Complete Fitness and Nutrition for Optimal Health

A comprehensive approach to healthy living includes strength training, maintaining a healthy weight, cardiovascular exercise, proper nutrition, and increasing your flexibility.

Strength training

Lifting weights burns calories, tones and builds muscles, and increases your lean muscle mass, which raises your metabolism at rest. It is also an important building block for injury free exercise.

Maintaining a healthy weight

Being severely underweight or overweight can cause a variety of health problems. The easiest way to determine if you are the right weight is to calculate your body mass index. There are numerous body mass index calculators online.

• If you are under 16.5, you are severely underweight.
• 18.5 to 25 is normal and the recommended range for health.
• 25-30 is overweight.
• Over 30 is obese, and can be unhealthy.

Of course, this is rather general, and doesn’t take into consideration how much of your weight is muscle or fat, your age, and any underlying health conditions you may have. It may be advisable for you to discuss your specific weight target with your doctor.

Cardiovascular exercise

Cardio workouts strengthen your heart, lower your blood pressure, burn calories and fat, and strengthen and tone your body. Studies have also shown that cardio exercise boosts mood, lowers stress, and increases energy.

Proper nutrition

Eat a diet rich in the nutrients your body needs on a daily basis. Specifically, you should:

• Eat a varied diet. Making sure you eat different things helps you to get the diverse array of vitamins and minerals you need to function at optimum levels.
• Eat fresh vegetables and fruits. Along with being rich in essential minerals and vitamins, fruits and vegetables are high in fiber for proper digestion, and have loads of antioxidants, which help protect against cell deterioration and cancer. Along with other elements of a healthy diet, they boost your immune system and protect you from many diseases.
• Eat whole grain foods, nuts, seeds, healthy oils like olive oil, low fat dairy, lean meats, and cold-water fish. These foods are rich in healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, and protein, all of which provide sustained energy, and protect you from developing a range of conditions associated with a poor diet.
• Don’t drink too much alcohol and drink more water to cleanse your body.
• Avoid processed foods and fast foods, which tend to be high in sodium, sugar, chemical additives, saturated fat, and trans fat. All of these unhealthy ingredients have been linked to various illnesses from cancer to diabetes.

Increasing your flexibility

Flexibility is an important indicator of joint and muscle health. Increasing your flexibility helps to tone muscles, relax joints, and prevent injuries. Doing stretches after exercise or taking yoga classes are great ways to improve your flexibility.

Other tips

• Sleep more. Not getting enough sleep causes an imbalance in your hormone levels and hinders efficient carbohydrate metabolizing. Studies have linked lack of sleep to weight gain. Also, cell repair and growth is heightened during sleep. Try for eight hours a night.
• Meditate or just relax for 20 minutes every day. This helps you to handle stress more efficiently, and reduces your blood pressure.
• Floss daily. Your mouth is more closely related to your overall health than you may know. Flossing properly helps to prevent gum disease, which can cause inflammations in the body and may even trigger heart problems or stroke.