You need to get in more exercise, probably. It will improve your life in a myriad of ways. But the first step towards embarking on a fitness plan is always motivation. And to get motivated, you have to understand why you need to change your diet or invest the time into exercise. Here are just a few of many ways exercise change your life for the better.

1. Exercise Improves your Stamina

Exercise don’t just improve you stamina for physical activities either. It helps you last longer on work projects, school assignments, and anything else that might require a great deal of sustained concentration. It does this by training your body to use its energy reserves more efficiently, and thereby giving more energy to do the things you do every day. Every action will feel easier and take less effort. And you will have more energy to engage in your favorite hobbies.

2. Exercise Prevents Diseases

Our bodies are actually built for exercise. A lot of it. If we don’t give it the exercise it craves, a lot of its functions don’t work as well as they should, and the immune system is one of them. Exercising regularly makes your body more capable of fighting of colds, flu, and infections. It also reduces your cholesterol level, which will make you less prone to suffering a heart attack or stroke.

3. Exercise Strengthens and Tones Your Body

When you look better, you feel better. And when you feel better, everything in your life improves. You get along better with better people. You feel more capable of tackling challenges. And it can even help boost your career. It will also increase your bone density, which will make your bones less prone to breaks and help keep you more active as you age.

4. Exercise Improves Flexibility

Better flexibility lead to better balance and coordination. This wont just help you engage in your favorite physical activities, but it will actually help you just get through your day more effortlessly. It’s a wonderful feeling to go through every day without ever having to worry about a sprain.

5. Exercise Improves your Overall Quality of Life

Ask anyone who went form being sedentary to working out regularly: exercise helps you a thousand different ways that all add up to a happier you. If you have never experienced the joy and contentment of a fit lifestyle, you owe it to yourself to start a training routine right now. It doesn’t have to start out huge. Just plan out some cardio for tomorrow, like going for a little walk. When you get used to that, add in some weight training. Eventually, as your fit life continues to develop, you will find yourself more confident, happier, and with more energy than you had ever thought possible.

6. Exercise Controls Weight

When you weight train and do cardiovascular exercise regularly, your fat inevitably drops and your muscles grow. When you do this, you burn more calories actively, and you help boost your metabolism so you burn more calories around the clock. When combined with a smart diet, this inevitably leads to significant weight loss.

Most of us recognize the benefits we can expect from exercise. Engaging in regular exercise, including both cardiovascular and resistance workouts, brings such benefits as lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, stronger bones, improved balance, a lower risk of some cancers and of course weight loss. One bonus that is often overlooked, however, is how exercise can improve our mental health.

Baesd upon solid research, exercise has proven to be an effective alternative to medication for people who suffer from depression.

More that 17 million American adults are diagnosed with depression each year, but there are many more that suffer occasional bouts of ‘feeling down’ and are not diagnosed.

You might be depressed if you have feelings of anxiety, are sad or have ‘empty’ feelings, lack the motivation for ordinary activities, experience sleep problems including fatigue, insomnia or oversleeping, have eating disorders, feel worthless or have frequent thoughts of death.

The good news is that not everyone who suffers from depression needs to be on antidepressants. Exercise may be a solution for those who wish to fight depression without medication. Duke University Medical Center published a study on the effects exercise has on depression. The 16-week study showed similar results for the group that took medication as the group that exercised.

A third group that combined exercise with medication showed the greatest improvement.

To reap the depression-fighting benefits of exercise, you don’t need to spend hours in the gym, either. Even small amounts of exercise will release the endorphins that make us feel better. Develop an exercise plan while you are not feeling depressed and you will have a much better chance of keeping it up than trying to motivate yourself to start an exercise plan after you’re already depressed.

Women are two to three times more likely than men to suffer from depression, with one in five women experiencing major depression in her lifetime.

Stacy, a young mom from Nampa and Pick Up The Pace health club member, said “Last winter, during the inversion I really suffered. I couldn’t even get motivated to clean my house or cook a decent meal. I was on the verge of having to get a prescription. I started exercising regularly and this winter I sailed through the inversion with no problem.”

Margaret, who recently lost her husband, has discovered that exercise is better than grief therapy. “It’s a lot cheaper than seeing a therapist and I’m doing something good for my body. Sitting at home crying every day is not an option. I still grieve, but now I have the energy and motivation to do something else with my days.”

Before starting beginning any exercise plan, consult with your physician. Do not discontinue any prescribed mediation without consulting with your physician.

For more information, contact:

The National Mental Health Association Resources Center, 1-800-969-NMHA (6642)

our muscles utilizes considerable energy. And the only way to replace that energy is with food! So what happens if you fail to eat the right type of food to build muscle mass? It will take longer to build muscle, and it may even prevent effect muscle building altogether once you reach a certain point.

When looking into the types of food that helps build muscle, you probably immediately think of eating a low fat diet. That is great, but probably the most important type of foods that build muscle are foods containing high levels of protein. Foods like meat, fish, chicken, eggs, cheese and other milk products. Nuts are also a great protetin source.

Finding out how much protein to eat when you are interested in building muscle fast is actually not difficult. First, you will need to find out your lean body mass weight in kilos, and then you simply multiply that figure by 2.75 to determine your daily protein requirement. Calculating your lean body mass uses some complex formulae, so ask a professional at the gym if you do not already have this figure.

Carbohydrates are also important foods that build muscle ? or rather carbs are important components of foods that build muscle. Choose foods that are high in carbohydrates that are also high in fibre ? oatmeal, rice, and potato are all good.

Reducing fat in your diet is of course necessary to build bigger muscle on a body that appears lean and has a low body fat ratio. If you are focussing on what foods build muscle mass, you also need to bear in mind that it pays to reduce fat as well. Although proteins are essential (as we talked about earlier), it is really important to select proteins that are low in fat, or that you can cut the fat off. So eat your chicken without the skin, and go for lean steaks rather than more fatty cuts of meat. Opting for cottage cheese or other reduced fat cheeses, and low fat milk also helps reduce your fat intake.

When eating to build muscle, make sure you drink water. Liquid is important for hydration, and a dehydrated body is sluggish, and can even make you sick. This is not a recipe for obtaining the healthy, fit physique you are striving for.

Most experts agree that between 1.5 to 2 liters of water a day helps flush toxins and hydrate the body. And that is for everyone, regardless of activity levels and desire to have a buff body. So for those of us on bodybuilding diets, who are conscious of building muscle, water is even more important.

Foods that build muscle are one of the two essential components to having the body of your dreams. The other component is your weight training program or other type of bodybuilding workouts that you engage in regularly. Just because you have found foods that build muscle does not mean you can start to slack off with your weight training.

A study published from the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that overweight premenopausal woman who ate low carbohydrate/high protein diets lost more bodyweight than a group eating high carbohydrate/low fat diets.  Another study published in the ADA Journal divided three groups of post menopausal woman that were overweight.  Group one reduced 400 calories per day.  Group two used less than 400 calories but, did low intensity exercises and group three ate smaller calorie amounts but exercised with high intensity.  All three groups lost weight but it wasn’t all fat.  The group that ate more protein did not lose lean muscle.  And, you do not want to lose lean muscle!  If you are post menopausal lean muscle is very important; to prevent or slow the effects of osteoporosis, making sure you are strong so you don’t fall and just being strong enough to take care of yourself.

Research after research substantiates that protein helps you lose the fat and not the muscle.  If you have more muscle you burn more calories and look better and can exercise more (burning even more calories) with a much stronger body.  Some women express a concern about getting larger muscles.  Ladies this does not mean big bulky muscles.  Women do not have the hormones to create those big muscles that bodybuilders have. Protein shakes and regular exercise means you will stick to your diet and you will only lose fat while retaining your muscle.

Protein powders help control hunger so you won’t eat as much and feel fuller longer.  Now this doesn’t mean you have to eat meat, and other high caloric proteins along with the fat they contain. Plant based diets also supply phytochemicals along with vitamins necessary for your health; this includes beans, nuts, seeds along with vegetables, chicken, fish, eggs and dairy such as cottage cheese, milk, tofu, etc.  Protein shakes help to control hunger and help maintain your muscle.

Another wonderful option that has helped women, including me, are protein powders.  I struggled for years trying to lose those last ten pounds; I gave up and even added more pounds until I got sick of how I looked.  I started using protein powders to make protein shakes, along with a healthy diet and the pounds started melting off.  I do not each much meat to speak of anymore, only fish and chicken a couple times per week; and a lot of veggies, beans and fruit.  Protein powders, rich in amino acids help me exercise longer with more energy, which of course will add to your weight loss.

If you haven’t tried the new protein powders out there today you are in for a treat.  With names like Brownie Batter, Cake Batter, Mango Magic, Strawberry Kiwi, Green Apple, Vanilla Chai and Lemon Burst you are not limited to tasteless vanilla or chocolate.  Bodybuilders have used protein for ages to get lean bigger muscles.  If you use protein shakes for weight loss you do not have to worry about getting huge muscles.  You are just drinking enough protein to maintain and firm up your muscles with your amount of exercise, helping your weight loss program and creating a much firmer and curvier body than you could without the added protein.  So if you want to be firm and not flabby, feel full and stick to your weight loss plans try a good protein shake.  It’s a healthy way to lose weight.

One of the main reasons people started to exercise is because they want to look good, feel good and to achieve a better quality of life through health and fitness. Excess fats around the body definitely do not look and feel very good. Having too much excess fats would even have serious health implications. There are also many health conditions and diseases associated with obesity, such as hypertension, dyslipidemia (for example, high total cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides), type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and respiratory problems.

Very often than not, instead of losing weight from exercise, they ended up gaining even more weight than before. Why is this so?

This is not surprising if we understand how the energy equation works. Whether we want to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, it is important to understand the connection between the energy our body takes in (food consumed) and the energy our body uses (physical activities). In order to lose weight, we need to use more calories than we take in. To maintain a healthy weight, we need to balance the calories we use with those we take in. If we take in more calories than our body needs, we will put on excess fat. If we expend more energy than we take in we will burn the excess fat.

Exercise plays an important role in weight control by increasing energy output. During the initial phase of exercise, the body uses the carbohydrates from the food consumed as the main source of energy. When all the carbohydrates are being used up, the body would then look for the excess fat store in the body for extra fuel. Recent studies have shown that not only does exercise increase metabolism during a workout, it also causes your metabolism to stay increased for a period of time after exercising, allowing you to burn more calories.

Thus, the intensity and duration of the exercise is also an important factor to determine how much calories are being used up. It will only be effective if we are able to burn those excess fats during our workout. How much exercise is needed to make a difference in our weight depends on the amount and type of activity, and on how much we consume. Aerobic exercises such as jogging, running, Taichi burn body fat effectively. However, many people always have the wrong mentality that they can afford to have a hearty meal and eat all they can after the workout, since they had already burnt so much calories, which very often the meal negate the effects of the workout.

Taking for instance, if we consume 150 excess calories a day, we will gain approximately 15 pounds in a year. We could take that weight off, or keep it off, by doing minimally 30 minutes of moderate light intensity exercise daily. The combination of exercise and diet offers one of the most flexible and effective approach towards weight control.

Muscle tissue is heavier than fat tissue, and through exercise, we tend to develop muscle to a certain degree. Thus, our normal bathroom weighing scale will not necessarily be able to tell whether or not we are “fat.” Individual with well toned and developed muscles, and with relatively little body fat, invariably are considered “overweight” according to standard weight charts. If we are engaging in a regular program of strength and resistance training, our muscles will increase in weight, causing our overall weight to increase. Therefore, looking at the body composition is a better indicator of how much fat we have than just looking at body weight alone. In today’s technology, we can easily find commercial weighing scales which are able to read our body water percentage, body fat, muscles and bone mass.

Lack of physical activity causes muscles to get soft, and if proper nutritional diet is not maintained, excess calories consumed is almost always stored as fat around the body. Those that were once actively engage in physically activities, who continue to eat as they always have after settling into sedentary lifestyles, tend to suffer from “creeping obesity.” Thus, exercise should be a lifelong activity and Taichi still remains as one of the best forms of lifelong exercise for all ages.