Diet and Fitness Are Lifestyle Choices

Diet and fitness, it is hard to address one subject without addressing the other. We are what we eat, that is the premise I always start from when I consider my diet. Our diet is the food and drink we partake of each and every day of our lives. It is not some trendy weight loss program, nor is it some strict dietary rules we apply for a few weeks, but it our very relationship with food. If you approach it from this perspective then you may make better choices in what will be in your diet. If you want to have a good diet you need to make and apply some discipline to your life choices. Of course this is true of all choices in life. If we want to be well educated we have to go school, we have to read, we have to listen to the news, and we have to choose to educate ourselves. It is the same with diet you have to decide what kind of diet are you going to have in your lifetime. It is a conscious choice. Fitness is the flip side of this choice. You have to decide to get some exercise in your life. There is opportunity everyday to make choices to get exercise. I like to exercise at home as opposed to going out to a gym. This is a personal preference, but in some ways it is a choice in that I don't have to find time to go to the gym. However there are many opportunities for exercise in everyday routine functions of life. Here again it comes down to making choices to make exercise a part of your lifestyle.

Diet

Making lifestyle choices is a discipline, but I don't think it is as restricting as people fear. If you have a goal, if you want to feel a certain way, if you want to be a healthy weight for your body type then you need to make the choices in each moment that help you to achieve these goals. Keeping the vision of what you want firmly planted in your mind will help you to make the necessary choices. If you consistently eat well and do not over eat your body will find its natural best weight. It has to be consistent, and not here and there and up and down, now and then, but consistent. This is the key. Once you decide to eat a good diet then it becomes not a choice you need to keep making as much as a choice you have made. This is important, if your diet is up for debate you will constantly have to revisit this decision. When you choose from the menu or what to buy at the grocery you base them on your choice. Until you are in sync with making these choices easily you may need to remind yourself what you want to look like and how you want to feel. If you choose to overeat or to eat unhealthily then you have stepped away from looking and feeling good. There are so many great healthy foods and great dishes with good fats and good fiber and wonderful flavor that there is really no need to make bad choices. There are plenty of restaurants that have some healthy choices, steer away from making choices that do not. On occasion most of us eat things that would not be a good daily choice, but here again occasionally is the key word. Food should not rule you; you are in control here, not food. If you tend to overeat it is for the same reason, food has become out of balance in your life. You can have plenty of calories each day and not be hungry at all and still maintain a healthy weight. There is always going to be another meal, we don't have to eat everything at one meal. It's not like you won't have a chance to eat something that you couldn't eat at this meal at another meal. If you think about it most of us eat at least three meals a day and so we lots of chances to eat and enjoy different foods. We have at least three chances a day to make a choice that will progress us towards our goals and maintain a healthy diet. That's good news, if we do make a mistake during one meal or snack we have a chance just a few hours later to correct ourselves and make a good choice. You don't have to eat no fat, you don't have to eliminate all carbs and you don't have to never eat sweets or live on salad to be at a healthy weight. You do have to, not overeat, eat good fats and not too much fat, you do need to choose whole grain, whole foods that are full of fiber, great flavor and nutrition. Consistently eating a balanced diet and not overeating will stabilize your weight at a weight that is easily maintained. Eat until you are satisfied and not full. There is a difference and that difference is the difference between being slender and being overweight. Eat slowly, enjoy the process of eating and never just scarf down your food unaware, this is when most overeating takes place.

Cooking at Home

Choosing a lifestyle with a healthy diet probably involves cooking at home. You may be able to maintain a fairly healthy diet eating out, but it will definitely be more challenging and much more expensive than cooking at home. Cooking at home needn't be difficult or fancy to be healthy. Although learning to make some favorite dishes at home in a healthy way certainly helps to maintain making those good choices. You do not have to give up your favorite dishes or the things that will become your greatest temptation if you don't have them. Here again it's about making a choice. If you want to do well in school you have to study, if you want to eat well you need to learn to cook. There are a ton of websites, books and other resources for healthy recipes. You can make large batches of soups or other dishes that make good leftovers and have good meals for the week without a huge outlay of time. I look at buying and cooking healthy food as an investment in my health and my families.

Fitness

Obviously if you want to look and feel good then you need to use your body. Our bodies are meant to move. I don't believe you have to work yourself into a drenched sweat for an hour a day to have a healthy body. In fact I think that it is this very thinking, which is the downfall that keeps many from having a good relationship with fitness. People have this concept of what it takes to be fit and anything less they think is unacceptable. It's all or nothing and for many unfortunately, it ends up being nothing. Staying active is important and if done consistently even a little exercise goes along way when combined with a consistent good diet. I like to do yoga and I try to do it at least 3-4 times a week. I don't always do that, but I do try to get some exercise everyday. As I said before there are lots of opportunities everyday to get some exercise. Instead of looking for the closest parking space, park out a ways and walk, in the time you save looking for a parking place you will have walked and gotten some exercise. Walk fast and don't saunter, purposely make it more work. Take the stairs and run the stairs instead of walking if it doesn't kill your knees! If you can't run then walk. Take your dog for a walk, vacuum your house, go out and do some yard work, stay active. Housework and gardening are both actually really good exercise with the added benefit that your house and yard will stay in order along with your weight.

Finding Time for Exercise Everyday

We humans are smart we can look at our lives and then choices that make it work better for us. I have steps in my house and I take just a minute or two, literally, to run up and down the steps each day and it helps keep my legs in shape and it increases my metabolism. Do a few exercises that work out different areas of your body and do each of them for even 2-3 minutes each day and you will in time see a difference in how you look and feel. You can even do them more than once a day, whenever you have a couple minutes. Before you shower in the morning is a perfect time to do a few hip circles, marching in place, pelvic rocks, pushups or whatever else works for you. Later in the day, during your lunch hour or during a break take a couple of minutes and run through these moves again. Pick things that you can do in any room without any props other than maybe using the wall for pushups. A mini workout will pick up your metabolism much like a longer harder workout. In fact several little sessions a day will affect your metabolism in a more positive way than one long workout. If you workout once a day for an hour your metabolism returns to its sedentary level within a few minutes of ending our workout. If you do small bursts of exercise throughout the day your metabolism is actually burning at a higher rate longer. There is evidence that a long, hard workout a few times a week is less effective than exercising shorter times, more often and consistently. I have read several articles in Prevention magazine and other sources that would support this idea. Mostly, however, I reference it from my own experience. Making fitness a part of my everyday lifestyle works. Your body stays toned without the stress that a hard workout can put on your muscles and joints. Even doing a burst of exercise can be enough to cause a little soreness at first, but it will not be enough to keep you from being able to exercise the way a too strenuous workout can.

Decisions and Conclusions

I don't want to be toned, I want to be honed. You are reading this and saying, this isn't going to work, I need to go the gym and work out hard or I need to start running every day and stay with it. The truth is if that isn't going to really happen, then you are better off to make choices that you can do. You can always add to your workouts, you can always do a cleansing diet for a few days if you are so inclined, making realistic lifestyle choices does not restrict you from doing more. What it does is provide a consistent foundation from which to accomplish your goals. You have nothing to lose by approaching diet and fitness with a realistic approach except pounds. The frustration you feel when you fail to keep unrealistic goals undermines any chance to achieve your real goal of being fit and healthy. Choose instead to make diet and fitness choices that you can consistently keep. Your body will thank you.

Note: The ideas promoted here are based on the assumption that you are not struggling with a thyroid condition or other hormonal problems that can cause fluctuations in your weight. Other health problems such as diabetes can also affect your ability to control your weight. Maintaining a healthy and consistent diet and fit lifestyle is still a benefit, but other medical intervention may be needed to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

Reference:

www.prevention.com