To lead the healthiest life you can, you must take into consideration your nutrition and physical fitness. Choosing the right foods and the right proportion of foods can influence your dietary health. Likewise, choosing the right kind of exercise program and performing it regularly can influence your personal fitness.
General Nutrition
According to the dietary guidelines put forth by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, general nutrition should include caloric restriction. Eating too many more calories than your body needs can lead to weight gain. Part of nutrition is controlling intake. Good nutrition also includes limiting fat, cholesterol, sodium and refined sugars. Instead, your diet should consist of whole foods, lean sources of dairy and protein and fiber.
Macronutrients
The food that provides your body with the energy, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and lipids that it needs are referred to as macronutrients. These consist of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. To eat nutritiously, you should dictate a certain amount of daily calories to each of these food groups. Carbohydrates should make up most of your calories, providing 45 to 65 percent of total calories. Fat should come next, consisting of 20 to 35 percent of your calories, but only 7 to 10 percent of those should be from saturated fats. Protein should be about 10 to 35 percent of your total calories.
Fitness Programs
Fitness programs can be designed and altered to accommodate any type of goal or limitation. All physical fitness programs should have three modes of exercise; aerobic, resistance and flexibility exercise.
Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise is sustainable activity done for an extended period of time, in order to elevate your heart rate. Such exercises can include walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, stair climbing or rowing. These types of exercises use large motions in a rhythmic manner that work many muscles at the same time. You can format your aerobic program in a variety of ways. For general health purposes, aerobic exercise should be done five to seven days per week for at least 30 minutes at a moderate intensity. To increase physical fitness, you can try increasing either the duration or intensity, or try interval training. Interval training, interspersed throughout your workout, raises the intensity of your activity. For example, you could try walking for 10 minutes, then jogging for five, walking for 10, then jogging for five and so on. This kind of work increases your physical fitness faster and more effectively than a traditional workout.
Resistance Training
Resistance training refers to weight lifting. This uses a progression of resistance to work your muscles. Outcomes of a good resistance training program include increased strength and tone of muscles. For overall fitness, choose exercises that work all of your major muscles, such as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves, abs, back, shoulders, chest, biceps and triceps. Work up to performing one to three sets of 10 to 15 repetitions at an intensity that makes the last repetition difficult to complete.
Flexibility
Your program should end with stretching. Stretching after you exercise can reduce the likelihood of pain after exercising. Be sure to stretch every muscle that you worked out with. Hold each stretch for 15 to 30 seconds, holding each stretch in a pain-free range.
References
- "Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010"; United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Department of Health and Human Services; 2010
- Mayo Clinic; Healthy Diet: End the Guesswork With These Nutrition Guidelines; Feb. 22, 2011
- "ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription"; Mithcell H. Whaley, PhD, Peter H. Brubaker, Phd, Robert M. Otto, Phd (Eds.); 2006
- "Exercise Testing and Prescription"; David C. Nieman; 2007
- "Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning" National Strength and Conditioning Association; Thomas R. Baechle and Roger W. Earl, eds.; 2000
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