The principles of a Healthy Lifestyle are the Basics of Fitness
The principles of a healthy lifestyle lie in the basis of fitness. A proper nutrition, body care and personal hygiene, the regime of the day, giving up smoking and alcohol, positive attitude to the world and the manifestation of activity in everything - this is fitness in the broadest sense of this word. Maintaining a good shape requires a good sleep, balanced nutrition and physical workouts. Life in the style of fitness is impossible without a positive outlook. Without it, it is very difficult to give up lying on a sofa and other destructive habits (BistroMD).
Why Fitness is Important?
The aspiration to be engaged in fitness often remains on the level of a desire. What should you do to make a desire materialized? It is necessary to realize and pass through yourself the reasons for the fitness activities.
Improvement of the Quality of Life
While training the body, we train not only muscles, but also the whole organism. This makes it possible to increase its resistance to diseases and stress, obtain additional energy for work and development. With the help of fitness you can model your body and improve your life (MHHE).
Improvement of the Overall Tone and Mood
Produced in the process of training hormones contribute to the removal of a psychological fatigue accumulated during the day and raise the mood (MHHE).
Body Shaping
Fitness activities will help to remove extra weight and to give a relief to your body. They help not only to make yourself better, but also to maintain the achieved results (MHHE).
Self-Perfection
Fitness activities do not end with the improvement of your own body. It is a whole philosophy that allows finding your place in a society and fulfilling your potential (MHHE).
The Fight against Aging
Working on yourself and training of your body makes it possible to keep the internal resources of the organism, to prevent age-related problems and diseases, as well as to improve your health for many years (MHHE).
Why Being Healthy is Important?
Human’s health during the life has a very high importance. It plays a major role, starting from our mood and psychological state and ending with the physical condition.
A good state of health brings only joy into the life of a person and gives an ability to do what he wants and what is interesting for him. Nowadays, it is necessary to try to be outdoors as much as and to give preference to the motor activity, but the best thing is to combine one with the other (Mark’s Daily Apple, 2016).
How to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle?
In order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, it is necessary to follow five principles:
Active Motion
• Start doing the morning exercises. The usual morning exercise charges with energy, kneads and stretches the muscles after sleeping, preparing them for the daily load, propels the blood which makes it possible to saturate all the organs and tissues of the body with oxygen. It is important to make exercising bring you joy (Schuna, 2014).
• Devote a part of the day to trainings. These are workouts in the gym, home power or cardio trainings, yoga, gymnastics, etc. Let it be a major part of your activities during the day - you need to extract the maximum benefit from this time. Do not forget that under the extreme stress it is necessary to give your muscles a rest for one or two days. However, everything depends on your organism (Schuna, 2014).
• During the day, avoid inactive and simple ways to do something if you can make it “active”. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. If you use the public transport, get off at the stop earlier and walk a part of your way. Go for a walk during the lunchtime or in the evening. If you have a sedentary job, then stand up from time to time and walk (Schuna, 2014).
• Spend your leisure time actively. Find an active hobby, go in for sports. Go rollerblading, running, swimming. Suggest your friends and family to spend time actively - playing football, badminton, table tennis. During the winter - skiing and skating. Do not sit at home in front of your computer or TV when there are so many opportunities to move (Schuna, 2014).
Proper Nutrition
Theoretically, proper nutrition is quite an easy task. It is widely known, which products are uniquely useful for the organism and which food is not recommended. The problem is that very often we do not have enough willpower to force ourselves to change the usual unhealthy eating habits to the healthy ones. Everything that is associated with a healthy diet can be easily summarized in one simple rule: you can eat an organic food. That means everything that grows on the ground or moves on it. For example, fruits, vegetables, berries, nuts, meat, fish, seafood, dairy products, eggs (Schuna, 2014).
On the contrary, it is necessary to minimize the consumption of artificial products, as well as natural products containing artificial chemical additives. These are semi-finished products, carbonated beverages, all kinds of chemical curds and yogurts, synthetic juices, sausages, fast food, flour products, sweets, etc. (Schuna, 2014).
Cleaning and Strengthening the Body
• The most important and obvious is avoiding harmful habits. Everyone knows about the danger of alcohol and smoking. If you want to maintain a healthy lifestyle, you just have to stop smoking and reduce alcohol consumption to a minimum, for example, only during the holidays (Schuna, 2014).
• Tempering will bring a lot of benefits to your health. Many people associate it with pouring cold water and walking barefoot in the snow. However, it is not necessary to rush to such an extreme. Besides, it will be harmful for the untrained body. Just start your morning with taking a contrast shower (Schuna, 2014).
The Development of Healthy Thinking and Willpower
Healthy thinking and willpower is such an attitude to the surrounding reality which does not harm the health and eliminates the appearance of destructive emotions and states, such as resentment, anger, self-pity, stress and so on (Schuna, 2014).
Obtaining New Knowledge about the Health
In order to find any answers to your questions, as well as to draw up action plans and choose what will be useful, you need a good theoretical basis. Of course, health sciences are unable to explain many processes and phenomena, but there are thousands books and materials which can help you to learn about your body and understand how it works (Schuna, 2014).
The Importance of Proper Nutrition during Fitness
Nutrition of sportsmen is different from the nutrition of ordinary people. Energy costs of sportsmen are much higher, so they need more protein for the constant load on the muscles, more water for the delivery of nutrients to the tissues and filling of the permanent losses of fluid during the fitness activities. The regime of nutrition directly depends on the workout schedule. Nutrition and fitness are connected much more than it seems at a first glance. It does not matter how hard a person trains, if he does not eat properly, he will not achieve the desired result. An unhealthy diet can cause damage not only to the effectiveness of trainings, but also to the health of a person, so it is necessary to understand that proper nutrition and sport are the parts of a single system which is called a healthy lifestyle (Fitness Health 101, 2016).
How to Start Fitness?
Check your Health
Do you have any chronic diseases or contraindications to any type of physical activity? Perhaps, you have recently had a surgery or had been ill with flu. If it seems that everything is good, but you are not sure, do not be lazy and consult with the doctor (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2014).
Choose Comfortable Time
Think about your daily schedule, analyze your own day. Do not waste your life in vain. Devote your time to really useful and interesting occupations, one of which, of course, is fitness (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2014).
At home or in Fitness Club?
Are you a sociable and cheerful person? You are not tired with the presence of other people around, joint activities cheer you up and everything becomes funnier if it is done together? Then you have a straight road to the fitness club. There you will get a lot of positive emotions and energy boost after a hard working day. In addition, in the fitness club you can always consult a qualified coach, which is especially important for the newcomers.
If you are a calm and balanced person and you feel more comfortable in silence and alone or with very close people, then it is better to start your path to the perfection with home exercises (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2014).
How Often Should You Train?
The optimal frequency of trainings depends on your level of preparation, as well as the content and the intensity of workouts. It is better to start with 2-3 times a week. The main thing is to train regularly, this is an obligatory condition (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2014).
When Will You See the Results?
The result is always the sum of different factors. Unfortunately, many people forget about it. The result depends on your physical condition, age, body, lifestyle, the correctness of the chosen workouts and of course on your desire (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2014).
Where to Look for Workouts?
Many people prefer to exercise at the fitness club which has special equipment, and in groups, where the instructor makes a training methodology based on the physical characteristics and age. Fitness in the clubs (or groups) allows achieving the desired result faster. However, such workouts require payments which are not small (Bodybuilding, 2006).
You may easily make workouts at home or outdoors. Although it is harder to adjust yourself on the training mode at home, as a bonus there is a possibility to perform the exercises with your favorite music. In addition, this is a great opportunity for those who experience embarrassment in front of other people (Bodybuilding, 2006).
It does not matter where you prefer to make workouts. It is important to have a positive mood and no discomfort, as well as to have a great desire to change yourself, which ultimately means to change your life.
References
Bodybuilding. “Which Is More Beneficial: Training At Home Or Training In The Gym?” Bodybuilding. August 2006. Web. 2 July 2016
Mayo Clinic Staff. “Fitness program: 5 steps to get started”. Mayoclinic. February 2014. Web. 2 July 2016
Fitness Health 101. “Total Health, Fitness, and Well-Being”. Fitnesshealth101. N.d. Web. 2 July 2016
Schuna, C. “Importance of Being Healthy”. Livestrong. January 2014. Web. 2 July 2016
BistroMD. “The Relationship between Health and Wellness”. Bistromd. N.d. Web. 2 July 2016
MHHE. “Health, Wellness, Fitness, and Healthy Lifestyles: An Introduction”. Mhhe. N.d. Web. 2 July 2016
Mark’s Daily Apple. “Top 10 Reasons to Stay Healthy”. Marksdailyapple. February 2016. Web. 2 July 2016
