Well thought-out diet and exercise programs are effective in improving and maintaining health. The many measureable benefits that are affected relate directly to your appearance as well as your health. These changes are the result of the specificity of your program, as well as your individual genetic make-up. However, for you to keep these exercise and diet-induced changes, your program needs to be adhered to and maintained as lifestyle modifications.
Goal Setting
An important component of your weight loss diet and exercise plan is goal setting. You should aim to identify specific end-goals that you would like to see. These goals should be broken down into smaller short-term goals that are achievable while still being moderately challenging. This strategy will enable you to work progressively toward the big picture without overwhelming you, while keeping you focused and adherent.
Nutrition
The nutritional component of your dietary plan should include a well-balanced program that offers supplementation from all three food nutrient groups: fat, proteins, and carbohydrates. These nutrients should be consumed in proportion to your health status and weight loss program. In general, the Mayo Clinic recommends that carbohydrates be 45 to 65 percent of your diet, with 10 percent to 35 percent from proteins and 20 percent to 35 percent from fat. These guidelines provide a strong foundation for you to customize a weight loss-specific diet that affords you a sufficient amount of energy to prepare, perform, and recover from exercise, in addition to completing your activities of daily living.
Exercise
The exercise guidelines set forth by the American College of Sports Medicine are effective at inducing both healthy weight loss and weight management. Its recommendations of three to five days of cardiovascular exercise for 30 to 40 minutes each session, and two days of whole body strength training are a great blueprint for your own program.
Your program should include a combination of several exercise types. For example, the weight training component of your program should include eight to 10 different exercises that involve all muscles of your body for two to three sets each. This type of program should allow you to positively stress your muscles, resulting in adaptive changes.
Variety
The success of your program is highly dependent on its maintainability and variability. For healthy long- term changes to be made, you need to be able to adhere to your program on a regular basis for an extended period while also being able to vary the program design. Your body adapts to repetitive stimuli over time, and is why you can't continue to do the same thing for the entire duration of your program. Your body is best suited to benefit from exercise and diet if it is changed on a two to four week basis. This will provide a consistent stimulus while not allowing plateaus.
Expected Results
An effective program design is one where you can expect to see both aesthetic and health-related changes. Aesthetically, you should expect to see a reduction in weight, improved body composition, increased muscle strength/endurance, and aerobic capacity. As for health effects, you should expect to decrease your risk for cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, heart attack, and obesity. However, the journals "Circulation," "Obesity," and "Kinesiology" report that although these benefits have been elicited by healthy exercise and diet, person-specific genetics must be taken into consideration, and these results can't be expected in every instance.
References
- American College of Sports Medicine
- Mayo Clinic
- "Obesity"; Exercise, Abdominal Obesity, Skeletal Muscle, and Metabolic Risk: Evidence for a Dose Response; C.A. Slentz et al.; 2009
- "Circulation"; Treatment of Hypertension in the Prevention and Management of Ischemic Heart Disease; C. Rosendorff et al.; May 2007
- "Kinesiology"; How Effective is Exercise in Producing Fat Loss?; K.T. Borer.; 2008
