In addition to being a blogger and designer, I’m also a Nationally Qualified figure competitor in the NPC. I’ve been competing for almost 2 years now and have not only learned a TON about fitness and nutrition, but I’ve also transformed my body and my relationship with diet and exercise and will share some of my best tips for succeeding in your health goals.
Remember that it didn’t take you one day to gain weight, and the same is true about loosing it; it won’t happen in one day. Have fun, be patient with yourself, and focus on healthy choices everyday and eventually you will see the change you seek 🙂
Eat more! This sounds counter productive to what you’re trying to do, but eating smaller meals more frequently helps to increase the metabolism. The trick is to eat healthy, clean foods and not junk. I eat about every 3 hours. But I’m eating baked chicken with broccoli, healthy salads with no salad dressing or croutons, oatmeal with blueberries. I manage my macros, and eat for my goals.
Drink water. Drinking water helps to rid the body of fat, it helps to reduce bloating and that dreaded water weight. It keeps the skin clear and aids in digestion. I drink 3/4 of a gallon during the off-season and 1 gallon of water during my competition season.
Do your cardio. Cardio burns fat. it takes the body 20+ minutes to start burning fat during a cardio session, the first 20 min the body is using sugar and water to fuel the cardio exercise. So do your cardio for longer than 20 minutes. Currently I do 60 minutes of cardio per week. I break that up into 2 x 30 min sessions. As my season goes on, I’ll do cardio 6 days per week, sometimes twice per day. A normal amount of cardio for a non-competitor is about 3-4 days per week for 30-45 min.
Lift weights. Some people think that if a woman lifts weight, she will look like a man. That is a myth. Women don’t produce enough testosterone to build muscle like a man (unless she is taking steroids). Your diet is also not conducive to building that type of muscle. So lift your weights. Weight lifting burns 6x’s more calories during rest than cardio alone does. It doesn’t have to be heavy weight, just enough to work and tone the muscle. All of the bodies on the competition stage and some of the best ones in Hollywood, weight train.
Sleep. If you missed my last post on Getting Your Best Rest, check it out now. Rest is essential if for nothing else, the longer you are awake, the more you’ll eat. But also, when you’re on any fitness regime your body needs rest to recover and to reap all of the benefits of all of your hard work.
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Check out these great tips for getting in your best shape. Swimwear: Nager By Nic Hyl.
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