It's the little things that you do each day that add up to being healthy and fit. While we do what we can to be as health-conscious as we can, it is always a work in progress since there are many elements to a healthy lifestyle.
Kick Your Bad Habits
You might just be able to cut back on. Habits in the "quit" category would be smoking, drugs, unsafe sex and other unhealthy addictions. There's just no way to do any of these in a "healthy" way. It might take some time, but it's worth it if you want to lead a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, there are some habits that are not so bad, but can easily become a problem if taken too far. These include alcohol, sugar, caffeine and junk food. These things in moderation or on a "once-in-a-while" basis are doable, as long as the majority of your choices are mindful and healthful.
The most common thing said is, “I am going to go for a jog every morning, so I will lose weight”.
To improve Health we must focus on basic health related components of the fitness.
Focus on basic components of Fitness
· Cardiovascular Endurance or cardiovascular fitness
It is the major component of fitness. The word Cardio means heart. It is also known as cardio respiratory fitness and aerobic fitness. It refers to the capacity of heart, lungs and the vascular system to supply oxygenated blood to the working muscles tissue and the muscle capacity to use that oxygen which helps in producing the movements. If we involve ourselves in cardiovascular fitness regularly, the heart becomes stronger and efficient to supply oxygenated blood to the body. Cardiovascular exercise should be done for prolong period of time. These include jogging, running, cycling, swimming, skipping, aerobics and lots of exercise.
· Muscular Strength
Muscular strength refers to the ability or a capacity of lifting a weight. This activity is fall under anaerobic zone because in this workout oxygen is not used .To improve muscular strength we need to do weight training.
· Muscular Endurance
Muscular endurance refers to the performance of the repetitive contraction for extended or prolonged period of time. The exercise may be for the single muscle or the group of muscles. Activity which is more than fifteen seconds but less than two minutes includes in the muscular endurance training. Weight training helps to improve muscular endurance.
· Flexibility
Flexibility refers to a range of joint motions. Stretching can help improve flexibility. Dynamic stretches are done before we start our exercises. Static stretches are done after the workout during the cool down phase. During, static stretching we need to hold each stretch minimum fifteen seconds to get maximum benefits.
· Body Composition
Body composition refers to the ratio between fat mass and fats free mass in the body More the muscle and less body fat is consider a great body composition. More fats and fewer muscles indicate poor body composition. Greater body composition can be achieved with following the above basic components of fitness such as muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance and flexibility with the support of balance nutrition.
In as short if you are only jogging or brisk walking does not help. You have to look at the entire exercise components to achieve the necessary fitness and health goals. You can do alternates days of weight training and cardiovascular exercise. Following the above routine is one of the best examples of targeting all the components of the fitness.
Author
Dr. Joseph Stalin Michael.