Everyone knows that there is a need to get fit to stay healthy at any age but starting and maintaining a fitness program can be a daunting prospect for many. There is no rush to plunge into any drastic plan, though, and you can instead ease yourself into a fitness mindset by simply starting with some adjustments in your daily eating, sleeping and activity patterns.
Healthy eating does not include the extremes of starving if you want to lose weight or bingeing on food if you want to gain muscle mass. Both strategies are ineffective since starvation will just slow down your fat burning metabolism while bingeing will add on fat instead of muscles. Whether you want to lose excess fat or gain more muscles you need to feed your body with enough lean complete protein, high fiber complex carbohydrates and healthy fats while eliminating unhealthy fats and simple carbohydrates. Your protein intake can consist of fish, lean meat, skinless poultry, egg whites and low fat dairy while your complex carbohydrates intake can consist of whole grains, vegetables and fruits. Make sure to drink half ounce of water for every pound of your weight each day.
To be fit you also need a full eight hours of sleep every night because this is when your body performs its muscle repair and muscle building functions. Your energy levels are restored to enable you to meet the physical challenges of the next day. It has been scientifically proven that lack of sleep invariably leads to an accumulation of excess fat. This is because sleep regulates the production of the hormone leptin which signals your fullness and satiety and the hormone ghrelin which signals your hunger pangs. Hormonal imbalance makes you feel hungry all the time, with cravings for sweets and starchy food, while not feeling satiated no matter how much you eat.
Finally, you can ease into exercise without fear by first increasing your level of activity and movement every day. Upon waking up, do a series of movements that allow your joints to go through their normal range of motion. This is just an extension of your natural stretching in the morning. Throughout the day, consciously choose to be more active whenever an opportunity arises, like taking the stairs, taking a long walk and standing up more often than sitting. As your body gets used to the new level of activity you can slowly introduce simple strength training exercises that use your own body weight as resistance, like wall push ups.
Getting into the fitness mindset can be painless if you gently ease into it through adjustments in your natural eating, sleeping and activity patterns, something that anyone can take on with confidence.
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