Read 135 times since Wednesday, July 28, 2010
If you're looking to raise your fitness levels and keep them there, there are various tactics and processes that you can do, with these 7 being some of the most prominent - and easiest - to implement.
1. Eat a balanced diet - arguably the most important part of any fitness regime, eating a balanced diet is a lot easier than you may think.
Generally speaking, you need to be having three main meals a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner - and accompanying them with two or three snacks. Each meal should include at least two different food groups, whilst at least one meal should consist of protein, carbohydrates, vegetables and a small amount of fats.
And don't forget your fruit and vegetables - five a day, with one portion being roughly a handful of any fruit or vegetable.
2. Drink 8 glasses of water a day - recommended by the Department of Health, you should drink two litres of water - the equivalent to around 8 half pint glasses - a day. The benefits are too substantial to list, but range from flushing out of your body all of the bad toxins to making your hair and skin look a lot healthier.
3. Walk for 30 minutes each day - speak to anybody involved in the fitness industry what the best form of exercise for the general public is and it would be surprising if the majority didn't say walking.
By walking 30 minutes each day - something which isn't unachievable, especially if you split it into two sections of 15 minutes - you'll be working out a whole host of muscles in your body, as well as losing weight if you walk briskly.
4. Do cardiovascular exercises 3 times a week - your heart is what keeps you alive, so it's important that you keep it ticking for as long as you can.
By eating a balanced diet and walking, you'll be on your way to doing this already, but consider including some cardiovascular exercises in your fitness routine to give your heart a workout.
Generally speaking, if you get out of breath and sweat, you'll be doing an exercise that could be classed as cardiovascular (common examples are cycling and running).
5. Lower your alcohol intake - unless you're on a particularly strict diet, there's no need to complete remove alcohol from your diet. Instead, just lower it to the recommended daily allowance or less, which is three to four units for men and two to three for women a day, according to the Department of Health.
6. Get a good night's sleep - when you were a child, you were told you needed eight hours sleep, right?
Well, whilst we generally need less sleep the older we get, this doesn't mean that eight hours isn't a good benchmark to go by.
Your body needs time to rest and recuperate, especially if you're putting it through a gruelling exercise regime, so try and get as much sleep as you can on a regular basis.
7. Don't forget breakfast - the first meal of the day, breakfast isn't known as the most important meal of the day for any reason.
It its most basic form, your body goes into survival mode if it doesn't receive any food after several hours, meaning it starts to store any food you give it.
Therefore, after you've been asleep, if you don't eat until lunch time, your body will think it is going to have to go another twelve hours before it eats again, so it will store what it gets, rather than burning it off.
It doesn't have to be much, but try and have some toast or even a piece of fruit after you wake up - you might not be hungry, but your body will be. For more information about fitness, visit the Fitness First website at http://www.fitnessfirst.co.uk.
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