So You've Joined A Gym - Now It's Time To Look At Your Diet

No matter if you've joined a gym in Manchester or one in Cornwall, the fact you've signed up means one thing - you want to get fit and healthy.

Whilst exercising regularly is a massively important part of becoming fit and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, your diet plays just as big of a role.

The problem is that when you join a gym in Manchester or anywhere else in the country, although the people there will be able to tell you everything you'd want to know about which exercises to do to help you lose weight in certain areas or build muscle in others, they will very rarely provide in-depth information on what you should be eating.

Therefore, it's left to the person who's trying to lose weight to sort out their diet - but without the right information, you can cause your self more harm the good, especially if you eat the wrong foods at the wrong time before going to the gym.

So now it's time to give you a brief introduction into what a healthy diet should consist of.

1. To start with, you need to remember that you should never skip breakfast. Not everyone is hungry first thing on a morning, but if you can manage a slice of wholegrain toast or a piece of fruit, you'll give your metabolism the start it needs,

2. Generally speaking, if it's dark, it's going to be good for you. For example, look at pasta, rice and even chocolate - the lighter variations may be tasty and the more common options, but wholegrain pasta and rice and dark chocolate are a lot better for you.

3. Whether it means you have to think about it a lot of not, you should always eat five portions of fruit or vegetables each day.

If you think it's going to be stressful figuring out what a portion of everything is, it really isn't difficult and whatever fruit or vegetable you have, a handful of it is approximately one portion.

There's two things to remember here - potatoes aren't counted as a vegetable in this instance, as they are more often used as a carbohydrate replacement rather than an actual vegetable and you need to be eating at least three different variations; five bananas isn't as good as a portion of peas, a portion of sweet corn, two apples and a bowl of strawberries.

4. Get into a habit of taking the stairs - OK, so this doesn't necessarily mean the extent of your exercise outside of the gym should be to take the stairs rather than the lift, but it's a good place to start.

Exercising in the gym is a great way to lose weight, but you need to maintain this outside of your regular workout. Take the stairs instead of the lift, park your car in a car park further away from your work or get off the bus a stop or two earlier than you normally would. It won't make that much difference in terms of time, but it will positively affect your health and fitness regime tremendously.

For more information about joining a gym in Manchester, visit the Fitness First website at http://www.fitnessfirst.co.uk/gyms-in-manchester.aspx.