Exercise is not necessary for weight loss, but it is necessary for weight maintenance and optimal physical health. Cardiovascular exercise keeps your heart and lungs strong, helps you fight disease and infection better, improves flexibility and helps prevent injury. Strength training exercises leave your body looking fit and sculptured. It's important to incorporate both types of exercises into your week.
After you've lost the majority of the weight you've wanted to lose with Metabolic Medical Center, we start to talk about exercise and ways to incorporate it into your week.
Follow these 5 simple exercise tips to keep your body it and healthy.
- Know Your New Numbers:Talk to your Metabolic physician about your exercise plan and learn your new calorie needs. To lose weight you have specific nutritional needs (calories, fat, protein, carbs) and as you add exercise, your needs will change. You will have new numbers follow.
- Go Bigger: Start training for something bigger than just maintaining your weight. Set a goal to participate in a 5K walk/run, moderate to expert level hike, bicycle race, ski trip, whitewater rafting vacation, etc. When you have multiple goals set ahead of you (especially fun activities or vacations), you have great motivation.
- Push Your Endurance: The longer you exercise, the more calories you'll burn. Push yourself each week to go a longer. If you walk/run/bicycle/swim etc, push yourself to extend your pace (speed) or length of time (from 20 minutes to 25 minutes, and so on). Once you've met one goal, move on to the next.
- Push Your Strength: If you've begun a weight lifting program, which is excellent for improving not only strength but also building bone density, increase your weights every week to week and a half (depending on often you lift). Try increasing repetition with lighter weights or try doing fewer repetitions with heavier weights.
- Stay Fueled Up: You're burning calories that your body needs, you need to replenish with calories that come from protein packed foods. Unless you're running a marathon (26 miles) or plan to exercise for more than 1 hour at a time, you don't need to "carbo-load". Eat a breakfast high in protein and keep Profast Protein Shakes and Bars handy for before and after workout boosts.