Anytime you exercise, you do so in order to try and
maintain good health. You also know that you have to
eat as well, so your body will have the energy it
needs to exercise and maintain for the everyday tasks
of life. For making the best of your exercise, what
you eat before and after you workout is very important.

No matter if you are going to be doing a cardio
workout or a resistance workout, you should always
make it a point to eat a balanced mix of protein and
carbohydrates. What makes that determining percentage
of carbs and protein you consume is whether or not
you are doing cardio or resistance exercise and the
intensity level that you plan to work at.

The ideal time for you to eat your pre workout meal
is an hour before you start. If you plan to work
at a low intensity level, you should keep your pre
workout meal down to 200 calories or so. If you
plan to exercise at a high level of intensity, you
will probably need your meal to be between 4,000
and 5,000 calories.

Those of you who are doing a cardio session will
need to consume a mix of 2/3 carbs and 1/3 protein.
Doing so will give you longer sustained energy from
the extra carbs with enough protein to keep your
muscle from breaking down while you exercise.

For resistance exercise, you’ll need to eat a mix
of 1/3 carbs and 2/3 protein, as this will help
you get plenty of energy from the carbs to perform
each set you do and the extra protein will help
keep muscle breakdown to a minimum while you
exercise.

Eating after you exercise is just as important as
your pre workout meal. Anytime you exercise,
whether its cardio or resistance, you deplete energy
in the form of glycogen. The brain and central
nervous system rely on glycogen as their main
source of fuel, so if you don’t replace it after
you exercise, your body will begin to break down
muscle tissue into amino acids, and then convert
them into usable fuel for the brain and the
central nervous system.

Keep in mind that mostly during resistance
exercise, you’ll break down muscle tissue by
creating micro tears. What this means, is that
after a workout, your muscles will instantly go
into repair mode. Protein is the key here for
muscle repair, as you don’t want muscle breaking
down even further to create fuel instead of
lost glycogen.

Once you have finished a cardio session, you’ll
need to consume mainly carbohydrates, preferably
those with high fiber. Rice, oatmeal, whole wheat
pasta, and northern fruits are excellent sources.
Also, try to consume 30 – 50 grams of there
types of carbs after you exercise. After your
cardio workout, it is fine to eat within 5 – 10
minutes.

Once you’ve finished a resistance workout, you
will need to consume a combination of carbs and
protein. Unlike cardio workouts, resistance
workouts will break down muscle tissue by creating
micro tears.

You’ll need protein as this happens to build up
and repair these tears so that the muscle can
increase in size and strength. The carbs will
not only replace the lost muscle glycogen, but
will also help the protein get into muscle cells
so it can synthesize into structural protein, or
the muscle itself.

After your resistance exercise, you should wait
up to 30 minutes before you eat, so that you won’t
take blood away from your muscles too fast. The
blood in your muscles will help the repair process
by removing the metabolic waste products.

Nothing beats waking up in the morning with the thought
of going to the gym to lift weights or jog on the
treadmill. After a hard days work, the gym is one
place you don’t even want to think about. Sometimes,
even the thought of exercising at home with your own
equipment can be less than desirable.

Sometimes, just trying to get and stay motivated to
exercise on a regular basis can be a challenge. No
matter how you look at it, exercise can be downright
boring and even tedious at times.

So, you may be wondering just how you can get the
motivation you need to exercise on a regular basis.
If you’ve been wondering what you can do to make
exercise more fun, you’ll find some ideas below that
just may help to make exercise more fun and a little
bit easier.

First things first, you should exercise with a friend.
You can challenge each other, help each other out,
keep each other motivated and on track, make each
other laugh or just make a game out of your exercise
programs.

You can also try something different. If you go
to the gym each and every day and use the same
piece of equipment or use the same piece of
equipment at home, you should try mixing things up.
Reverse your routine or just change the order of
your exercises.

Go to a city park that has playground equipment and
use the slide, climb on the monkey bars, do pull-
ups, hang from your knees, just let your imagination
guide you. You don’t always need to follow a strict
routine, just get out there and have fun working
your muscles.

An outdoor circuit in the park is also something
you can try. There are some parks that have circuit
courses set up with a planned course where all
you have to do is walk or jog to each station and
then follow the instructions. If there isn’t a
planned course, then you should do a combination
of jogging and walking, picking a distance of a
couple hundred feet. Jog 100 feet then drop and
do a couple of pushups, walk the next 100 feet
and then drop to do sit ups.

You can also ride a bike around your neighborhood
or hike on a hiking trail. A walk in the park or
around your neighborhood is also a great way to
get some exercise. Doing yoga in the park or on
a beach is also a nice and relaxing way to
exercise both your body and your mind.

Playing a competitive sport is also something you
can try. A lot of cities have team activities
such as softball, volleyball, tennis, soccer,
and so on. These types of activities will not
only provide you with good exercise but they will
also help you to meet new people as well.

When you exercise, try to picture your muscles
getting bigger. Research has shown that if you
focus all of your thoughts on the muscles that
you are working, they will respond better. Try
to watch them work with each repetition as your
muscles contract and relax.

As you can tell, there are plenty of ways you can
make exercise more fun and interesting. You don’t
need to follow the same routine day after day,
as you can do many other things to get in some
exercise.

The important thing is that you should always try
to incorporate exercise in any various form into
your everyday life and make these habits the kind
of habits that will last a lifetime.