The color of fitness

The combination of a balanced lifestyle gives you a healthy look along with a fit shape. Have you ever noticed someone drop a lot of weight but doesn’t look as healthy as they did before? When lifestyle components get off-balance it can have someone looking unhealthy, even if they are lean and muscular. 

Diet: It is very important to eat a wide variety of colors in our diet if we want that healthy glow and it can be pretty easy if we simply surround ourselves with a rainbow of colors (these colors are different nutrients) in our fruit and vegetable selections. This blend of colors helps give us a healthy glow on the outside and it also reflects what is going on inside! Fat can store quite a bit of toxins, so taking in plenty of fruits and vegetables during times we are shedding fat helps our body get rid of the toxins that have built up throughout our body in a safe manner. Most vegetables do not have nearly the amount of carbs and sugar as fruits do, so try to keep intake at about 75% vegetables and 25% fruits, especially for weight loss. Also fruits in the morning help assist in the daily detox time period after waking, (so fruits in the morning and vegetables for lunch and dinner). Making sure you have good sources of protein helps insure muscle recovery from strenuous workouts and keeping good fats/oils in your diet help keep things running smoothly and helps keep skin rejuvenated looking healthy. When we lose too much of the subcutaneous fat that is under the skin, it can make our skin look old.

Tricking your body into burning fat: When you drop your food/caloric intake really low for one or two days, it forces your body to seek alternative fuel, and it simply opens the trap doors on your fat cells and lets energy out. The problem with doing this for too long comes in when you hit about the third day and your body thinks you don’t have an adequate supply of food to supply all your muscular energy needs, so it simply starts burning off some muscle so it can slow your metabolism down. So don’t do real low calorie for more than two days and if you go for a complete fast or Intermittent Fasting (IF) go for only 18-24 hours. When you have your up-calorie day, your body will send the calories straight to your muscle, vital organs etc. and if you eat in excess of your needs, only then will it restock your fat cells. I like this for the speed of dropping weight without a lot of muscle loss. 

The Shape Up: muscle tones, shapes and builds by first being broke down from exertion it’s not used to. When it recovers, it builds back stronger, more toned, shaped and capable to handle the new stress that you have been putting this particular set of muscles under! 

Keep your routine simple and stick with exercises that get multiple muscles, such as, the bench press or pushups for chest and back of arms (triceps) -rowing exercises (such as cable row or bent row with dumbbells) for the back and front of arms (biceps) and squats or lunges for legs. Picking one exercise from the above gets most of the major muscle groups and each group gets to rest while you’re working on the next one in the circuit. This keeps the heart rate up which will trigger the process that burns fat for energy. 

If you do not have time for the above and need something very effective to do at home, you can do an exercise that gets most of your muscles with a single movement.  

Take a set of dumbbells, spread your feet, drop into a full squat touching dumbbells at floor beside your ankles, come back up rapidly pressing dumbbells up overhead, do a few warm-up reps and then do a minimum of 2-3 sets to exhaustion. Do this every other day and in-between days, simply do some cardio such as rapid pace walking for about 30 minutes. Remember that the speed the reps and routine are executed, not only increase intensity for toning purposes but it also speeds fat loss!

If you are looking for a farm market or roadside produce stand in your local area, to add (nature’s colorful multivitamins to your diet) this is a great interactive map. www.LocalFarmMarkets.org