Deep Beauty vs Skin Deep Beauty

But whoever said there’s only one reason to be fit anyway?  There are lots and looking great is one of them.  But I bet you heard the one about beauty being only skin-deep, didn’t you?  Not true is it?  Fitness beauty is best and longer lasting.  24 hour fitness and 24 hour beauty are twins.  So, a fitness program is a beauty program.

Beauty Fitness is More Than Skin Deep

 Likewise, there’s a ton of good reasons to be healthier.  Such as, maybe someone had a health scare and their physician advised them to workout or die.  Sounds like a great motivator to me.  Or maybe they just want to be fitter so they can cycle, swim or hike better with their new boy or girl friend.  Or maybe they want to look better for the beach or holiday, or whatever.

In practice, we probably all have more than one motive for getting fit.  So what?  Whatever turns you on is the key thing.  And the idea of looking good and being more attractive sounds just fine.

Working Hard to Avoid Working Hard

For millions of individuals, the first and probably only aim of looking better means losing excess weight.  So dieting is often the first port of call.   Unfortunately, for many it is also the last.  I don’t mean that a single diet is their last but that their efforts stop at dieting.  In fact, they generally try lots and lots of diets, moving from one to another.  If you are still tempted, read the article Diet Voodoo instead.

The snag is that the thought of fighting the flab by going to a gym is so inconvenient, isn’t it?  Factor in the effort, the sweat, the discomfort, the embarrassment and the cost and it doesn’t sound an overwhelming attraction for everyone, does it?  So, maybe a better alternative really is that new diet system that’s all the rage?   If this is you, read that article Diet Voodoo now!

Back To the Drawing Board

But with any sense, you already know that it won’t work for long.  So maybe you think there’s something wrong with your willpower?  That’s not exactly a confidence boosting thought is it?  But you also know that confidence compensation with chocolates doesn’t work.  So maybe there is an even better diet?

Perhaps you tried a low-carb Atkins-type diet.  That seems to work.  A concentration on protein and fat at least makes cutting calories more palatable without feeling starved.  Sure enough, you lost weight for a while.  Mainly water.  But that can’t go on for long, can it?  You also lost muscle, which is a big, big problem.  Another snag is that cutting calories also cuts a whole variety of healthy foods and vital nutrients.

From Floppy to Floppier

But the worst thing is that it didn’t work for long either, did it? 

In the end, the reason it failed is just the same as with all those other low-calorie diets.  That is, starving the body in this way also starves your muscles.  This happens because muscle burns calories.  But in order to cope with the reduced intake of calories, the defence mechanism of the body slows this down by reducing the expenditure of energy.  This loses muscle, reduces the metabolism and slows the loss of weight.

This is unhealthy.  And from the point of weight loss it is also completely counter-productive.  The reason is that because muscle burns calories, a reduction of muscle decreases the metabolic rate.  Consequently, the body is even less capable of burning fat than previously. 

Looking Good or Looking Grim?

From the point of view of looking good this has the unintended consequence that a ‘successful dieter’ usually looks thin but grim.  In fact, the lack of muscle and muscle tone can make someone look sick and so listless and gaunt they can hardly smile.  Even worse, continuing in this manner really will make them ill. 

Fortunately, most dieters can’t cope with the lack of calories and eventually break the diet.  This is a good result because it is almost impossible to reduce calories indefinitely like this. 

But the typical effect is that all the weight loss is put back on again.  Usually, this is amazingly rapid.  In fact, if this has happened to you, you will have frequently weighed more at this point than at the start of the diet!

Unwanted but Great Success

But the diet was stunningly successful in two ways.

The first ‘success’ is that because of the loss of muscle and the reduced metabolism, your body has now become even better at storing fat!  That’s right.  You’re now an even better fat-storing machine!  This is why you now weigh more than before.  Bad LUC has struck again (the Law of Unintended Consequences).

The second ‘success’ is that you managed to put-off starting out with the right program of exercise workouts.  And that could have been one of the aims, couldn’t it?

You Don’t Like Exercise?

Sure, that’s why some people will try almost any pill, paste, potion or new diet that hits the headlines instead, isn’t it?  In fact, there’s apparently no end to the amount of money and trouble that some people will go through to avoid it.

That’s their problem.  Why make it yours? 

Maybe they never found the right exercise plan.  Whatever.  For you it really boils down to a simple question.  Do you prefer being overweight, unhealthy, out of condition or even broke through investing in so many in silly diets, treatments or surgery rather than the right excise?  Do you prefer being out-of-condition 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to a regular 40-minute workout 4 times a week for less than 3 hours a week in total?

Either work hard at ruining your life or work hard at improving and even saving it.  Tough choice, don’t you think?

The Real Route to Success

The real route to success is to plan a modest reduction of calories along with a big increase in exercise.  In other words, this is the opposite of the usual route where near-starvation diets are relied upon with little or no exercise.  The good news is that exercising commonly creates its own ‘high’.  So that after a while you find that missing a session gives you a bad ‘conscience’.

But in all essentials, there’s no way of avoiding the core solution: eat sensibly and exercise regularly.  This will get you fit and slim and keep you fit and slim.

The Magic Ingredient

In other words, there’s no mystery to it, only lots of exercise and sensible eating.  But what is sensible eating?  No mystery there either.  Reduce sugar, salt and alcohol and eliminate transfats.  Eat smaller nutritional meals regularly and drink water between meals and at meals.  Is that really so difficult?

Of course, it’s possible to do a lot more.  How much more depends partly on your current condition and partly on how fit or slim you want to be.  But even if you don’t give up all the bad stuff absolutely and forever, you can still be fitter, much fitter, and slimmer than previously.  The combination of sensible eating and regular exercising will make sure of that.  Take a look at the Great Food Ideas articles.

Even better news is that eating right and exercising right reinforce each other.  Each makes it harder to ‘forget’ the other and at the same time makes it easier to do the other.  This gives a tremendous boost to confidence.  This is not just a nice feeling.  You are more confident because you feel better and you feel better because you are better.

Even better, you did it all yourself.  You are the only magic ingredient there is.

How Fit is Your Face?

But as well as being slimmer, fitter, more confident, feeling better about yourself and looking great, maybe there is more you would like to do?  For example, is your face fit?

Your face has muscles just like the rest of you.  So have you tried a combination of massage, skin care and facial exercises?

In other words, facial fitness can easily be combined with physical fitness to make a total fitness program.  The best, fast and safer way to do this is to avoid weights and machines the Fitnessblasting way.  If you have any doubts about this, click this link now.

Remember:

• You Don’t Have To Be A Fanatic To Be Fit!
• If You Can Move, You Can Improve!

You don’t have to live in the gym to get fit or spend mad hours working out.  All you need to know is the know-how.  Get the Know-How now.

Regards

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