Below are our top 10 health and fitness tips, in no particular order. From healthy eating habits to exercise programs, these health and fitness tips will help you get smarter about weight loss, wellness and healthy living overall.
1. Drink more water. You hear this all the time and there's a reason for that - because it's important! Drinking water curbs your hunger, hydrates your body and nourishes you from the inside out, including your skin. Aim for half your body weight in ounces per day. i.e. if you weigh 150 lbs, you would aim to drink 75 ounces of water per day.
2. For faster fat loss and a stronger heart, try sprint interval training. The basic format of sprint interval training is sprint/walk/sprint/walk, etc. Pick a stretch of road that is flat for 50 yards - sprint the 50 yards, walk back slowly, repeat - do this 10 times. Make sure you're warmed up before you start sprinting and that you warm down when you're done. Sprint interval training boosts your metabolism, burns more fat, and takes less time to complete.
3. Stay away from sugar! When you consume sugar, it causes your body to release insulin - and insulin causes your body to store fat. That's why those fat-free cookies with extra sugar are actually causing you to gain weight. Read the ingredients label and stay away from products heavy in sugar and high fructose corn syrup. "Healthy" breakfast cereals and bars are notorious for being high in these two ingredients.
4. Add more of the following foods to your diet: whole grains, olive oil, eggs, natural peanut butter, fish, poultry, berries, apples, almonds, protein powder and water. These foods will help you burn more fat, stay in shape and better your health.
5. Add weight training to your exercise routine. Adding muscle to your body increases your life span, makes you stronger and burns fat. If you're looking to tone up, use a weight that you can lift 8-12 times; if you're looking to add bulk, use a weight you can lift 4-6 times. Weight train 2-3 times per week and keep your weight training sessions to 45 minutes max.
6. At a minimum, add a quality multivitamin to your diet and fish oil softgels (omega-3 fatty acids). Most people don't get a sufficient amount of vitamins and minerals from foods alone so it's important you compliment your healthy eating habits with a strong multi. The fish oil softgels are important because most people's diets are severely lacking in omega-3 fatty acids and this is suspected to be a contributing factor to many health diseases, including obesity. Fish oil softgels are the easiest way to add omega-3's to your diet - consume 2,000 to 3,000 mg of omega-3's per day.
7. Add more Wild Alaskan salmon to your diet. It's extremely high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids, and low in fat - an incredibly healthy combination. And Wild Alaskan salmon is very low in mercury, the one problem with regular salmon.
8. Stay away from foods that contain hydrogenated oils and processed foods altogether. Hydrogenated oils, or trans fats, wreck havoc on your body and some states are even banning them. Read the ingredients of the food you are eating - it will indicate if it contains hydrogenated oils - and if it does, toss it! Processed foods are the chemically-altered, packaged foods like many of the foods targeted towards kids nowadays. Usually you can tell a food is processed if the ingredients show a list of chemicals a mile long.
9. A simple way to keep your weight under control is stop eating before you're full. Portion control is an easy way to make sure you don't over eat and gain weight. If you continuously eat until your uncomfortably full, you'll consume too many calories and stretch your stomach out, causing you to eat more often.
10. Give yoga a try because you'll be amazed at the difference it makes when your body is limber and flexible, plus it will help reduce your chances of injury. Yoga consists of 15-20 minutes of deep stretching and usually meditation. Your body will feel younger and you'll have less stress - combine this with cardio, weight training and a healthy diet, and in 12 weeks you'll be in the best shape of your life.
