Daily Allowances. If you join any type of Diet plan, they all have their individual ways of keeping track of your calories or nutritional intake, however, they are all similar to the Food Pyramid.

Nutritional Counting Device -

Make your healthy diet fun! The NutriCounter can help you keep track of your daily eating habits, it's a wonderful way to get into a routine and stay healthy.

Working Out for Extreme Fitness

Many people think about building muscles as abandoning life outside the gym and devoting hours in the gym like a monk in a monastery. Perhaps the only way to chisel the body into a hot muscular physique is by toiling hour by hour over the rusty iron day in, day out and year in, year out.

This need not be so. Although hard work is truly required, extreme fitness demands one to be a slave of the iron weights. Full-body work outs can make one progress and it easily fits in one's schedule. This is very convenient if one is looking forward to achieving extreme fitness but finds it hard to hold on to a single work out routine.

Genuine full-body work outs done by athletes with an aim in mind makes for maximum muscle contraction using heavy weights, makes room for full recovery so one can actually grow and continue to train hard plus it also prevents burnout which is inevitable due to excess training.

So if one is ready for extreme fitness, here is all there is to know about full body work out:

Full-body work out is a time saver. The biggest plus about having the whole body trained all at once is probably having to go to the gym less frequently; perhaps around two to three times for every seven days would be enough.

Another advantage of working out the entire body all at once is that one need not spend two or more hours of strenuous exercise in the gym for every session; one only spends one hour in the gym for every session. So that's just three to four hours per week in the gym right? With full-body work outs, it is all about the quality of exercise one does for session and not the quantity, nor even the amount of time you allot per session.

Full-body work out boosts the cardiovascular system for extreme fitness. One must allot two to four sets for every body part into the one hour session. Jam packed with exercising, each one hour session then gets the heart and the rest of the cardiovasular system pumping and up to speed in a flash.

Now feeling pumped up, next find out what rules does one have to follow when engaging in full-body work outs:

Training commences only once every two to three days. This is so easy isn't it? What is great about this is that there is time spared during rest days so that one can indulge in a few cardio exercise sessions instead of depending on cardio execises one normally does at the end of each work out session which after all, are not at all very effective.

Heavy lifting is strongly advised. Contrary to popular belief, especially among athletes. It is not true that it is good to get trapped on training lightly than one actually could so as to conserve energy for the other body parts that will come later in the routine. What is true is that one cannot achieve optimal progress if one is not training heavy, no matter which program that person is doing.

One exercise only per muscle group. This is very easy to follow and is also important. Doing basic exercises which are also intense means you do not have to do another different exercise for that body part.

Keep work out short. Resistance training affects the natural homones of the body connected to muscle building. Intense exercising boosts the testosterone levels and long work outs increase those of catabolic cortisol. Sixty minutes of work out allows you to get the best of both worlds.

Now with this convenient and powerful work out regimen, one can now truly experience extreme fitness.

Fit for What?

Unless we’re talking about our bodies, and the amount of exercise they can do, we usually talk about being fit in relation to something. An object is ‘fit for use’, clothing is ‘fit to be worn at work’, and food is ‘fit to be eaten’. My parents used to have a running joke that they were fit – fit to drop! Everything else is fit 'for something'. So why do we insist on describing ourselves as ‘fit’ or ‘unfit’ without relating the concepts to anything else?

GENERAL PRINCIPLES
It’s a basic truth that the human body wasn’t made to sit still for any length of time. We spent tens of thousands of years evolving in an environment that required us to move – to find shelter, to catch food, and to keep ourselves safe from predators. We’ve only been living lifestyles that allow us to be sedentary for the lesser part of a hundred years – not nearly enough time for evolution to adapt our bodies to this new environment. We see this constantly reflected in modern rates of heart disease, atherosclerosis, chronic aches and pains, and muscular and bone deterioration in people who have become inactive as they age.

On top of this, activity has a very real effect on both stress and energy levels. Our bodies have a ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ way with energy – if we don't constantly use and then replace energy (with activity, followed by rest and good nutrition), we start noticing our energy levels gradually draining away. We feel tired, lethargic, and as though any amount of effort is just too much to be worth it. And if we’re also under stress – for example, at work, or in a difficult relationship – we feel the energy loss and the stress even more intensely.

These are general principles that seem to be true whoever we are. But different lifestyles require different amounts of energy, and exact different prices in terms of stress. We enjoy doing, and our bodies are suited for, different kinds of activity. It makes sense then, that the amount and type of activity that will help us reach our optimum fitness, will be different.

DIFFERENT STROKES
If that’s the case, then getting ‘fit’ without a frame of reference seems like a meaningless concept. Unless we know what we want to be ‘fit for’ – what fitness means to us – there’s no reason for us to get or stay that way. If my life is basically calm, quiet and easy-flowing, and I’m quite happy to keep it that way, my ‘optimum fitness’ is going to be very different to someone who’s discovered a deep fulfillment in setting themselves a goal and achieving it. Someone who’d just like to go for a walk with friends without getting puffed is going to have a different optimum fitness level to someone who wants to discover how it feels to finish a marathon.

On top of this, what people want often changes over time. Perhaps at one point in your life, you enjoyed spending a couple of hours a day exercising, but now you’re finding there are things you’d like to do far more with that time. Alternatively, when you first started creating your optimum life for yourself, it might have been enough for you to just keep your body healthy. As you tried new activities though, you might have discovered you were actually enjoying some of them for their own sake, and wanting to get fitter so you could do more of them. So at different times in your life, you’d have a different optimum fitness level.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE “FIT FOR”?
Which brings us back to our original question – can we talk about being fit, without knowing what exactly we’re ‘fit for’? The way we see it, your optimum fitness level depends completely on what you want to be able to do in your daily life, how you want to be feeling, how much energy you’d like to have and how exercise fits in with the rest of your life. So your first step in moving closer to optimum fitness needs to be to make that all-important decision “What do I want to be fit for?”

Burn 340 Calories a Day with Aerobic Exercise

Strengthen your heart and lungs and give your body a wonderful shape with Aerobics.

Aerobic Exercise ? Improve your fitness the right way.

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Aerobic exercise involves the manner of muscles drawing on oxygen in the blood as well as fats and glucose that increase cardiovascular endurance. Aerobics is done in order to improve fitness, burn calories, shape the body, strengthen physical well-being, and maintaining fitness. There are different types of Aerobics, apart from a Warm up, a Cardio part, and a Cool down. There is another lesson that consists of Floor work, and Stretching.

Your body is always burning some fat but if you want to lose weight, you need to increase your activity to the point where your body starts to let go of some of its fat reserves. That means sustaining some activity. It takes about 20 minutes of aerobic activity before the body starts to burn its fat deposit. And fat-burning has an added bonus: if you can get your body into its fat-burning range, your metabolism stays elevated even after you've stopped exercising ?for up to six hours!

Exercising aerobically means you are basically doing two things: helping your body take in more oxygen, which strengthens your heart and lungs, and over time allows you to achieve more physical work that you could not without aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise also creates a situation in the body due to which fat that is stored somewhat out of reach, are accessed and burned in greater number than they are when you are at rest.

Benefits of Aerobic Exercise

The real benefits of aerobic exercise are achieved by increasing your heart rate and breathing hard for an extended period of time. During this aerobic activity your body produces more energy and delivers more oxygen to your muscles. Your heart beats faster and increases the blood flow to your muscles and then back to your lungs.

Aerobic means "with oxygen" and your body's aerobic system is your heart, lungs, blood vessels and muscles. The benefit of aerobic exercise is based on how well your body can deliver oxygen to your muscles and use it for energy. Regular aerobic workouts increase your ability to take in and transport that oxygen and improves your aerobic capacity.

A good aerobic exercise program can help you live a longer, healthier life and enhance your well being. You get a multitude of benefits if you do your aerobic workout on a regular basis even if the intensity is low or short in duration. It's fun to keep a log of your workouts that track your progress to see how far you have come in your pursuit of fitness.

The bottom line is to start an aerobic workout that you enjoy and look forward to doing on a consistent basis. Aerobic activity is fun and it doesn't require a lot of concentration. So listen to music, watch TV or listen to educational tapes while you are performing your aerobic exercise program.

Aerobic workouts make you feel better about yourself so you can enjoy life more. It boosts your mood, strengthens your heart muscle, helps you maintain your weight and can even lower your blood sugar levels. It can help increase your stamina and help you manage stress. A session of aerobic activity can help you relax after a stressful day at work. It can even improve your sexual performance.

If you maintain a regular aerobic exercise program as you get older, your muscles will stay stronger and help you avoid fractures and falls. This will help keep you independent and on your own longer. People who engage in exercise and cardiovascular fitness appear to live longer than those who don't.

Aerobic activity comes in many forms and you can benefit from the time you spend in doing them. The benefits of aerobic exercise are good for your body and your mind and will help to make you live longer, stay healthier and feel great.

Are You Fit?

Fitness refers to ability of the body to function with vigor and alertness. Nutrition refers to the nurturing of our body, in our ability to keep it healthy and functioning as it is supposed to do. Our ability to provide the body with all the necessary food, vitamins, and minerals so that we continue to thrive in our daily life processes. But do we know if we are really fit? How do we tell?
First, you might want to look at your exercise habits, if there are any. If there aren’t any exercise routines to examine, no fitness. Everyone, no matter what their age, benefits from exercise. It keeps our bodies conditioned, our mental sharpness working at top speed, and thanks to the physical aspect, we get a boost to our cardio health, extra calorie burn, and more oxygen to those cells!
Do you take in more calories than your body needs? Are you supplementing your vitamins and minerals to make sure you are getting your recommended daily allowances? If you’re not making the most basic of efforts to take care of your nutritional needs, you aren’t a fit individual. You may not look sick, you may not have any noticeable symptoms of ill-health, but you’re not the fit and toned individual you could be.
What about the stress levels in your life? Do work in an environment with high levels of stress? Is your personal life a source of comfort or does it add to your stress levels? Do you engage in some form of stress-relieving activity? Stress is the number on contributor to heart attacks and strokes, since they manage to speed up the affect of the real culprits. Stress is basically an out of control situation for most adults today. We manage to schedule every moment of our free time, and leave ourselves with no time for quiet reflection, or time to deal with life’s unexpected emergencies.
Fitness requires us to examine more than just our exercise routine. The mere definition of fitness refers to the body’s ability to meet physical stresses. That includes coping with our day to day life, getting from the beginning of the day to the end, without being worn completely out. In order to be truly fit, we find ways to rid ourselves of built up stress, the kind that begins to affect our muscles, muscle tone, and composition. Massages are the best cure for ridding our bodies of the stress buildup that can occur, even with exercise regimens and detract from our overall fitness.
Exercises that demand total body involvement are the best for maintaining and improving your level of fitness most effectively. Running, swimming, jogging, dancing, cycling, and very brisk walking are some of the more popular total body involvement exercises.
There are so many occasions to stop and question our efforts at maintaining optimal health, that we usually don’t even take the time to begin the examination. But it is beneficial to our overall health, the quality and quantity of our life, to make every effort to be fit, healthy, individuals.