Beginners Fitness Advice
You decided it’s time to give healthy living a try, and maybe a go or hopefully a stay :).
The first and the most important thing to begin with, is to consult your doctor ( I hope it doesn’t sound like a cliche) making sure you don’t have any physical conditions which might prevent you from exercising. If you have injuries, or weaknesses in your body it’s important to know what they are.
If you have poor eating habits, such as eating a lot of fried foods, candy, soda – processed foods, this would be the time to cut down. You don’t want to completely cut it off, but slowly and gradually. If you just stop eating all your favorite foods all at once, it will make you feel depressed and wanting to give up. Junk food is like a drug, you have to gradually decrease the intake, you will get withdrawals from sugar and chemicals you were so use to consuming. This is normal, since your body will be going through nutritional changes.
Begin by adding a serving of fresh fruit and raw veggies to all of your meals the first few week without changing your diet, this will signal your brain for a healthy change. Slowly you will begin to notice the difference of how your body responds to healthy foods. This process is not going to happen overnight, but with time.
What I personally noticed with junk food, when you don’t have it for a while, you begin to loose the taste for it. Processed food only has 3 flavors – they are fat, sugar, and salt. If you are only used to eating those 3 flavors somehow you begin to believe it taste good.
You should also start drinking a gallon or more of clean filtered water a day, try an herbal cleanse to help your body detoxify faster. The change in your nutrition is very important step to a healthy life, it will give you the energy to exercise, help your cells to deal with the outside stress and overall quality of life.
Another important step to consider is setting your goals. In your mind, you need to create a place for your goals. This is the place that will motivate you when you are feeling down. Set a time frame for which you will be accomplishing your mini goals, as well as your bigger goals. Knowing your time frame will give you the extra push to keep going.
Focus on gaining strength vs just loosing weight. Too many people obsess to much about the scale, and not enough on their strength or over all health. If you pay too much attention to the scale, you will only get frustrated, because it might not show you what you want to see. And scales never do, it’s just a number – a small picture. The big picture is what’s important, and that’s your strength and over all well being. Gain the strength – everything else will follow.
When you first begin a fitness routine, it is recommended to start out slow and then build up your progress. The first week or two, begin with at least 10 minutes of warm-up followed by 30 minutes of brisk walking, or if you have an access to the gym, you can also do elliptical machine, or a bicycle for about 30 minutes a day, preferably at least 5 times a week. Five times a week is not as much as you think, since you are only going to do light exercise.
Always follow by stretching for another 20 minutes. Stretching will help your joints to become more flexible, which will prepare you for further exercise regimen.
Before beginning a regular exercise regimen, it is critical you learn the proper form for each exercise you are going to do. This step is overlooked by so many people, and that’s one of the biggest components of fitness. Learning the proper form, will get you the results you want, and place a much greater challenge as well.
Don’t exercise to just get it done and over with, place a careful attention how you exercise. If you don’t consider the proper form, you will place your self at great risk of injury. I look at working out as a form of art, it should be fluid and fun with a result of great health, mind and body as one.
Stay active during the days you don’t exercise, go for a hike, go dancing ( preferably not the dancing that involves drinking alcohol ), go swimming, do things that enjoy but stay active.
All of the above will give you a head start if you are a complete beginner to a healthy and fit life style. If you would like to add something or have any questions feel free to leave me a comment. I will happily answer any questions you might have.
Now Jump Start Your Fitness!!!
Tatianna
PS – This post is also coming a bit later than I planned, please bare with me. Normally I like to update every day, but I’ve been having a bit of technical difficulties. And yes I know I look funny on that picture 🙂
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