The best weapon against obesity is a lifestyle that balances healthy eating with additional activity. A sedentary lifestyle and a poor diet are often at the root of unhealthy weight. Frequently, those struggling with weight gain look for drastic immediate solutions to their problems. Since obesity results from the culmination of poor habits, quick solutions are ineffective. While a crash diet or aggressive gym plan may show promising initial results, these can fade due to exhaustion and a desire for food satisfaction.
For those looking for sustainable lifestyle changes, whole-body wellness is the natural solution to obesity. Filling your life with wellness-focused activities and healthy daily routines helps to shed pounds, feel better about yourself, and improve your overall health.
Wellness-focused Activities
To be effective, any plan of attack against obesity needs to be well planned and focused. You should run an exercise plan past your physician, who will be able to alert you to any possible concerns based on your medical background. The extra weight that you’re carrying may expose joints and bones to damage during some activities, such as running. Blood pressure and other cardiovascular concerns may also dictate your ideal exercise. For these reasons, physicians and fitness experts typically recommend low-impact workouts for those who are overweight. In addition to the physical risks of high-impact activity, such as muscle damage, people who are not familiar with an exercise regimen can get very quickly burned out during high-intensity activity.
Examples of low-impact exercise include walking, swimming, stationary cycling, and light resistance weight workouts. Although these simple exercises are safe, they are also great ways to burn fat. And since they are low impact, there is less need for recovery, and these exercises are more easily incorporated into a daily routine. Rather than hitting the gym hard three times a week, integrate low-impact activity every single day.
And these low-impact exercises can be done at or around the home with minimal equipment. All walking requires is a pair of decent walking or running shoes. Low-impact weight workouts use kettlebells, resistance bands, and balance tools, such as a Swiss ball (or yoga ball). These items are relatively inexpensive and make the foundation of a basic home gym.
Develop a Healthy Relationship With Food
The war against obesity is not won through starvation. Nutrition and fiber are necessary for losing weight. And while intermittent fasting techniques are effective ways to restart your body and prepare it for optimum weight loss, it’s a harsh tactic that is difficult for most overweight people to endure. For those who enjoy food and seek comfort in eating, drastic diet changes can be hard to swallow. Rather than making extreme modifications in your diet, focus on eating healthier foods. Vegetables and whole grains are more filling and provide a higher nutrient-to-calorie ratio. You are less likely to snack aimlessly on junk food if you are full from a salad or other healthy meal or healthy snack.
Treating Your Body Right
Exercise and diet are your best primary tools for controlling your weight, but there are other things you can do to improve your physical and mental wellness that contribute to whole-body wellness. An often neglected part of fitness is proper sleep. In our busy lives, our sleep regimens suffer. Experts have long suggested that between seven and nine hours of sleep are essential for good health. As part of a wellness routine, sleep, exercise, and healthy eating work together symbiotically. Exercise tires us out, and healthy diet regulates our blood sugar, so our energy levels stay at more constant levels. Rest is a natural way to restore our health and give us energy to exercise and the motivation needed for dieting.
A deep state of wellness defeats obesity. A balanced diet, combined with activity and self-care is your best plan for sustained weight-loss results.
Kevin Wells of seniordiabetic.com
kevin@seniordiabetic.com
Written for Balanced Habits, LLC
Balanced Habits™ 2018 All Rights Reserved
