To succeed in your weight-loss efforts, you need to attack from all angles: nutrition, exercise, and sleep. Here's how.
1. Don't skip meals
If you skip meals, your body goes into starvation mode, and your metabolism slows right down to preserve what body fat you have. That's the last thing you want. You need a fast metabolism to burn fat, and this requires you to eat regularly to keep your metabolic rate fired up.
2. Eat more vegetables
If you eat around 3-5 portions of veg a day, this will have a double effect. You will be getting plenty of fibre, vitamins and minerals. But also you'll feel full sooner, on healthy food, so you won't have room or time or temptation to indulge in fatty and unhealthy foods. Vary the veg you consume, and vary the colours (red peppers, yellow peppers, broccoli etc)
3. Drink plenty of water
A good rule of thumb is 2 litres a day, but vary this according to your size and weight, your activity levels, the weather etc. So on a hot day playing outdoor sports, you need to be drinking more water than if you're less active and it's a cold winter's day.
4. Eat wholesome natural foods
Avoid junk food, processed food, takeaways, ready meals, fizzy drinks, biscuits and cakes. Eat natural whole foods and cook for yourself from scratch. This will ensure you're eating 'clean'.
5. Eat 3 fruit a day
Three portions of fruit a day is ideal, no more and no less. A portion is a fist-size. Too much fruit is bad for your blood sugar levels, so stick to 3 portions a day, and vary the fruit you eat.
6. Do plenty of cardio exercise
The ideal amount of cardio exercise is 20-30 minutes, three times a week. Cardio exercise includes running, swimming, cycling, rowing, cross-trainer. This form of exercise works your heart and lungs, and builds your cardiovascular fitness.
7. Include resistance exercise in your regime
Cardio exercise alone is not enough. You need to do some resistance exercise too, ideally 40-60 minutes, three times a week. This includes dumbbell exercises, and resistance machines, and also bodyweight exercises like pushups. Resistance exercise builds muscle, which is vital if you're to burn fat long term. The fat burning effect of resistance exercise is far superior to cardio exercise, because the muscle growth from resistance exercise, boosts your metabolism 24 hours a day, so you burn more fat. Cardio exercise only has a fat-burning effect for the duration of the exercise.
8. Measure your progress
Weigh yourself once a week, ideally at the same time each week for consistency, such as Sunday evening before bed. Chart your progress and aim to lose between 1-2 lbs per week. Also measure your hips and waist and chart your progress over time.
9. Play a sport
If you include a sport in your schedule, this will add fun and variety into your exercise programme. It can count towards your cardio sessions if you play hard. The social element will have a positive reinforcing effect towards your weight loss efforts.
10. Get plenty of sleep
7-8 hous sleep a night is what you should aim for. During sleep, your body repairs itself, and muscle growth occurs. Lack of good quality sleep will thwart your weight loss efforts, and also have a negative hormonal effect which will further inhibit the fat-burning process.
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