In the immortal words of Britney Spears, if you want a great body, you have to work for it! The good news if you can find a range of tactics and strategies for optimising the health and look of your body below. Keep reading to find out what they are.
Integrate strength training into your regime
Strength training is crucial for those looking to optimise their body. There are a wide range of benefits to strength training too from improving fitness, to increasing bone dentistry, boosting posture, and increasing your metabolism.
There are also a range of ways you can include strength training into your workout routine including kettlebells, dumbbells, resistance bands and even using weight benches at home or in the gym.
Make exercise part of your day
You already know that fitness is an essential part of achieving the best body possible. However, there are some tactics that can help you integrate it into your day easily. The first is to take the opportunity to walk wherever possible whether this is to work each day, to pick your kids up from school, or even during breaks while you are working in an office or from home. Try and get around 30 mins of walking done every day to start and then build up from there.
Another great way to make sure you integrate exercise into your daily life is to find an activity that is fun. For some people that means swapping out a daily run for a daily dance class because they will be concentrating so hard on getting the right moves, and enjoying being part of the class community that they will totally forget they are working up a sweat.
Plan your meals
While it would be lovely to eat whatever we want and not have to worry about how it affects our bodies, the reality of life is that this is just not the case. In fact, what we eat affects not only how our bodies look but how healthy it is in the long term and how we feel each day. To that end, eating well and nourishing our bodies is one of the most vital things we can do.
One way of making sure we are eating well, and providing the balanced nutrition that our bodies need is to plan out meals ahead of time. The great news is that meal planning can provide you with a range of other benefits too such as saving time, reducing waste and saving money. This is because when you know what you need to shop for during the week, you’re less likely to buy ingredients you don’t need and will end up as waste.
When meal planning you’ll need to make sure you include several different things. One of these is ensuring you have protein with every meal such as lean meat or tofu. It’s important to include protein in each meal because it not only fills you up but it helps your body to build and repair muscles.
Adding fruits and/or veggies is also crucial if you want to achieve your best body. Indeed, fruits and vegetables are packed with fibre which can help control appetite, and essential vitamins and minerals such as antioxidants which help counter oxidative stress and so fight ageing.
Take some time for self-care
Self-care is crucial if you want to achieve your best body for two major reasons. The first is that if you want to look your best you will need to put the time in and complete self-care tasks such as regularly moisturising, doing facials, filing the dry skin from your heels, and applying fake tan.
Secondly, spending this time caring for your body can help you build up a more positive relationship with it. Indeed, such care not only sends a message to your body and brain that your body matters and is worth investing time in, but it helps you to become more familiar with it as well.
Consider an aesthetic procedure
Some people may also wish to consider getting an aesthetic procedure, as this can also help you achieve your best body. Indeed, aesthetics work such as a coolsculpting procedure can be very useful for those that have stubborn issues like belly or chin fat that just will not budge, despite living a healthy lifestyle. One of the best things about coolsculpting is that it is a non-invasive non surgical treatment where no anaesthetic is needed, while at the same time, it can be used to target many different body areas.
Work on your posture
Posture is crucial to achieving your best body. This is because of both health and aesthetic reasons. For example, a slouching posture can compress disks in the back and neck and cause pain, as well as prevent full movement of the lungs and stop enough oxygen from getting around the body. Chronic bad posture can also lead to a condition known as laptop neck where a hump forms from looking down at devices all day.
One way to minimise the risk of poor posture is to make sure that you use ergonomic solutions when accessing your devices such as the proper desk set-up. Additionally, there are a range of types of exercise that can be great for promoting good posture including yoga, pilates, and core workouts.
Prioritise sleep
Getting enough sleep is crucial to your well-being and to achieving and maintaining your best body. This is because it’s during sleep that the body heals, cleanses and repairs itself, so if you are not getting enough shut-eye then your body will not be able to do these things properly.
To that end, you need to embrace good sleep hygiene which means going to bed and getting up at a set time each day. It also means allowing yourself to have some downtime where you relax before you expect to drift off to sleep. At this time it’s best to put your phone and other devices away, and do things like read, meditate or take a bath as these can help regulate your nervous system and calm you down so drifting off into a restful sleep is not so difficult.
