We all know that diet and exercise are key components in a healthy lifestyle. You need to eat a balanced diet of 5 different food groups as well as incorporate aerobic (cardiovascular) exercise into your daily routine. Proper exercise is as vital to our health as the food and drink we provide our bodies for fuel”we need to correctly meet all of those needs to live a healthier life.
Few people know that strength training is one of the most important parts in getting this body you want for. By doing strength training you can reduce the amount of body fat, but most importantly, increase the amount of lean muscle you have. There is a secret to this ” muscle burns more calories than fat!!
A pound of muscle burns about six calories per day, whereas a pound of fat only burns two calories per day. It also takes the average person about three to four months to gain three to five pounds of muscle. This depends on genetics, gender, exercise program and diet. But what this really means is that an increase in muscle can increase the number of calories you burn. Think of it this way: If over the course of a year you gain 12 pounds of muscle through diet, exercise, and strength training, you will burn an extra 72 calories per day, or around 26,000 calories per year.
Now, of course you need calories to burn off the fat. For each pound you need 3,500 calories. So if you add strength training to your daily routine you can lose anywhere up to 7 ” calories of fat in one year and you dont have to do any effort for it! It doesnt sound like a lot, but if you do this together with your daily activities, aerobic exercise and diet, there is a great potential that your body will go through some remarkable changes. And thats not even the best part ” the best part is that you will have created a way, a routine to have permanent weight loss!
We all know that the older we get the less muscle we have and the more fat we get in our bodies. Thats why its so important to burn as many calories and build up those muscles. You have to make sure you replace the fat with muscles so that you dont increase the amount of fat in your body as you get older.
Strength training has a lot of other advantages: Your bones get stronger because they are stressed during exercise. Also the density increases because of this. And the great thing about this is that you have less chance of getting osteoporosis! You have less chance of injury, look better, feel better and more self assured ” surely this is a win-win situation all round! You also have less chance of being depressed and you will notice that you sleep a lot better than you ever have before.
And the nice thing is that it doesnt have to cost too much. Its great if you can afford a membership to the gym, but its not necessary… There are a lot of things around the house you can use as dumb bells ” or buy some cheaply via internet. What about using your own weight (push ups). Think outside the box and youll come up with some great ideas on how to strengthen your body and have fun whilst doing it!
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