Top Tips For Getting Fitter

Want to get fitter, well it won’t happen if you do nothing. However, small, incremental changes will help remarkably. So, here are some top tips.

Get Enough Calories

If you are looking to get fit fast, you need to ensure that you are at a healthy weight.  The problem is that if you need to drop some weight, trying to do this quickly will not actually help you.  Limiting your caloric intake too much to lose weight will risk stalling the weight loss process as your metabolism starts to slow down.

This is why you need to find the right number of calories for a steady loss if up to 2 pounds per week.  To achieve this weight loss, you should look at reducing your caloric intake by 250 to 1000 calories per day.  You will need to determine your current intake using a food diary and then remove the necessary number of calories to reach your goal of weight loss. 

An example if this will be someone who currently eats 2600 calories each day.  To lose weight safely, they will need to reduce their caloric intake to 1600 to 2350 calories per day.  As you have to exercise to become fit, you should look at the lower end of caloric reduction such as 250 to 500 calories because you are going to be burning the rest when you exercise.

Eat Healthy Foods

In order to get the most out of your fitness routine, you need to have a diet that provides you with energy to support your exercise and muscle growth.  This does not mean that you should be limiting your diet to egg whites, brown rice, and steak.  A fitness diet is the same as any healthy eating plan that you should follow and will be filled with fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, low-fat dairy and whole grains. 

You also need to look at eating regularly throughout the day to ensure that you have the energy you need when exercising.  When your body has enough fuel, you are going to get more from your workout according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.  After exercising, you should also look at eating a recovery snack to restore your energy and promote muscle building.  These snacks should be a cup of chocolate milk, a non-fat fruit yogurt or half of a turkey sandwich.

Limit Your Processed Foods

When you are looking to become fit, you need to look at what you should be eating as well as what you should not be eating.  A 2011 study which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine states that certain types of food have been linked to weight gain such as processed meats like pepperoni and bacon as well as potato chips and sweetened drinks like juice and soda. If you want to improve your fitness levels and reach your overall goals faster, you need to limit the amount of these items that you eat and limit other processed foods like sweets, pasta, fast food and white bread.

Get Fit With HIIT

To maintain good health, the average adult needs 150 minutes of aerobic exercise each week.  However, if you want to get fit fast, you need to increase this with a bit of high-intensity interval training.  Australian Family Physician published an article in 2012 that stated if you are trying to lose weight, HIIT can help you reach your goals much faster than traditional exercises.  This is due to the fact that this exercise increases the calories you burn even when you have stopped working out. 

This was backed up by the American College of Sports Medicine which stated that you are going to be burning 6 to 15 percent more calories in the 2 hours following HIIT when compared with traditional exercise.  HIIT will not only help you burn more calories, it will also help you lose abdominal fat and retain muscle mass. 

HIIT will use alternating periods of intense aerobic exercise and rest.  An example if this will be you running at top speed for 30 seconds and then jogging for 2 minutes.  This type of exercise will help you burn more calories because of the intense workouts.

Make Better Choices

Alcohol and cigarettes cause all sorts of issues for health and fitness in the short and the long term. Cutting down or even better, quitting both can make all the difference and really help you get fitter and feel better. One good way to quit on smoking is to start using Simply fruit ejuice. It can make quitting easier and make it a long term achievement not a temporary one.

Build Your Muscles With Strength Training

You should look at rounding out your fitness program with some strength training exercises that work all of your major muscle groups.  This exercise should be completed at lead 2 days of the week.  Using resistance bands, free weights and other body resistance exercises such as sit-ups and squats will help build muscle and gain strength.  To get the best benefits, you should look at repeating these exercise until you cannot do another repetition without help.  However, the CDC does recommend 2 to 3 sets of 8 to 12 repetitions.