How A Healthy Diet Helps You Exercise
A lot of people wonder which is more effective for weight loss and overall health: Exercise or eating well. While this is a debate that has been discussed by many experts, it goes without saying that both diet and exercise are important. In fact, eating a healthy diet can actually help you exercise!
Eating right can help energize your workout, helping your body perform better. Before you exercise, try to eat a meal that is low in fat, has moderate levels of carbohydrates and protein, and is low in fiber. Be sure to include fluids (water is best).
However, an overall healthy diet every day is also important. Eating a healthy diet can help you maintain a healthy body weight, which makes exercising easier and more comfortable. When you eat better, you’ll feel better, which will make you more likely to want to be active.
Think about it this way, if you’ve just eaten an especially large meal of high calorie foods, you probably don’t want to do anything afterwards other than sit on the couch, right? The last thing you likely want to do is get up and be active. However, if you’re eating a healthier diet, you won’t feel so weighed down and bloated, so you’ll be much more likely to want to work out. For this reason, it’s a good idea to avoid fried foods, greasy foods, soft drinks and alcohol whenever possible, especially before exercising. These foods weigh you down and make exercise difficult.
What you drink is also important. As mentioned, avoiding soft drinks and alcohol is a good idea. However, you’ll also need to make sure that you get enough water. Exercising can cause you to become dehydrated if you do not replenish fluids. For most people, drinking water during exercise is enough. However, if you’re exercising for more than an hour, a sports drink may help as these drinks contain carbohydrates and sodium as well as water. Watch out for the sugar content of these drinks, however. It can often be quite high.
By paying attention to your diet and by exercising regularly, you’ll look better and feel better. However, it’s important that you don’t beat yourself up if you “slip up.” Just because you ate a bag of chips last night or you skipped your workout yesterday, it doesn’t mean all is lost. Focus on the future and move forward instead of feeling down and giving up.
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