levels. Any diet that focuses on just one food group source or processed foods can be unhealthy in the long run, and should be avoided. Don’t focus too much on any particular meal or snack, but rather on your overall intake of a variety of different foods during any given day.
■Drink Water
Our bodies are made up of over 70 percent water, and most of us don’t drink enough. Carry water with you everywhere you go, and drink as often as you can. This helps the body function at optimum levels, and can significantly help with weight management.
■Eat More Often and Be Mindful of Your Portions
Research has shown that it can be helpful to eat smaller meals more often versus three larger meals a day if you are looking to promote healthy weight maintenance or weight loss. And we have discovered that many portions we eat are much larger than necessary, and can be laden with calories. So, try snacking more and not eating so many large meals, and share your snacks or food with others (or break your portions in half) to help manage your caloric intake.
Monitoring Your Intensity
When you are doing cardiovascular workouts, it is important that you work at the appropriate intensities when you are first starting out. It is also important that you workout at a variety of intensities after you have built a fitness base.
Research in recent years has indicated that one of the best ways to monitor your cardiovascular intensity is to pay close attention to how you are feeling when you workout. Most individuals can do a very good job of choosing the correct intensities if they simply categorize how they feel into one of four intensity “zones.”
These zones could be described the following ways:
Zone | Description |
1 | Easy |
| |
| |
2 | Challenging, but comfortable |
| Steady endurance pace |
3 | Challenging, and slightly uncomfortable |
| Race pace |
| Borderline out of breath |
4 | Breathless |
| Not maximum, but winded |
| Can’t keep the pace for very long |
FITNESS GUIDE
53
