An Alternative Healthy Lifestyle Means I Won’t Need Exercise
image credit: daniel morrison
There are so many ways to go about losing weight. One of the popular ones around is to live an alternative healthy lifestyle to shed the pounds. This can mean becoming a strict vegan or vegetarian, detoxing/fasting every so often, or turning to herbal medicine or supplements to drop the weight. There are many people who live the alternative healthy lifestyle and are quite fit. I have even read about fruitarians that have just as much muscle as a strength trainer that eats meat on a daily basis. What is important is doing enough research to be sure you are providing your body with what it needs to function in terms of vitamins, nutrients, good fats, etc., and to continue exercising.
Being healthy and not just “skinny”
It is easy for the average person trying to lose weight to assume that skinny = healthy. If you become a vegan, vegetarian, or fruitarian and reduce calorie intake, chances are you will lose a lot of weight. These types of lifestyles can lead to dramatic weight loss but in turn, without exercise, you are missing out on so many other benefits.
Exercise can:
- Build lean muscle
- Reduce stress
- Boost metabolism
- Improve your mood
- Reduce risk of heart attack and stroke
- Help you maintain a healthy weight
Don’t be fooled into thinking you won’t gain weight
It is still possible to gain weight even if you are a vegetarian or vegan. Just because you won’t be eating meat doesn’t mean you can’t overeat. A personal trainer I know once trained a woman who said she was vegetarian, yet she was significantly overweight. Many people believe since you are not eating meat there is no need to burn off calories. You can still put on weight if you’re eating excessive amounts of calories - healthy food or not. It’s about balance in your diet.
Choosing an alternative healthy lifestyle can be beneficial and work out well for certain people as far as maintaining a healthy weight. It’s important to learn more about the food requirements you may need since these types of diets can be deficient in certain vitamins/nutrients. I also feel it is important to include exercise as well and not use the lifestyle as a reason for not working out.
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Comments
Very good points! It is perfectly possible to be ’skinny fat’, where although you seem slim you still have relatively high body fat. Strength training is important for everyone because it means you keep hold of your important muscle mass while dropping body fat.
It’s worth pointing out that anyone doing strength training might not lose much - if any - weight on the scales, but will look and feel leaner and be much healthier.
As a vegetarian I can confirm that gaining weight is all too possible. Remember, cakes and chips are vegetarian foods!