Fitness - FITNESS: Nutrition, Exercises, and Body Building. Step by Step Strength Training and Health.

Nutrition, Exercises, and Body Building

Trying to embrace a healthy diet in order to lose weight is hard enough even if you were not exercising. You have to count calories, watch what you eat and do lots of other lifestyle transformations in order to live the life of the new you who wants to lose weight and keep the weight off. Well, much as this is important, it doesnt have to be as difficult as many people seem to put it. You dont need to engage in strenuous physical activity that you hate, eat veggies all the time and make other sacrifices that you are never ready to make.

With the right exercise, you can actually lose weight, keep it off and live a healthy, disease free life. You wont need to worry about not eating your favorite foods even if it is once in a while. When you look forward to a fat burning exercise, you can indulge in that cake and be sure to burn it in your next session or better still, pay it forward and get in the exercise first, then you can feel all virtuous as you tuck in.

This book will provide you with several workout exercises that you can try out today as well as workout tips to know where you may have been going wrong with your workouts in the past. It will also help you to make your workouts effective so that you can start losing weight and looking and feeling healthier.

One of the easiest ways to burn calories and lose weight is walking or running, depending on where you are as far as your weight is concerned. If you are slightly heavier, you should stick to walking, as it has been proved that the risk of injuries to the knees or causing other stress-induced injuries to your body are less, so it is safer that way. Additionally, walking/running improves your mental wellbeing. Furthermore, walking at a speed of four miles per hour will burn between 5 and 8 calories every minute, or between 225 and 360 calories for a 45-minute walk. This is to say that if you walked at this pace for 45 minutes a day, you will be able to lose up to a pound a week in weight, which is the healthy way to do it.

The convenience that walking/running has to offer is immeasurable. The fact that there is no equipment that is required and that you do not need a gym membership for you to be successful at it, makes it the perfect exercise. However, what happens when you are not in a position to do your workout outside for whatever reason; bad weather, safety reasons and so on? The treadmill could be your best friend.

Although it is true that nothing beats working out outside with the fresh air, the inspiring scenery, and the company of other people among other reasons that make working out outside seem so delightful, the truth of the matter is that it at times proves impossible for you to work out from outside for various reasons. So, when your options are limited, the good old treadmill takes over.

Weight loss and the treadmill go hand in hand. The reason behind the working of treadmills is they simulate real-life movement, to be specific running and walking depending on which stage of activity you are at. These simulations are a great way to burn calories and thus lose weight. Treadmills are therefore a very good way to lose weight if it so happens that you do not have a safe space to run or walk outside.

In order to enjoy the maximum benefits of a treadmill, here are some important tips to bear in mind.

Make sure you do not hold the sidebars

When you are on the treadmill, you should bear the entire weight of your own body; therefore you should ensure that you do not hold onto the handles of your treadmill as you walk or run. When you carry your own weight as you walk, you burn more calories as opposed to leaning on the treadmill where some of the strain that should be carried by your feet is taken up by the bars of the treadmill. The proper way in which you carry your weight is seen in the figure below.

Keep up with the treadmill speed

Keep pace with the speed of the treadmill so that you do not rest or take it easy. This will give you a better workout and also avoid accidental falls.

Use the incline feature of the treadmill

Ensure that you are making use of the calorie-zapping incline feature that allows you to pick up intensity in your workout without necessarily breaking into a run. When walking on an inclined treadmill, walk normally as you would up a hill outdoors. In addition, the way you place your feet on the treadmill also matters and you should let your feet come down underneath your center of gravity as opposed to them being far out in the front.

The figure below shows the inclined/slanted feature on the treadmill where you set it so that you are able to pick up intensity just as you would when running up a hill.

Choose appropriate exercise shoes

When choosing exercise shoes, you should always keep in mind that wearing the wrong kind of shoes on a treadmill could be fatal. This is not just scaremongering. Slipping and falling on the treadmill does not only lead to broken bones, it could and has led to deaths. Make sure that you buy shoes with extra padding on the soles. This offers protection to your heels and foot bones from the high impact of your mass as you take a stride or rather a step.

Place your foot on the treadmill properly

When you land your foot flat on the treadmill while exercising on it, chances are that you will end up with muscle strain. This is because you end up leaning backward when the treadmill belt moves forward, which in turn strains the muscles due to the force that is generated throughout your hips and back. Losing your balance is also not out of the question if you are not careful how you place your foot on the treadmill belt. Always ensure you are perfectly vertical so that you can run as you would normally do on real ground. Landing on your mid-foot or the part known as the ball of your foot (not your heel) ensures you are exercising safely. See photo below.

Use the right posture on the treadmill

Leaning on the treadmill in any direction leads your body to naturally work hard to maintain balance. This is a strain no one needs while exercising. Hunching forward while walking on the treadmill could make you suffer a back tilt or cause you to lose your balance and may contribute to lower back pain. Keeping a solid upright posture that involves your core muscles is advisable to avoid unnecessary pain. Whenever you are unable to maintain an upright posture, make sure you slow down your speed on the treadmill.

Place your arms appropriately

Swinging your arms round while working out, or winging them out to the sides or even crisscrossing as you walk is not efficient. What happens is that you end up burning up a lot of energy with your arms, and you end up not being able to work out as long as you should. Keeping your arms by your sides until you get to higher speeds really helps you get the best results from working out on the treadmill. Once you have reached the jog stage, ensure that you keep your arms bent parallel to each other and at 90-degrees, but loose. This will help with the rotation of your torso. Check the image below.

Do not make extra long strides

You might assume that when you take long strides, you are covering more ground as opposed to someone taking shorter strides. The truth of the matter is that long strides end up sacrificing form and efficiency. The only thing that you will end up doing is that you will burn up a lot of extra energy so that you cannot workout as long as you really should. Long strides also increase the risk of injuries in that you could easily hit the front of the treadmill frame, which would inevitably lead to a fall. The standard way to run on a treadmill is normally three steps per second, making sure that you barely lift your foot off the ground.