Summer, summer, summertime! It's finally here - time to shed the layers, hit the water, and soak up some Vitamin D. But wait, is your beach bod ready to be shown off? Or does it look more like you just stepped out of your cave, fresh from hibernation? If the latter sounds more like you, fret not. It's never too late to trim up, but where do you start? A fad diet?
No way. Diet pills? Only if you want a heart condition. No, the best way is the one that everyone knows and hates: improve your eating habits and get more exercise. Simple, right? Yes, but not easy, hence why so few do it.
That said, knowing how to approach these things and what changes to make to your lifestyle to get the most out of it can help tremendously by maximizing and expediting results, which means more motivation to stay the course. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in trying, read on.
As it happens, I'm a bit of a fitness nerd, so I thought for this issue, I'd try to encapsulate a good, general framework that can help you get to a healthier, happier, sexier you.
DIET
Speaking of sexy, it's hard to beat chocolate cake, a greasy smashburger, or a freshly fried chimichanga. Naturally, too many of these turn us into beasts careening toward an early demise, so save the treats for one [cheat] meal per week and opt for balance as a rule. What level of balance?
To get lean, the name of the game is calorie deficit, which is burning more than you ingest. To find your baseline, start somewhere between 1,300 to 2,000 (depending on your body type) and take photos to document your changes. When you reach the degree of lean you want, increase daily calories by 250 for a week.
The next week, raise daily calories another 250. Do this until you stabilize your body composition. Your daily calorie intake at that time is your baseline for maintenance. The biggest helper to keep track of all of this? The MyFitnessPal app. It's free and yet priceless.
Enter your goals, then plug whatever you eat into the app, and it tracks the nutrition for you. This lets you monitor your calories and macros in real time and fashion your meals to fit your needs.
The term macros, if you're unfamiliar, simply refers to dietary fat, protein, and carbs. A good, general balance is 30%, 30%, and 40%, respectively.
EXERCISE
This is the other half of it, and yes, it's unavoidable if you want to get and stay healthy. Fortunately, this doesn't need to be as formal as you might think. The more fun you can make it, the more likely you are to stick with it.
Weight training is superb for building muscle, toning, and particularly for improving bone density, but hiking, cycling, swimming, and kayaking are also fantastic options.
Just make sure that you hit every muscle group (i.e., core, chest, back, arms, legs) at least once per week, and a minimum of 30 minutes per session. Do this with regularity - at least 3 to 4 days per week - and you're golden.
There you go. I know this is ultra-basic, but that's the intent. As you'd expect, there's a deep rabbit hole that we could go down with this stuff, but hopefully, this nutshell provides a solid blueprint to get you started. If you guys want to see this explored in more detail in future entries, shoot us an email at info@azul615.com.
Comentarios