Yesterday, I requested you to set your goals after taking your blood pressure, weight and BMI. Now, we may proceed on to take next steps for staying fit physically and mentally.
Fitness Is Not Just About Weight Loss
Whenever we talk about fitness, we talk about our overweight and want to lose weight. It is not just about weight loss. By understanding where you stand on the factors of your blood pressure, weight and BMI, you can work to improve your overall wellness and increase your lifespan as well as the quality of life that you are currently living.
If you don’t think that you need to lose weight, that’s great! You are one step closer to being healthy. But, that’s not to say that you don’t have health problems beyond that level. Many people are still at risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol as well as other concerns even though they aren’t technically overweight. Therefore, you need to take into consideration the fact that overall health is in fact important to improve.
For keeping yourself physically and mentally fit, you need to work on improving your body fitness, your diet, mind and lifestyle. Each of these aspects is quite important. While your body must be maintained as much as possible for health, it doesn’t do much good if you don’t eat the right foods. Losing weight, for example, isn’t enough if you aren’t
eating the right foods even if you are losing weight. With your mind fitness, I mean making sure you are emotionally and mentally fit. That means insuring that your overall life is healthy in regards to the life that you lead. Emotional stability is critical to overall health. With lifestyle fitness, the goal is to improve your stress level. It has been shown that those that are under a lot of stress are often the most at risk for health problems due to the stress.
If you think threadbare throughout each of these aspects, you can improve your life through easy, and even fun, ways. Because each plays a role in your overall health, your health care taker will tell you what the healthy standard is, he will help you to understand where you are and then help you to get to the goals that you have. You need to pursue him in your own interest. You need to make him your friend, not just for the guidance in emergency due to some illness but also as a part of your social network.
Since your body is likely to be your largest factor impacting your life, you should consider seriously that each aspect is just as important as the next.
Body Fitness And Its Effect On Your Life
You must always remember that your body works like a machine. You need to take due care to ensure that your machine is appropriately working. This means physically. Your body is a well designed machine, actually. Each part of your body functions well because of the support that other parts play.
Your heart pumps oxygen rich blood to each cell in your body, delivering fuel so that it can perform its duty. Your lungs supply your heart with that necessary oxygen. Your brain keeps everything working, even those things that you don’t think about doing like your heart beating and your lungs breathing.
Your job is to give your body what it needs to continue to perform correctly. What some people don’t realize is why their body has developed as it has. Well back in the time of the cave man, the body had to do what it needed to so that you could stay alive. It would store food in fat so that when there wasn’t enough food available, these fat reserves could be used.
Your muscles are necessary for functioning but they have been built to be used, not to sit ideally. Your body is used to providing your muscles with the fuel that they need to work hard. If you don’t work hard, your body can’t maintain a healthy muscle mass.
Who is Healthy?
To know what level of fitness your body is in, you need to take into consideration the vast number of measurements that I’ve already mentioned. Your weight, your blood pressure and your body mass index are good indications of your overall health. Yet, it goes further than this, too. You should understand how well your body is working, too.
Do you have any physical limitations? If you physically can’t lift things for fear of hurting your back, this could be a potential problem that needs to be considered. If you have problems with your legs, your neck, your arms or anything else, you should address these specific concerns. The best place to start is to work with your doctor to determine why you aren’t physically fit in those areas. That way, you can improve your overall health and then improve upon your situation by knowing how to.
Where Are You?
It’s important for you to know where you stand in terms of your health indicators. That means taking the aforesaid measurements; you should weekly weigh yourself, the same day at the same time each week. Keep a log of this information so that you can see your progress.
Talking to your doctor is a great place to start when it comes to determining your overall health. You shouldn’t skip this step. If you are overweight, chances are good that your heart has been affected by it. You may not physically be able to exercise to a certain level. Your doctor must tell you what correct level is and what is too much. If you aren’t having any physical limitations, pains or weight problems, that’s a great sign. Now, look at your body in other manners to determine what you can improve on. Even an overall fit person can often improve their body’s fitness through improving their body’s makeup.
Understanding where you are is difficult for many at first. It’s a hard realization. But, it’s not the permanent solution, its going to improve, one step at a time.
How Can You Improve?
Improving your body means improving your body’s ability to move and function. It is not easy thing to do at first, but it will get easier. You can undertake some exercise. Exercise is something that people hate, but remember your body is built to be used, not to sit in a chair at a desk all day. It is estimated that most people don’t get the exercise that they need and that leads to all types of health problems. Again, even if you aren’t overweight, chances are good that you aren’t getting enough exercise and fitness into your life anyway. Using your muscles and strengthening them are vital to improving health and fitness, as well as boosting your energy.
Aerobic Training
Movement is important for your body. Exercise is the best route to take to gain that health. Aerobic training is the best way to improve your overall exercise tolerance and therefore to improve your muscles. Aerobic training helps to increase your heart’s ability to pump and therefore to get oxygen throughout your body faster. In this type of training, your body will work to improve its function by improving how much work your heart can do.
To find out if you have any limitations, talk to your doctor. If not, then start with a basic program. Here are some tips for you to get in aerobic training.
- Start with basic aerobics and work up as your tolerance increases. Walking is a great place to start.
- Increase your resistance by taking trails that offer hills or speeding up your walk as you improve.
- Move on to more aerobic style exercises. Swimming, bike riding, playing your favorite sport, running, elliptical machines, and other physical activities are perfect for aerobics.
Your goal is to start with 10 minutes of continuous aerobics three times a week. You should try to increase this to 30 minutes three times per week, though, as soon as your body allows for it. The guidelines of your doctor are a must to follow!
Strength Training
Along with aerobic training, you also need to consider adding strength training to your workout. Now, you don’t have to be a body builder here. You don’t have to have bulging muscles. But, you do want to develop lean muscles that are strong and therefore healthy.
If you need to lose some weight, strength training is a very essential aspect of making sure that happens. With strength training, you will be able to move flabby muscles and fat into lean muscles, allowing you to lose body fat faster.
Strength training is essential because it allows you to improve the way that your body works, too. Muscles that are strong are less likely to become injured. They are able to be used easier, with less likelihood of being strained or hurt through your daily exercises, movements or even in accidents.
Here are some tips for exercising through strength training.
- Work with a low amount of weight first. Never increase the weight you are doing unless you are permitted to do so by your doctor.
- Consider working with a physical trainer. This small investment of time and money will allow you to improve your overall muscle mass faster, and more effectively.
- Change up the exercises that you do so that the process is easy and fun. You’ll enjoy it and you’ll see improvement in the tone of your body quickly.
With strength training, you should add in ten minutes per day three times per week at least. Again, you’ll want to increase this number over time to at least 30 minutes per day three times per week. Remember to include ten minutes before and after your workouts for warm up and cool downs!
Your Overall Body Fitness Plan
To improve the physical fitness of your body, you need to give it the physical movement that it needs. This means feeding it the right regimen of movements. Start by working in exercise through aerobics and strength training into your day. Visit your local recreational center or community center. You can even start doing these things at home, too, which will make the process easier and even more enjoyable.
To make it even better, consider these easy and fun ways to get in the exercise that you need.
- Do it with a pattern. You are 80 percent more likely to be successful if you don’t try to do it alone! Recruit someone to work with you!
- After dinner, head out for a walk with your spouse for a few minutes. If you can’t leave the kids, take them with you. This is a great way to get in some quality time away from the television.
- If you can’t leave the television, use a stationary bike. During your favorite show, ride the bike. You get the exercise you need without missing your television program and time will fly by.
- Do sports and other physical activities that you enjoy. Swimming, playing a game with the kids and even joining a sports team is a great way to get in exercise without it feeling like exercise.
Your overall body fitness means exercise and movement. When you begin to add these into your day, you’ll probably find every excuse not to do them. Yet, you will come to enjoy exercising. For many it’s a great stress relief and it can be a lot of fun. Make it your goal to actually put together a workout that you enjoy. It will make all of the difference in how effective it is for you.
A few lines in my next post regarding diet for staying physically and mentally fit……………..
Be Happy – Keep Yourself Physically and Mentally Fit.
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