​If you have ever had the goal to lose weight, you have probably tried to diet. However, there is a difference in watching your diet versus going on a diet. And there is a difference in going on a diet versus changing your lifestyle. If you're looking to lose weight and be a healthier you, it's time to look at your lifestyle instead of the latest diet trend.

The difference between diet and lifestyle

The biggest difference between going on a diet and changing your lifestyle is that a diet will always be short term, no matter how long you stay on it. While you may see the results you want on your diet, chances are that when you go back to "normal living," your weight will come back too. Diets, more times than not, are about restrictions, limitations, and cutting foods from your diet. But when you think long term, cutting out foods permanently doesn't seem like a very realistic option. 

A lifestyle change is long term, completely changing you're life. For example, if you like to enjoy a late night snack, a diet might have you completely cut out that food while a lifestyle change would be figuring out the best way to fuel your body. That might not mean cutting out that food, but maybe not eating it right before bed, and eating less of it. 

If you're looking for results that will stick, it's important that you work towards a lifestyle change.

Why fad diets don't work

Most diet plans consist of short term changes that can lead to fast weight loss. Often times, this means cutting calories, eliminating food groups, and depriving your body of the nutrients it needs to run at its best. And while you may get the results you are looking for, you have a higher chance of falling back into old patterns when you stop following the diet so strictly. 


The basics of diet plans can be cutting calories, carbs, and fats. Your body needs the right amount of calories. It needs carbs. It needs fats. There is no one way to change your lifestyle that will work for everyone, but it's important that that is what it is -- a lifestyle change.

How to change your lifestyle

Your first step should be determining your goal -- why are you making this change? If it's for weight loss, think about what your end goal looks like. Don't settle on the "perfect number" because when it comes to getting healthier, it's not always about the number on the scale. Once you have your goal, think about how you live now and what changes you will need to make in order to reach your goal. This could be drinking less soda, eating healthier alternatives, and moderation. Rather than cutting things from your diet, find out how you can make them healthier or stick to the portion recommendations; don't overindulge. 

Other helpful tips to change your lifestyle include:

• Control what you can. If you eat when you're emotional or stressed, find something new. Instead of turning to food when you're stressed, try going for a walk or picking up yoga. If you eat when you're feeling sluggish, try a short nap or finding an exercise to boost your energy.

 

• Practice mindful eating, not restricted eating. Mindful eating is taking a deeper look into your eating habits. Eat slower so you're body can recognize when it is getting full, and don't let yourself get over-full. Add in new foods like leafy greens or lean proteins. Examine menus for healthier options when out to eat. 

 

• Stay motivated. A long-term change is just that: long term. You will not see results overnight but if you stick with it -- you will see results that will last. One of the biggest differences between lifestyle changes and diets is purpose. Diets can help you lose weight, but if you're goal is to be healthier, finding your purpose can help you stay motivated for a lifestyle change. 

 

• Take charge at home. If you do the grocery shopping, buy things that will nourish your body, not just satisfy a craving. Spend more time in the produce aisles than the processed food aisles. Cook at home, and enjoy trying new recipes. Incorporate more fruits, veggies, proteins, and healthy fats into your diet. Plan ahead of time: meals, what you will eat at restaurants, snacks for a trip, etc.

The results of a lifestyle change are worth it, but it won't be easy. And starting will always be the hardest part of the journey. If you aren't sure where to start, talk to your health care provider about goals and nutritional changes that will work for you.

​Lack of Time

A perceived lack of time is one of the most common reasons people give up on fitness. It’s easy to feel as if you don’t have enough hours in the day to fit in a workout, especially if you have a demanding job, family obligations, or other commitments.

​Solution: Make fitness a priority and incorporate it into your daily routine. Don’t skip your workout, just as you wouldn’t skip an important meeting or appointment. Even if it’s only a 10-minute workout, it’s better than nothing! Consider getting up earlier, exercising during your lunch break, or involving your family in your fitness routine.

Lack of Motivation

A lack of motivation is another common reason people give up on fitness. It can be difficult to stay motivated when you aren’t seeing immediate results or are tired or stressed.

​Solution: Find a workout partner or hire a personal trainer  to hold you accountable and motivated. Set attainable goals for yourself and celebrate your accomplishments along the way. To keep things interesting, try new types of workouts and reward yourself when you reach milestones.

Injury or Pain

Injuries or chronic pain can make exercise difficult or impossible, causing many people to abandon their fitness goals.

Solution: Work with a physical therapist or trainer instead of pushing through the pain, to modify your workouts and find exercises that will not aggravate your injury or pain. Focus on low-impact activities such as swimming or yoga, and make sure to warm up and stretch properly before each workout.

Unrealistic Expectations

Setting unrealistic goals for yourself can lead to frustration and burnout, leading many people to abandon their fitness goals entirely.

Solution: Set reasonable goals for yourself and be patient with your progress. Remember that fitness is a journey, not a destination, and that seeing results takes time and effort. Celebrate your victories along the way, no matter how minor they may appear.

There are many reasons why people give up on fitness, but with the right mindset and strategies, you can overcome these obstacles and stay committed to your fitness goals!

​What Is a Calorie Deficit?

Calories are a measure of the amount of energy in food. All of the cells in your body require energy in order to work properly, just like a car needs fuel. They get that energy from the foods that you eat. Your body breaks down that food during digestion, releasing the energy that it contains. Those food calories – now converted to energy – power everything that you do: breathing, thinking, walking, sleeping, digesting, you name it.

But your body may not need to use all that energy right after you eat. It stores those extra calories – mostly as fat but also as carbohydrates – for later use. When you go to the gym, study hard for a test, or find yourself involved in any other energy-demanding activity, those stores provide the energy you need to power through.

If your activities burn fewer calories than you consume, those stores of extra calories will grow, and you will gain weight.

But the opposite is also true: You will lose weight if you burn more calories than you consume. That’s because doing so creates a calorie deficit. It forces your body to burn through the stores of fat that you have built up. This leads to weight loss. In fact, you won’t lose weight without a calorie deficit.

What Should Your Calorie Deficit Be?

A good rule of thumb for healthy weight loss is a deficit of about 500 calories per day. That should put you on course to lose about 1 pound per week. This is based on a starting point of at least 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day for women, and 1,500 to 1,800 calories a day for men. It can be unhealthy to take in less than that per day. Talk to your doctor about the minimum calories you need.

Keep in mind that you may not need a calorie deficit at all. You only need it if you want to lose weight for health or other reasons. Always talk to your doctor before you start a weight loss plan, especially if you have health problems.

How to Reach a Calorie Deficit to Lose Weight

Reaching a calorie deficit sounds simple: Eat fewer calories than your body needs. But to do that, you must first find out what those needs amount to: How many calories do you burn each day? Once you have established that, you take that total number of calories and subtract from it the number of calories necessary to achieve the calorie deficit you desire.

An example: Let’s say you find that you need roughly 2,000 calories a day, and you want to lose about 1 pound per week. You could do this by eating about 500 fewer calories every day. Your goal, then, is to eat 1,500 calories daily. That creates a 500-calorie deficit.

There’s another way. Instead of eating fewer calories on a daily basis, you instead increase the amount of exercise you do so that you burn 500 more calories every day. The result: You need 2,500 calories daily, but you keep consuming 2,000 calories. You have created that same 500-calorie deficit.

You also can mix and match: Increase the amount of exercise you do daily to burn, say, 200 more calories while cutting 300 calories from your daily diet. Your calorie deficit: 500.

These basic examples simply explain how it’s done. The best way to create – and maintain – your calorie deficit is the way that works for you.

Keep in mind that your calorie needs depend on several things: your age, sex, height, weight, and exercise habits. This calculator can help you figure out your daily calorie requirements. 

Other things that determine your calorie needs:

Your metabolic rate. This is how quickly or slowly you burn calories at rest. It varies widely from person to person.

Some health conditions. Hypothyroidism, in which your thyroid gland is underactive, slows metabolism. So does Cushing’s syndrome, a condition that’s caused by having too much of the hormone cortisol.

Remember, creating too much of a calorie deficit is a bad idea.

It can cause several side effects, including:

Constipation
Dehydration
Fatigue
Headaches
Nausea

It may also leave you feeling "hangry": angry because you’re hungry.

Along with those side effects, an oversized calorie deficit will be harder for your body to adjust to and harder for you to maintain. You’ll likely be more successful over the long haul with a significant but sustainable calorie deficit.

Strength training is an important part of an overall fitness program. Here's what strength training can do for you — and how to get started.

Want to reduce body fat, increase lean muscle mass and burn calories more efficiently? Strength training to the rescue! Strength training is a key component of overall health and fitness for everyone.

Use it or lose it

Lean muscle mass naturally diminishes with age.

Your body fat percentage will increase over time if you don't do anything to replace the lean muscle you lose over time. Strength training can help you preserve and enhance your muscle mass at any age.

Strength training may also help you:

• Develop strong bones. By stressing your bones, strength training can increase bone density and reduce the risk of osteoporosis.
• Manage your weight. Strength training can help you manage or lose weight, and it can increase your metabolism to help you burn more calories.
• Enhance your quality of life. Strength training may enhance your quality of life and improve your ability to do everyday activities. Strength training can also protect your joints from injury. Building muscle also can contribute to better balance and may reduce your risk of falls. This can help you maintain independence as you age.
• Manage chronic conditions. Strength training can reduce the signs and symptoms of many chronic conditions, such as arthritis, back pain, obesity, heart disease, depression and diabetes.
• Sharpen your thinking skills. Some research suggests that regular strength training and aerobic exercise may help improve thinking and learning skills for older adults.

Consider the options

Strength training can be done at home or in the gym. Common choices may include:

• Body weight. You can do many exercises with little or no equipment. Try pushups, pullups, planks, lunges and squats.
• Resistance tubing. Resistance tubing is inexpensive, lightweight tubing that provides resistance when stretched. You can choose from many types of resistance tubes in nearly any sporting goods store or online.
• Free weights. Barbells and dumbbells are classic strength training tools. If you don't have weights at home, you can use soup cans. Other options can include using medicine balls or kettle bells.
• Weight machines. Most fitness centers offer various resistance machines. You can invest in weight machines for use at home, too.
• Cable suspension training. Cable suspension training is another option to try. In cable suspension training, you suspend part of your body — such as your legs — while doing body weight training such as pushups or planks.

Getting started

If you have a chronic condition, or if you're older than age 40 and you haven't been active recently, check with your doctor before beginning a strength training or aerobic fitness program.

Before beginning strength training, consider warming up with brisk walking or another aerobic activity for five or 10 minutes. Cold muscles are more prone to injury than are warm muscles.

Choose a weight or resistance level heavy enough to tire your muscles after about 12 to 15 repetitions. When you can easily do more repetitions of a certain exercise, gradually increase the weight or resistance.

Research shows that a single set of 12 to 15 repetitions with the proper weight can build muscle efficiently in most people and can be as effective as three sets of the same exercise. As long as you take the muscle you are working to fatigue — meaning you can't lift another repetition — you are doing the work necessary to make the muscle stronger. And fatiguing at a higher number of repetitions means you likely are using a lighter weight, which will make it easier for you to control and maintain correct form.

To give your muscles time to recover, rest one full day between exercising each specific muscle group.

Also be careful to listen to your body. If a strength training exercise causes pain, stop the exercise. Consider trying a lower weight or trying it again in a few days.

It's important to use proper technique in strength training to avoid injuries. If you're new to strength training, work with a trainer or other fitness specialist to learn correct form and technique. Remember to breathe as you strength train.

When to expect results

You don't need to spend hours a day lifting weights to benefit from strength training. You can see significant improvement in your strength with just two or three 20- or 30-minute strength training sessions a week.

For most healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends these exercise guidelines:

• Aerobic activity. Get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week, or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity. The guidelines suggest that you spread out this exercise during the course of a week. Greater amounts of exercise will provide even greater health benefits. But even small amounts of physical activity are helpful. Being active for short periods of time throughout the day can add up to provide health benefits.
• Strength training. Do strength training exercises for all major muscle groups at least two times a week. Aim to do a single set of each exercise, using a weight or resistance level heavy enough to tire your muscles after about 12 to 15 repetitions.

​As you incorporate strength training exercises into your fitness routine, you may notice improvement in your strength over time. As your muscle mass increases, you'll likely be able to lift weight more easily and for longer periods of time. If you keep it up, you can continue to increase your strength, even if you're not in shape when you begin.

​Making the decision to invest in healthy lifestyle changes is more than just flipping a switch. Making sustainable lifestyle changes is a process that takes time, dedication, and patience. Psychologists have found that it takes an average of 66 days for a new habit to become automatic, but the truth is that building and maintaining lifestyle changes is highly dependent on each individual. For this reason, it is important to set up your lifestyle changes to work with your life and to give yourself grace as you find the rhythm that works for you. However, there are some easy strategies that can help you develop a lifestyle change plan that works for you.

1. Focus on the whole picture
Lifestyle changes are like a puzzle. There are many pieces that must add up to the whole picture. Building habits in only one area of the puzzle will leave your overall picture lacking dimension. Your physical, mental, and emotional health all work together to make and break lifestyle changes, so it is important to understand how they all interact when setting up your lifestyle change plan.

• Sleep – The average adult should try to sleep 7-9 hours each night. During restful sleep, your body has time to regenerate and recharge. This time is integral to the success of making a lifestyle change; Lack of sleep can result in irritability, cravings, and fatigue, all of which can derail a successful lifestyle change.
• Water – Hydration is the key to most of your bodily functions. Without staying hydrated, neither your body nor your mind will be working with the lifestyle change process. So, grab a big water bottle and hydrate!
• Stress – By taking care of your body, you are naturally signaling to your brain that your overall stress levels can decrease. A new habit can reinforce your stress management system and will ultimately lead to overall stress management success. Focus on finding manageable habits you can integrate into your daily routine. You can build on those strong core routines as you continue to reach for your long-term goals.
• Consumption – Nutrition is an important element of the puzzle. When we charge our body with healthy ingredients, we can focus on building and maintaining healthy habits. When we fuel with junk food, we will inevitably crash and fall off the lifestyle change wagon. Focus on finding healthy replacements for junk food that you can actually sustain.
• Exercise – Staying active affects your physical and mental health. By finding fun ways to stay active, you provide additional endorphins that help your brain and body function at peak performance!

2. Set realistic and achievable goals
The goals you set for yourself are integral to your overall success in changing your lifestyle. Focus on setting goals that are realistic. Instead of expecting to run a marathon in six months, shoot for running a 5K and work up to the marathon. Setting realistic goals that you can achieve and then building on them will help you maintain momentum and stay motivated.

3. Create daily structured activities related to the goals
Building activities into your day helps you stay on track with your goals. Instead of assuming you will figure it out in the moment, plan fun activities you can look forward to throughout the day that pertain to your goal!

4. Make habits that you can keep
For most people, it is unrealistic to assume that you will always be at peak motivation. So, think about how you can build habits that are sustainable in your life, even when you aren’t on the health kick. Learning to swap out junk food for healthier options is one habit that you can likely maintain even when you aren’t constantly in the mood to go to the gym. Here are few fun alternatives you can try to get started:

• Swap out sandwiches for open faced sandwiches- cutting out half the carbs in your sandwich makes a huge difference in your nutritional balance
• Swap seltzer for soda- you can save over 20 grams of sugar by making the switch
• Swap Greek yogurt for sour cream- not only do you save calories, but you also add healthy probiotics to the recipe!
• Swap an apple for your bagel- having a morning apple and peanut butter instead of a peanut butter bagel saves calories, carbs, and adds nutrients to a balanced diet

5. Adopt new habits slowly and build on success
Building habits takes time. Be patient with yourself and understand that the fastest way forward isn’t always the smartest way forward. The goal in creating lifestyle changes isn’t to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. The goal is to build habits that are sustainable in your everyday life. So, give yourself time to start small and build on success so that the end result is rock solid.

6. Find a lifestyle buddy
One of the easiest ways to make lifestyle changes is to do it with a partner! Find a buddy that is committed to the process and can keep you accountable. This will help you think of new habits to build, keep you motivated, and give you someone to talk to about the journey.

7. Track progress
An easy way to fail to change is by not tracking progress. Tracking progress is crucial to continued success, as it shows you how far you’ve come and where you want to go. Track your progress so you can learn from setbacks, see common trends, and have a pathway to success.

8. Change one behavior at a time
You don’t have to do it all at once! In fact, it’s nearly impossible to make lifestyle changes that last if you are doing them all at the same time. Making lifestyle changes requires patience and dedication. Your brain is learning a new skill and needs time and focus to build those neuropathways. So, focus on building one behavior at a time.

9. Learn about balanced nutrition and find the balance that works for you
Every person’s body responds to food differently, and not all metabolisms work the same. Cutting calories isn’t the only way to get healthy, and in fact many diets that cut out entire food groups are unhealthy. Your body needs a healthy balance of nutrients, including healthy fats and carbs. Finding a nutritional balance that works for you will help you stay motivated and build sustainable change into your life.

10. Find your why
Finding your why is the single greatest thing you can do if you want to make your lifestyle change easy. By discovering what your deepest goal is, you can stay motivated and positive during the process. When setting goals, it is helpful to focus on overall health and lifestyle. Whether your stay motivated with numerical indicators such as weight management or how much you can bench, or with hobbies and daily activities like being able to run with your friends or play with your grandkids, finding your deepest why will help you build habits that last.

​Two of the most common reasons people give for not exercising is lack of time and not knowing what type of exercise they should be doing. This is what leads many people to hire a personal trainer—they want an expert tell them how to achieve their goals. Typically, they also want to know how to do it in the most time-efficient manner possible. 

While single-joint, isolation exercises are ideal for people who have the inclination or time to sculpt the perfect body, they simply aren’t that effective for maximizing the calorie burning effects of exercise. If a client’s goal is improving his or her overall fitness level, compound exercises that feature multijoint movements involving more than a single muscle group can be extremely effective for realizing benefits from all three categories of fitness: cardiovascular, strength and flexibility. Knowing how to use compound exercises can give you specific strategies and techniques for helping your time-strapped clients. 

Here are five benefits of compound exercises, along with suggested exercises to help your clients experience the maximum benefits from a limited amount of exercise time. 

1. Compound exercises burn more calories.

The body expends 5 calories of energy to consumer 1 liter of oxygen. Exercises that involve more muscle tissue require more oxygen, which helps the body increase its net energy expenditure.

2. Compound exercises improve intermuscular coordination.

This is the function and timing of multiple muscles around a joint or joints. Consider, for example, the gluteal complex (gluteus maximus, medius and minimus), which is responsible for controlling motion of the hip. Compound exercises such as squats, lunges or steps that move the hips in all three planes can improve how all of the muscles work together to produce and control force.

3. Compound exercises elevate the heart rate and provide a cardiovascular training benefit.

The purpose of cardiovascular exercise is to improve the ability of the heart to function as a pump. This can be accomplished through activities such as running and cycling, or by doing exercises that involve a significant amount of muscle tissue. Sitting in a leg-extension machine doing knee extensions or performing biceps curls with dumbbells uses only a limited amount of muscle tissue; these exercises are more appropriate for focusing on isolated strength. Squats to shoulder presses, medicine ball chops or burpees are all examples of compound exercises that involve large amounts of muscle tissue, which challenges the heart to pump blood to keep the muscles fueled and active.

4. Compound exercises are a form of dynamic flexibility.

When most people think of flexibility they picture static stretching. While holding a muscle in a lengthened position can be effective for reducing tension in a muscle, it also reduces neurologic activity, which is not recommended prior to dynamic activity. Any exercise that involves an active range of motion can be considered a form of dynamic stretching, which involves moving a joint through a range of motion to lengthen the surrounding tissue. As muscles on one side of a joint contract, the muscles on the opposite side have to lengthen to allow contraction to occur. Over the course of a number of repetitions, the contractions and activity in the involved muscles elevate the temperature and inhibit activity, which reduces tension and improves length.

5. Compound exercises improve movement efficiency.

Have you ever noticed that body builders move robotically? This is because training only one muscle group at a time does not teach multiple muscle groups to coordinate their contractions and firing rates, which is how muscles actually contract. Compound exercises that involve large groups of muscles teach the muscles how to coordinate the firing of the motor units responsible for timing muscle contractions. Compound exercises can actually help your clients improve their movement skills and dynamic balance, which can actually help improve overall quality of life.

​Some of us are early birds, and some of us are night owls. We should just live and let live, right? While that may be true, there are many proven health benefits of waking up early. We should take these into account if we want better health and increased energy. Rising early and getting moving outside in the morning sunshine, for say a walk, hike, bike ride or run, correlates with many other health benefits. These include better dietary choices, improved quality of sleep and better mental health.
If you are still not feeling convinced, let’s take a look at what science has to say about this issue, and who knows, maybe you’ll transform into an early bird by choice by the end of this article.

Benefits of Waking Up Early: You Make Healthier Food Choices

I completely understand the appeal of pressing the snooze button a few times to squeeze in some extra shut eye. Before you know it, though, you can lose a few hours from your morning. This means you may skip breakfast and eat lunch instead. However, your body needs to be given a chance to absorb as many healthy nutrients as it can first thing in the morning. In fact, several studies have proven that breakfast kick-starts your metabolism and helps you burn more calories throughout the day.


Improved Mental Health


Talking about health only in terms of physical shape is a huge misconception that needs to change. Being mentally and emotionally stable is the prerequisite for having good overall health. Well, waking up early can help with that. A study conducted out of London found that morning people are healthier and happier. A second study suggested that getting up early improves your problem-solving skills and helps you deal with negative thoughts better. All of this leads to less stress, and therefore, minimizes the chances of developing various stress-related health problems over time.


Mornings are Perfect Time to Exercise


All of us have our own preferred time to get our daily dose of workout, but what if I told you that you will get the most perks out of morning training session? For a start, exercising in the morning lowers the risk of low blood sugar, when compared to afternoon workout.
It also boosts your strength and performance for the rest of your day. Other things that might attract you to break some sweat early one are enhancing your metabolism, helping the cultivating consistency of your workout, improving your physical and mental strength, and provides you with better sleep quality.

Health Benefits of Waking Up Early: Those Who do Sleep Better

Night owls usually finish their day by binge-watching Netflix, worrying or doing some activity that makes their falling asleep more difficult and their sleep patterns interrupted. Unlike them, most early risers stick to a consistent sleep schedule.
The good news is that you can train your brain to become an early bird. First, you can try to establish a consistent sleeping routine, which will include relaxing pre-bed activities, like taking a warm bath or reading a book. Another useful thing to have is a sleep mask. The evidence we have so far supports the thesis that wearing sleep mask increases the length of the REM cycle and prevents disruption in sleep patterns.


You’ll Be More Likely To Develop Good Habits


A team of researchers observed the link between the time of waking up and substance use. It turned out that early risers are less prone to use drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol. While the research was done on adolescent girls, it is relevant for everyone, because one good habit encourages another one – think of it as a line of dominos where one is leaning onto another. The absence of substance abuse will naturally affect your health in a good way.


More Motivated


Motivation is vital for everything you do, ranging from exercising to your career. An experiment conducted at Harvard University showed that early risers are more proactive than late risers. This affects your success at everything you do, creates positive thinking patterns, and helps you be more confident. Consequently, getting up at the similar time early every morning minimizes stress and negative thoughts which can be harmful to your health.


It Gives You Time to Actually Wake Up


Do you ever get the feeling that you are still sleeping when you arrive at your office? You need hours to be really prepared to do the work you are paid to do and to even talk with your coworkers. This is known as sleep inertia. The period between sleep and full wakefulness. According to research, it can last up to four hours. During this time many cognitive tasks, such as memory, reaction speed, attention, and alertness, are impaired. So, when you get up earlier, you have enough time to overcome the sleep inertia. In turn, be at your best when it is needed. Personally, I think this is one of the best health benefits of waking up early.

Final Thought

These are just a few of the health benefits of being an early bird. I have not even begun to scratched the surface of additional perks which can impact quality of life. Such as having more time, reducing that long commute to work, and much more. Now that you see there are some benefits, at least try to change your sleeping habits, and enjoy a healthy and happy life to the fullest.

​















​1) Fatigue and Weakness

Fatigue and weakness is the first sign.  If you don't feel as strong in the gym or during any physical activity. Protein is crucial for muscle growth and repair.

2) Brittle Hair, Skin, and Nails

Brittle hair, skin, and nails is another sign. Insufficient protein intake can lead to weaker nails, thinning hair, and dry skin.

3) Constant Sugar and Carb Cravings

Constant sugar/carb cravings is the third sign. This one hits me like a truck. If you don't eat enough protein you will overeat on so much sugar but you won't be satisfied until you get your protein in.

4) Constant Hunger

Are you constantly hungry? It could be because you aren't fueling your body with enough protein. Eating enough protein will keep you fuller for longer and leave you more satisfied.

Science Has Found a Link Between Protein and Weight Loss

According to clinical trials, consuming more protein than the recommended dietary allowance not only reduces body weight (BW), but also enhances body composition by decreasing fat mass while preserving fat-free mass (FFM) in both low-calorie and standard-calorie diets.

Aim for 20 to 30 Grams Per Meal

How much protein should you aim for?  Protein needs depend on body size, gender, and of course activity level. Most people will benefit from at least 20 grams of protein per meal (women) and 30 grams per meal (men). If that isn't enough for the day, then make up more at snack time.

Protein Helps with Hunger and Fullness

For most individuals who are trying to lean out, we want to make sure that your protein intake is high because that will help with hunger and fullness. It'll also help preserve your muscle mass. And if you are lifting weights and you are training, it'll help you build muscle and recover. So we want to make sure that's higher.

Stick to Lean Fats

And, if you are trying to lean out, keep your protein lean, making sure the ratio of fat is lower. Fat just tends to be a more expensive macronutrient. In one gram of protein, there are four calories. In one gram of fat, there are nine calories. So if you're someone who's used to eating fattier pieces of steak, if you're eating darker meat, then you're going to have higher fat content. So it just comes down to if I eat a leaner source of protein, if I switch to non-fat Greek yogurt, if I switch to 1% cottage cheese, if I'm aware of those things, you're going to be able to increase the amount of it that you're eating without driving up your calories.

​It is well established that resistance training offers many important health benefits, including improved health, reduced risk factors for developing a chronic disease and an improved ability to perform activities of daily life. Unfortunately, many adults over the age of 50—including those who are physically active—miss out on these benefits because they mistakenly believe that resistance training with weights is only for the young and fit. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. 

In fact, the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, includes the following recommendation: 

“Adults should also do muscle-strengthening activities of moderate or greater intensity and that involve all major muscle groups on two or more days a week, as these activities provide additional health benefits. As part of their weekly physical activity, older adults should do multicomponent physical activity that includes balance training as well as aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities.” 

A group of researchers set out to determine how following these guidelines affects mortality. They used data from the 1997–2001 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) linked to death certificate data (for study participants) through 2011. According to the data, older adults who performed strength training at least two times per week had 46% lower odds of dying for any reason compared to those who did not participate in strength training. Furthermore, adults in the survey who performed regular strength training had 41% lower odds of cardiac death and an almost 20% lower risk of dying from cancer. Additionally, those who participated in strength training were more likely to have a normal body weight, engage in aerobic exercise and abstain from alcohol and tobacco. 

Clearly, if you are looking for a way to improve your health, enhance your quality of life and increase your overall lifespan, you should consider adding more resistance training to your current level of physical activity. And if you’re still unconvinced that strength training is important, here are six reasons why you should reconsider, especially if you are over the age of 50: 

1) There is a difference between training for muscle size (hypertrophy) and training for strength. While performing a high number of repetitions can result in hypertrophy, for adults over the age of 50, the focus should be on improving muscular strength by lifting more weight. Using heavier resistance for fewer repetitions can enhance the strength of a muscle without significantly increasing its size. 

2) Resistance-training machines allow seniors to safely use greater amounts of resistance than free weights might. Strength training is safe for everyone, and machines allow for great benefits with a low risk of injury. 

3) Compound, multijoint exercises such as the leg press, shoulder press, seated row, chest press and lat pull-down can improve muscular coordination by improving the ability of many muscles to work together to generate and control high levels of force through multiple joints. 

4) Resistance training can elevate levels of anabolic, or muscle-building, hormones—specifically testosterone, growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which help repair muscle fibers damaged during exercise. Regardless of your age, strength training can help your body become more efficient at producing the hormones that help build and repair muscle.

5) Lifting heavy weights increases the hormone IGF-1, which is related to the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). This protein is responsible for stimulating the growth of new neurons in the brain and enhancing communication between existing pathways. In short, lifting heavy could make you smarter by boosting levels of brain-building chemicals. 

6) Resistance training with heavy weights can improve your self-confidence. Knowing that you can lift heavy stuff gives you the confidence that you can handle everyday challenges, such as placing luggage in the overhead bin on an airplane, moving a heavy piece of furniture or carrying heavy grocery bags. 

Resistance-training Guidelines 

To reap the greatest benefits from resistance training—at any age—the focus should be on using enough weight to cause fatigue within six to 12 repetitions. Fatigue means the muscles are unable to complete another repetition, and the best results from resistance training occur when exercise is performed to the point of fatigue. 

While all exercise provides general health benefits, regular resistance training is one of the quickest ways to achieve the specific benefits identified above. To learn more about resistance training or to get started with a program designed specifically for you, contact us today.