To become fitter and healthier takes a real commitment from you and everyone you live with. Your diet and activity levels both need to change to enhance your body. You may want to become thinner and leaner, but dieting alone won’t achieve anything in the long term. Instead, you need to combine healthier choices in your diet, with more activity. That activity could be anything from a walk to doing the housework more often, but it is important not to sit around. Rest periods should be active still, but not high intensity.
Walking, Yoga and swimming are very gentle ways to be active but with low intensity. You can use them for relaxing as well as resting. This is particularly true when you are looking to build muscle. The best way to build muscle is to rest adequately between intense workouts. This rest period need not be sedentary and shouldn’t be either. Housework, ironing, playing a musical instrument or gentle stretches all count towards a rest period, but keep your metabolism up in the active scale.
Using and moving our bodies keeps them supple, improves their strength and stamina, and burns off calories we have eaten. It helps us slim down. It also helps keep our minds active and promotes good digestion. Sitting is great for eating and essential for working, but during other times, keeping active helps our bodies working correctly. Circulation can be improved, and your energy levels should increase too. Most importantly, when you do come to a complete rest in your bed at night, you should sleep soundly.
Building muscle is important if we want to look leaner and better toned. Muscle helps to keep our skeleton protected and supported. It also provides us with the strength we need to complete daily tasks, whatever our ages. Muscle weighs more than fat, so you may increase in weight, but it goes a long way to improving our metabolism and helps us burn excess fat. The expression ‘meat on your bones’ refers to muscle not fat. If someone thought you were too thin, it would be better to bulk up with muscle. This requires a diet rich in protein.
Diet goes a long way to helping our bodies build stronger bones, muscles, and cells. We need to fuel our bodies adequately for it to regenerate, and for it to allow us to sleep well enough for that process to happen. Low-calorie diets are not great when it comes to building muscle, losing weight and looking good. Instead, find a balance, where you get a little bit of everything in your diet. Check out the food groups you need to cover, and then eat enough of everything to sustain your activity.
Eating well and exercising well are just two pieces of the puzzles. You must also sleep well for the body to heal and grow stronger. It is also essential to your mental health and emotional well-being. If you have over done the exercise, the body may be in too much pain for you to get to sleep. Only do what you can on the day that you do it, and always be safe.