Small Steps To A Healthier Lifestyle
Not everyone is ready to change their lifestyle all at once. Some don’t feel fit enough to actually start a full exercise program, while others find it intimidating change to healthy eating habits and working out regularly all at once. You can take small steps to a healthier lifestyle, much like dipping your foot in the lake before you dive into it. Every healthy change you make improves your health and they all add up to a healthier lifestyle. In fact, sometimes, making small changes until they become a habit is the easiest and best way to start a healthier lifestyle.
Get more exercise.
You don’t have to start a full fledged exercise program to start seeing changes. Just vow to move more. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park further from the store. Every hour get up and move five-minutes. Take a ten-minute walk three times a day. You can start with a short walk and increase your speed as you progress, measuring your distance at the five-minute mark, then turning around and going home. Either opt for longer walks or more distance in a short time. Take a break three times a day and do a few exercises. Vary the exercises to work different muscles.
Chew your food more.
Just chewing your food longer could actually help you lose weight, while also improving your digestion. Why? The answer is simple. It takes a while for your stomach to contact the brain to tell it you’re full. When you eat slower, your brain gets the message before you’ve eaten too much, so you stop sooner. Your mouth is also an important part of the digestive process, so more takes place in your mouth, giving the rest of your digestive system a bit of a break. A new process, called mindful eating, where you focus on each bite, it’s flavor and the texture, has proven to help weight loss. Is it the focus on food that does it, or the fact it takes you longer to eat?
Cut out products with added sugar.
Cutting out products with added sugar may seem like a small step, but it’s really, really hard and one of the best steps you can take to improve your health. Read labels before you buy and simply avoid those with added sugar. There are as many as 56 different names for sugar, such as fructose corn syrup, dextrose, maltose or sucrose, and they’re in most processed food. If you find you want something sweet, switch to fresh fruit or unsweetened applesauce.
- Drink more water. Dehydration can be a problem for many people, so cut your weight in half and drink at least one ounce of water for pound. Drinking water before a meal will help you eat less, too.
- Try intermittent fasting. You can do it by reducing your eating time to eight hours, fasting the other 16. Start eating later, say 10 am. and eat your last meal or snack at 6 pm. Studies show it can help weight loss.
- Take a quiet time for yourself to get mental relaxation. Taking a break from the world for five to ten minutes, while you meditate, relax, do deep breathing or just clear your mind, can help reduce stress.
- Add more vegetables to your plate each meal and make one day a week meatless. Having a meatless Monday, or other day, can save you money, improve digestion and improve the absorption of nutrients.
For more information, contact us today at 180 Fitness
Our certified nutritionist at 180 Fitness in Gloucester, ON, gets a lot of questions when she recommends eating healthy fat. She also gets questions on the difference between saturated and unsaturated fat and whether eating any fat is healthy. The answer to the second question is easy, some fats are not only healthy, but necessary to keep your body running at peak performance and good health. Identifying which fats are good for you and which ones aren’t is important.
If you want to eat healthier, don’t forget to include healthy snacks in your diet. Giving up snacks can actually cause you to gain weight. Planned healthy snacks can help you feel more energetic, so you’ll burn more calories. They can help keep you from being ravenous at your next meal, so you’ll eat less. They also can aid in preventing you from grabbing that last donut in the office lounge or a candy bar at the gas station, which offer just empty calories.
One of the most often mentioned goals of clients at 180 Fitness in Gloucester, ON, is to lose belly fat and have great looking abs. Belly fat is the most unhealthy type of fat. It’s called visceral fat and the most dangerous type of fat. It crowds organs and increases the risk for several types of serious diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers Just working out is a start, attempting to lose weight in a specific area doesn’t work. So what can you do to get that flat stomach without the belly fat covering your toned abs?
You’ve probably read how grains are the enemy of weight loss plans, but take heart, there are some that are low in carbs. While some people on low carb diets may give up all grains, there are some, when eaten in moderation, that are good for you. These grains are higher in fiber. Fiber slows the absorption of carbs in your body, which results in fewer carbs being absorbed. Refined grains, which have been highly processed have not only many of the nutrients processed out, but also much of the fiber. White flour, white rice and the products made with those are examples.
Do you find yourself too busy at work to exercise? Is your job taking over your entire life? Balancing work and health care is one of the most important priorities you should have. There’s an important relationship between body, spirit and mind. Work stress can take a toll on your health and without exercising, can cause changes that actually make you sick. Studies show that work performance declines when you aren’t doing the important things to help you be healthier.
While there are some health conditions that are exacerbated by consuming too much protein, a diet without protein can have health risks for most people. You need protein in your diet. It’s an essential macronutrient that is necessary for building bones, muscle, and skin. It’s necessary for the body to create hormones and enzymes and make repairs to tissue. Too little protein can cause a lowered immune response, loss of muscle tissue, reduced bone density, damaged nails and hair loss and even a propensity to overeat, since protein is filling.
At 180° Fitness in Gloucester, ON, we help you lose weight and become your fittest by aiding you to achieve a healthy lifestyle. We don’t believe in all the calorie counting, strict diets and other severe restrictions, but guide you toward eating healthy and choosing a wide variety of food. It’s a sustainable eating pattern that allows you to eat anywhere, whether at home, at a party or in public, and never feel deprived. Every day we get questions about specific types of diets, such as diet with no carbs. Are these types of diets successful? Are they healthy? Are they sustainable?
You may have heard about MCT— medium-chain triglycerides— and how this type of oil is the best fat for weight loss, but didn’t know why the sudden interest. Many believe it came from the more recent interest in coconut oil, a good source of this type of fat. However, only about 50% of the fat in coconut oil is MCT. Scientists discovered that medium-chain triglycerides are metabolized differently from long chain triglycerides—LCT, which are more likely to be stored as fat, rather than used immediately for energy.