Is Obesity Affecting your Life? Discover Seven Tips To A Fitter And Healthier You

In this article I am going to cover seven ways you can become healthier and increase your fitness levels. I am going to cover the best types of exercises to do to get fit and healthy, the best kinds of foods to eat to reduce your calorie intake and how to check that you are moving in the right direction.

Get Your Body Moving

Exercise is one of the most important components of living a healthy lifestyle. Even if you eat all the right foods and you aren't over-weight if you do not exercise your body then you won't be able to live an active and energetic lifestyle.

You don't need to join a gym or attend a cardio class, you just need to find something that you enjoy that raises your heart rate and your breathing rate to exercise your body.

Here are some ideas you might like to try - swimming is a great all over body exercise that can get you strong and fit, martial arts is another great form of fitness, jogging gets your body moving and is great for burning off calories, power walking is the same but a little less intense on your joints and tendons than jogging.

How about some team sports like football or rugby - you don't have to be a sports star to enjoy the health benefits of participating in a team sport. A great advantage of a team sport is that you are much more likely to turn up to training sessions when there are other people involved - you wouldn't want to let your team down would you?

Have a look in your local sports centre and read the notice boards, you will find all kinds of activities to take part in. Try something new and meet new friends and help each other get fit and healthy.

Drink More Water

If you want to live a healthy lifestyle drinking more water should be high on your list of priorities. Keeping your body hydrated reduces the feelings of hunger, helps cleanse and detox your body from unwanted chemicals, keeps your skin hydrated and is much better for you than any other drink on the planet.

Water has zero calories so you can drink as much as you like without having to worry about sugar intake or putting on any weight. A good idea is to replace your soft drinks with water and drink water with your meals, it can aid in digestion.

So there are lots of good reasons to drink some more "H2O".

Eat Smaller Portions

One of the biggest reasons why people get over-weight and unhealthy is because they eat huge portions sizes. I have seen many people in restaurants with plates so full of food it has been literally piled high! This is not a healthy way to go with your food.

Reducing your portion sizes can help you with reducing the calories you eat and can help you keep check on your weight. If you still feel hungry after your meal drink another glass of water or eat some fruit.

If you still think that eating smaller portion sizes just won't help you then why not add a bowl of salad to your meal? Then you have something healthy and extra to add which should help to fill you up.

Eat More Often

Smaller portion sizes allow you to eat more often and eating more often can help to speed up your metabolism. If your metabolism is increased then your body can burn off more fat because - the reason this works is simple, when you go on a diet it typically means starving your body of calories and if you suddenly reduce your calories your body will react by going into what is called starvation mode and will begin to store fat on your body. This is a survival mechanism.

To stop this from happening you have to let your body know that there is no food shortage and you can easily do this by eating more often. This of course doesn't mean you can eat more chocolate cake or more desserts. You can replace those snacks that you enjoy with fruit and nuts.

Increase your food intake by choosing healthy options and snacks, add a bowl of salad to every meal and drink lots more water.

Reduce Your Sugar Intake

We are a society which is addicted to sugar, we have sugar with most meals that we eat, it is added to lots and lots of foods to sweeten it up, it is added to fizzy drinks, sauces, soup and is coated on most morning cereals.

Sugar puts more calories into our bodies, it turns into fat if you don't exercise enough to burn those calories off and that's not to mention the damage that is doing to our teeth.

So what can we do to reduce our sugar intake? That is what the next tip is about.

Eat More Fruit and Vegetables

Instead of eating processed foods you should strive to each more vegetables. They are low in calories, have a high water content which helps hydrate our body and are full of vitamins and minerals which help your body to stay healthy and active.

Eating more fruit will also give your body lots more vitamins. You can and should replace sugary snacks with fruit. There are so many options to choose from when it comes to fruit there is really no excuse not to be eating more of it.

Weigh Yourself Weekly

You should keep check on how your weight is and the best way to do this is through weekly weighing. You should write it down to make sure you are heading in the direction you want to go in.

Weekly weighing will let you know if you are putting on unwanted weight, which could easily slip by you if you didn't for a couple of months. Doing this you can track your progress, make any changes to your diet or exercise program as necessary to keep you moving in the right direction.