Lifestyle Choices

Your body is designed to move, and a certain level of exercise is needed just to keep it working healthily. However, it’s all too easy to develop a couch-potato lifestyle, or simply to run out of time to exercise. This is bad news for your long-term health as well as your weight. Low activity levels exaggerate your appetite, slow your rate of metabolism and interfere with your body’s ability to keep blood glucose levels stable.

GET THE EXERCISE HABIT

Combining diet and exercise is the best way to lose weight: that way you lose fat, not lean muscle when you diet.

Muscle burns up more energy than fat, so the less muscle you have, the slower your metabolism.

Aerobic exercise (such as brisk walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, dance, skiing, circuit training) increases your heart rate and is ideal for fatburning, whereas anaerobic exercise (using weights or resistance) builds lean muscle and improves body tone.

Together they speed up your metabolism and will reduce your body fat percentage. Exercise should be fun as well as healthy, so choose to do something that you enjoy doing, and bring in variety — that way you will hardly notice you are working your body.

‘A little and often’ is the key to long-term exercise success. Just as healthy weight-loss happens gradually, steadily andpermanently, so too the positive benefits of exercise build strongly over time. Yo-yo exercising (occasional bursts of high-intensity exercise) can cause damage to the muscles and ligaments of the body. If you are doing the right kind of exercise, you need spend only 1¹/4 hours spread over the week to both lose weight and trim your figure. That is just 15 minutes a day (or more if you prefer). What could be easier?

Write down your goat and set a time span for achieving it. Set yourself daily exercise targets: how much will you do and by when.

Make sure that your goals are realistic and enjoyable. Review progress weekly and adjust your goals and outcomes depending on results.

If at first you don’t succeed - try something new! But whateveryou choose to do, make sure you find something that you will enjoy, and the 15 minutes (or more) will fly by.

WHEN TO EXERCISE

The easiest way to increase your general level of fitness is to get more active all the time. Use the stairs instead of the lift, leave the car at home, and walk or cycle as much as possible. Run around with your kids, take the dog for a walk, take up a sport, or go for a walk instead of watching television.

The best time to do intensive exercise is two hours after eating. If you exercise first thing in the morning, eat a small amount of fruit from your fruit allowance beforehand - and then eat breakfast immediately afterwards. Don’t exercise late at night as it will make it much harder for you to sleep. Exercising in natural daylight is ideal because it provides vitamin D via your skin, which means stronger bones.

IT’S NOT ABOUT WEIGHT - IT’S ABOUT FITNESS

During the first four weeks or so of your fitness programme you will lose inches faster than pounds. You’ll look trimmer and feel fitter, but the scales may show less weight loss than you had hoped for. Don’t be disheartened by what is in fact good news. Muscle is denser and heavier than fat, and so it weighs more. The more leanmuscle you gain, the greater your ability to burn fat - and that’s what counts. Remember: you are not so much trying to lose weight as aiming to reduce your body fat percentage.

• Choose aerobic types of exercise that raise your heart rate.
• Choose exercise that helps you to build more muscle, which, in turn, burns fat.

BENEFITS OF EXERCISE

Exercise is energizing! The benefits are immense. In just twoto three weeks you will be enjoying glowing skin, bright eyes and increased vitality.

Drink plenty of water while you’re exercising and eat either

a balanced snack or a light meal within an hour of finishing a hard workout. Don’t let yourself get so hungry that you eat the wrong food. Glucose drinks, energy bars and the like abound, but by now you’ll realise that they are not the way to go for fatburning.

Exercise …

• Improves digestion
• Improves circulation
• Releases ‘feel good’ hormones Helps relieve stress
• Can improve sleep
• Helps strengthen the heart Helps relieve stress
• Improves insulin sensitivity Improves muscle tone Increases energy levels
• Helps prevent osteoporosis Can be sociable and fun.

More about: Holford LOW-GL Body Plan

• Secrets of HOLFORD LOW-GL DIET Rule No 3 & 4
• Your Relationship With Food
• Getting Started and Stay on Track
• The Wonder of Water
• Secrets of HOLFORD LOW-GL DIET Rule No 5
• SECRETS OF HOLFORD LOW-GL DIET Rule No 1
• The Holford LOW-GL Diet and You
• Body Fat and your ideal Weight
• Secrets of HOLFORD LOW-GL DIET Rule No 2
• Facts about Eating and Fat Control Part 3

• Secrets of HOLFORD LOW-GL DIET Rule No 2 - Lifestyle Choices
• Diet Diary - Lifestyle Choices
• Secrets of HOLFORD LOW-GL DIET Rule No 3 amp; 4 - Lifestyle Choices
• Jennifer Aniston Diet - Lifestyle Choices
• HOLFORD LOW-GL Breakfasts continue.. - Lifestyle Choices
• Personal Care - Lifestyle Choices
• Body Fat and your ideal Weight - Lifestyle Choices
• Zone Diet Weight Loss - Lifestyle Choices
• Low-GL Weight-Loss Rules and Wonderfoods - Lifestyle Choices
• Zone Diet Meal Delivery - Lifestyle Choices