Young Man Wearing Apple Watch by Crew, CC0
Caption: Smart watch
In today’s busy world, it’s easy to forget about your own fitness level. In the face of a full work life, an active social life, and spending time with loved ones, our own health and fitness often gets pushed to the back of our minds. However, if you want to carry on engaging in all those things that make life so rewarding, it’s worth investing in both your mental and physical health. Here we’ll look at three easy ways to start focusing a little bit more on your own fitness level.
Superfood – Acaibowl! by Jannis Brandt, CC0
Caption: Superfoods
Vitamin-rich Foods
One easy way to up your fitness level is to watch what you eat. This does not mean counting calories or cutting out carbs. Rather, it means ensuring that you are eating a lot of vitamin-rich foods and superfoods like blueberries, cacao, and broccoli. One of the greatest superfoods to include in your diet is the humble garlic bulb. Related to the onion, this food is amazingly versatile and also packed full of stuff that’s good for you. Traditional medicine claims that garlic can help strengthen your immune system, boost the levels of B1, B6 and C vitamins in your body, and improve heart health. It’s easy to include in any savoury meal and adds great taste, in addition to the health benefits.
Another easy superfood to include in your diet is hemp. Hemp seeds are chock full of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, as well as all 20 amino acids. This translates into them being good for your cardiovascular health and hormone balance. Hemp is a particularly great food for vegetarians and vegans, as it provides a lot of what the body would otherwise extract from fish, meat and dairy products.
Tracking Apps
There are plenty of handy fitness tracking apps available to download to your smart phone, smart watch, or other tracker. Using a fitness app means that you can update your progress anytime and anywhere, accurately track your fitness, and access a community of others who are working towards the same goals. Popular apps like Strava and MyFitnessPal allow you to easily keep track of your goals.
Strava provides accurate data about distances travelled when running or cycling, so you can review your performance after each activity and see what you want to aim for next. It also hosts a global community of athletes via its social network section. This is where you can post to your own Strava feed and view those of others. You can congratulate other people on their good performance, pick up tips, and exchange advice. MyFitnessPal offers a similar service, but it also gives you the opportunity to input dietary details together with your exercise info. The social network aspect of both apps offers the support of a community as well as a healthy dose of friendly competition.
A goal-focused health and fitness plan can go miles in getting you to where you want to be, and introducing a competitive element can ramp up your progress even more. With defined targets to work towards and a realistic idea of your capabilities, you can achieve your objectives within a sensible time frame.
This way of thinking can also benefit other areas of your life, including making you more productive at work or in completing personal projects.
Breathe by Tim Goedhart, CC0
Caption: Breathe
Mindfulness
Physical health is not the only important aspect of fitness to focus on. You must also look after your mind, and that sometimes means taking a break or some ‘time out’. A very popular practice, and one that’s easy to incorporate into your everyday life, is mindfulness. Mindfulness can be practiced during your daily routines, like brushing your teeth or during your commute to work, and it helps you to preserve a calm, balanced state of mind. Taking just a few minutes out of your day to slow down and focus on the “here and now” are proven to be extremely beneficial for both mental and physical fitness.
So, as you can see, there is simply no excuse for not looking after yourself! You could include a few bulbs of garlic in your evening meal or sprinkle hemp seeds on your morning porridge. You could practice a few minutes of mindfulness whilst you do the washing up or before you go to sleep. Or you could even download an app to help you stay on top of everything and help you see the progress that you’re making towards your goals.
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