When you make health a lifestyle change, you’re doing more than just exercising and eating healthier. You’re focusing on all the things that help keep you healthy and fit. Whether you want to lose weight, build your strength and endurance or just tone your body, exercise is just the beginning on your road to fitness. Eating healthier is also mandatory, just as getting adequate sleep and learning to calm your mind. Don’t forget to increase your daily intake of water. That’s often a neglected area when people talk about good health.
You may need help knowing where to start.
Before you start any fitness program you need to check with your health care professional to insure you don’t have any condition that could be exacerbated with too much exercise. That will allow you to comfortably take on any stress from exercise without worrying it’s too much. If you need the help of an expert, our personal trainers will identify your level of fitness and create a program designed especially for it. If you have any physical problems or special needs, they’ll make adjustments to the form to accommodate them.
Losing weight may be as simple as learning to eat healthier.
Eating healthier doesn’t mean dieting. Diets always end and then you go back to old eating habits that made you gain weight in the first place. Diets are also restrictive and difficult to live with on a daily basis. Eating healthier simply means making wiser choices when it comes to food. It might mean learning to cook food differently or eliminating most processed foods and replacing it with whole foods. Some small changes, such as swapping out some of the avocado in guacamole for cooked zucchini may seem small but they save calories. Avocado is a healthy food, but it’s high in calories. You’ll get the benefit of the avocado, but have a lower calorie count with this swap.
Learn how to do each exercise correctly.
If you start your new year determined to lose weight and begin a routine of exercises that minute, you need to make sure you know how to do each exercise correctly or face the potential of injury. Sometimes inhaling when you should be exhaling or turning your wrist wrong can cause an injury that sets you back for months. Sometimes it just minimizes the benefits of exercising. Get help from a personal trainer to learn how to do each exercise correctly for a healthy start for your workout program.
Get plenty of sleep. Exercise will help you sleep sounder, but you need to make sure you’ve carved the time out for it. Somewhere along the line, getting fewer hours of sleep has become a badge of courage, when in reality it’s a health risk.
Make sure drinking extra water every day is on your list of musts for a healthy life. If you’re exercising more, you’ll need to replace the water lost in sweat. Water helps flush your system, keeping you healthier and making your skin look fabulous.
Take care of stress. The hormones created by stress can kill you unless you burn them off with exercise. However, learning to cope with stress helps. Learn to meditate or get a massage to help you eliminate the stresses of the day.
Make whole foods a primary way of eating. Whole foods are the least processed foods and contain the most nutrients. Eating an apple is far better than eating a dish of applesauce.