The Connection Between Diet and Exercise: Your Guide
Less than a quarter of Americans meet the lowest requirements for exercising their bodies enough each week, according to the CDC. Of course, both diet and exercise are important for anyone when they plan to engage in a healthy lifestyle. The reasons behind this are not always clear, so are you up-to-date on why?
You should read on to learn why having both a proper diet and involving yourself in physical activity can improve your life. In reading, you should have an understanding of what good nutrition and physical exercise can do to help your weight and fitness. It is time to read on and improve your life.
What is a Good Diet?
A proper diet is one that gives you all the nutrients your body demands based on its needs. There is no point in, for example, giving yourself a lot of energy if you are not going to burn it all off. Similarly, a body that does not need to repair itself needs far less protein.
Instead, good nutrition should aim to balance what you take in with what you use up. This will fuel your goals for the day and allow you to avoid cravings as you move forward through your daily tasks.
Besides eating the right things, a good diet also includes a sensible meal schedule. If you eat right before exercise, for example, you could end up feeling ill during the process. This can set your attempts to be healthier back as you recover.
Also, you should take a look at the drugs you are taking. This includes non-medical drugs. Caffeine and alcohol, for example, can have a huge impact on your energy or your ability to gain or lose weight.
What Is Good Exercise?
You would be hard-pressed to find someone who would suggest that exercise is not beneficial to your health. It is an important part of your life that helps your body continue to empower itself.
It also has some long-term benefits. For example, lower blood pressure, reduced anxiety, and increased stamina capabilities.
There is also some evidence to suggest that exercising more increases the amount of beneficial sleep that you get. While younger people may need more to get the same benefits, everyone will get something out of the smallest amount of exercise.
Good exercise does not need to be an organized effort using specialist equipment. Swimming, biking, or even mowing the lawn can all contribute to your body's training regimen. So long as the activity increases your heart rate, it will confer its benefits.
It is good to get a mix of different kinds of exercise, though. Try to both train your muscles for strength, as well as stamina. This combination gives you more of an all-around higher level of fitness instead of focusing only on aerobic or strength training.
In a similar vein, over the week you should try to reduce the amount of time that you spend sitting. The longer that you sit during any particular day, the more likely it is that you will have metabolic issues. While this is not active exercise per se, standing or moving around more can help you have a healthier body in general.
Which Is Most Important?
It is understandable that you might want to focus on only the most important of these aspects of healthy living. Alas, it does not work like that, and it's impossible to separate one from the other.
By increasing the amount of exercise you do each week, you will have to account for this increased activity by adjusting your diet. Also, if you change your diet, you should look at how you exercise and think about what you can maintain.
If you are unsure how to adjust both, or are very limited in the changes you can make in your life, there are things that can help. For example, specific easy-to-make meal plans often help people who have a limited amount of time.
On top of this, there are certain obvious things you can do to affect your diet based on how you exercise and what your aims are. For example:
High Protein. If you want to focus on muscle gain, you will need a lot of protein to repair the body as it recovers after intense training. This means specific high-protein goods that your body can process without difficulty.
Nutrients. If you are using a lot of energy, you want plenty of carbohydrates and fiber to help your body. Complex carbs, such as many vegetables, will allow your body to use energy at a sensible rate instead of burning sugars.
How Both Keep Weight Off
Neither dieting alone nor exercising alone will contribute as much to weight loss as focusing on both. In fact, only exercising can trick your brain and body into eating more food than you need, leading to weight gain.
Eating less food can help to prevent you from putting on the extra energy in fat. Although, by exercising more you can burn a significant amount more energy. This will then eat into your fat reserves and help your body get used to losing its energy stores.
Instead, you should work with an expert to plan both the perfect weight-loss diet as well as an exercise regimen. Options are available for you to even match the kind of diet you have with the type of exercise you plan to do. No matter if you are aiming for cardio or strength, you can become a better you.
Diet and Exercise Looking Forward
These are only some of the reasons why having a good diet and exercise can contribute to a healthy lifestyle. Although, there is always more to learn. We can help you learn how your diet and exercise can pivot to help you get the perfect "you".
Throw us your phone number, and one of our specialists will call you back to discuss your meal plan options. What are you waiting for? Get in contact today.