Living a healthy lifestyle is difficult for most people, including myself. For half of my life I have tried to adhere to a basic healthy lifestyle guide by not eating fast food, limiting soda and eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. I thought this was good enough but then I watched my weight increase. Of course the first thing I blamed was my age; many individuals I talked to told me that as one ages the slower the metabolism gets therefore weight is retained. Hearing this was discouraging and reconciling with this belief was difficult for me to accept. So I resolved it was time to hire a personal trainer and find out what I could do to slow down the weight increase.
The first notion my personal trainer exposed was age does not decide weight gain and altering your lifestyle will help maintain a healthy weight. We then started exploring the certain aspects of how people gain weight and the three main factors needed to be changed to meet a healthy lifestyle guide: nutrition, cardiovascular activity and resistance training.
The first sessions with my fitness coach we spent a lot of time reviewing my nutrition and observed I was lacking balance. I tended to eat lots of fruit, not enough vegetables and overdose on carbs. My coach introduced me to the 50-30-20 diet; each meal will be made up of 50% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 20% fat. He then told me to eat 5 meals a day with each meal following the the 50/30/20 guideline and finally rationing my calorie consumption to 1750-2000 which averaged out to be about 350-400 calories per meal.
I published my meals following the 50,30,20 guidelines on my website easyportions.com.
After completing the nutrition plan we turned our attention to exercise. Analyzing my current workout regime highlighted my workouts were not intense enough and the time I spent exercising were not an efficient use of my time. The new goals for each workout session focused on burning fat through cardio intensity and building muscles.
The design of my new cardio workout sessions focused on pushing past my Target Heart Rate (THR) via interval training. Interval training means exercising at high intensity for 1 minute followed by 2 minutes lower intensity and repeating the rounds four times for a total of 20-25 minutes. One of my favorite cardio workouts is running up and down a steep hill – the steeper the better; the routine begins with a five minute warm-up usually walking down the hill. The intervals are running up the hill for one minute, walk down the hill for two minutes then turn around and run back up the hill for 1 minute; this routine I did 4 times and end the workout with a five minute cool down period. The benefit of including hills in the cardiovascular program is if running up the hill is too daunting walking up a hill still increases the heart rate.
The final portion of my new healthy lifestyle guide focused on increasing my muscle mass. My personal trainer and I started with largest muscle groups which are the legs, back and chest; building up muscles lets the body to burn fat during resting periods. Resistance training started with lunges, squats, push ups and rows using basic body weight then increasing the load as I became stronger.
Pulling all the components of training together, my weekly scheduled is:
* Monday – Cardio
* Tuesday – Resistance
* Wednesday – Cardio
* Thursday – Resistance
* Friday – Cardio
* Saturday – Cardio and Resistance
* Sunday – Rest
Following the steps highlighted by my coach and sticking to my healthy lifestyle guide I have felt healthier than I have in years. I hope sharing my ideas can give you the boost you need to begin your journey.
To learn more about me and for more information visit my website.