The basics of exercise and nutrition

Woman doing pilates

Woman doing pilates – Image courtesy of [stockimages] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Life is complicated enough so I believe our training regime should be simple. It doesn’t help that there are millions of exercise references out there that glamorises training and sustenance. All of a sudden, exercise is sexy, and training moves are complicated, and becoming more difficult to execute. Food supplements are packaged in plastic tubs loaded with foreign ingredients that promise to make you ripped/massive/lean depending on what you desire, in a blink of an eye. We can apparently look good and be fit and healthy in no time at all. These promises lead us to believe that we can indulge more and do less of the boring stuff like eating healthy and regular exercise. In actual fact, we should all aspire to doing it, the other way around.

Healthful eating and regular exercise should be everyone’s priority. Indulgence should be kept at a minimum. When we exercise and try to eat right, we usually do so because we want to change something about ourselves and set ourselves a target or a goal. The problem for most is that they don’t have a plan or even a clue on how to achieve it.

There are three key factors to change:

Consistency
Progressive
Quality

We can apply these three key factors to whatever our goal might be, e.g. lose weight or gain more muscle.

Consistency

You must consistently eat healthy and exercise regularly. Without consistency then change will not occur. We need to exercise regularly in order to get fitter and stronger.

Progressive

If you want to lose weight, then if you gradually decrease you food intake, you will progressively lose weight. Reducing calorie intake too drastically will put our body in “shock” mode and can lead to more weight gain. In regards to exercise, you need to progressively increase your weight load in order to get stronger. Increasing your load too much can lead to injury.

Quality

We should mostly eat adequate portions of quality healthful food. During exercise, always execute with proper form to avoid injury and maximise gains.

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