Healthy Living Through Exercise and Diet

The Key Ingredients to Healthy Living: Exercise and Diet

The buzzword these days is "healthy living." Yea, I know, we've all heard this term banded about like it's the solution to world hunger or a cure to cancer. Healthy living is not a solution to anything. However, it's a life style choice that can make a difference in your own life.

What is healthy living? Healthy living involves the combination of proper exercise and diet to give your body everyone it needs to maintain proper balance. The key here is moderation. You don’t' want to do things in excess, things which may cause your body harm. These "things" are the usual suspects such as excessive drinking, staying up too late, smoking, improper diet, and of course, lack of proper exercise.

It follows that you should avoid the activities usually warned against by doctors. Everyone knows that drinking and smoking can kill you. Nothing new there. The thing I want to address today, in this first post, is the importance of proper diet an exercise.

There are a huge number of potential life-threatening diseases you can get from obesity. With a good 75% of Americans falling into the "obese" range, this is something you really have to worry about these days. You don't want to find yourself getting fat, especially as you grow old. Excess weight puts a lot of stress on your heart, your limbs and joins suffer, and you can develop medical complications such as diabetes and heart cancer.

How to combat obesity? The major tools at your disposal are exercise and proper nutrition. Your body burns a certain amount of calories each and every day. Think of it like a balance. Now, what you need to do is to burn enough calories so that your body is in a calorie deficit each day. In other words, your body does not have enough required calories at the end of the day so it starts to tap into fat reserves of the body. This causes you to lose weight. You should aim for about a 500 calorie deficit each day (500 calories is about a 30 minute run on a treadmill). There are two ways to achieve a calorie deficit: exercise and diet. You will need to do both.

You should make a point to exercise at least 30 minutes every day. When you exercise, you should be doing some time of activity that accelerates your heart rate. Now, walking is a very popular enterprise these days, but walking does not burn the calories efficiently, not unless you start walking very fast. Most people walk at a sedate pace which will not be that effective. Granted, if you only sit around on the couch, walking of any sort is good, but for maxim weight loss benefit, make sure you try doing a strenuous activity.

What sort of activities am I talking about? Running, biking, kickboxing, baseball, and soccer are all some of the activities that really burn the calories.

You should also be going to the gym and lifting weights. The more weights you life, the stronger your muscles become. This is good for many daily tasks just as lifting and moving things. If you follow a proper weightlifting routine, you can also increase your muscle mass. More muscles means more calories burnt. So, taking up some sort of physical activity and going to the gym will help you burn calories. Diet loss is another way to ensure your body stays in shape through healthy nutrition. I'll discuss more weight lifting in further posts as it merits attention.

The other important thing you need to do to maintain healthy living and keep off that weight is to have proper nutrition. That means holding off on those Big Macs and Double whoppers folks. Yes, who would have thought this? Proper diet pretty much comes down to this: eat between 4-6 meals of bad tasting food each day. The worse the food tastes, the better it is for you. Yes, as I am factiously saying, it's going to be a sacrifice for you to change your diet to something healthy. Each meal should consist of some protein, some complex carbohydrates, and some vegetables. For the protein, you can choose one of the following: 1 chicken breast, 1 can of tuna, 1 lean steak, cup of extra lean ground beef, 1 fish filet, or a protein shake. For complex carbs, you can choose one of the following: cup of brown rice, cup of brown pasta, 1 yam, 1 sweet potato, or cup of whole grain natural oatmeal. For the salads, you can choose your own.

Yes, it's a huge sacrifice, but in the end the results are worth it. This type of diet delivers the PROPER nutrients your body needs. There are no excess saturated fats there, just lean proteins and healthy carbs. Eating between 4-6 times each day, with smaller meals, as opposed to 3 large meals, also helps your body digest and process the food better -- something that helps you lose weight. So, combine this diet with proper exercise and the gym and you WILL lose weight, fast. You will also tone up your body and generally look healthier. The exercise and proper diet will give you more energy and you will even feel happier (researchers show that exercise is just as effective as Prozac for depression!).

So, healthy living is not always easy. There is no clear "easy" pill you can achieve to achieve proper healthy. But if you are willing to put the legwork in (literally), you can keep your body in trim shape and feel and be much healthier. The healthier you are, the more better your body will feel and the better you will look. Besides having a fit body, your skin will also look better. Many people want to know how to get rid of acne. The answer? Healthy diet!