Physical fitness is a very important part of everyone's life. Being physically active, as well as having a well balanced diet are both major parts of physical fitness. There are four types of health related fitness. These include cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance, body composition, and flexibility. Cardiorespitory endurance is the ability of the bodies circulatory and respiratory systems to provide fuel to the body during physical activities. To improve your cardiorespitory endurance, a person should do activities such as walking, swimming or bicycling. Muscular strength is the ability of the muscles to produce force during an activity.
To improve your muscular strength try lifting weights or choosing to take the stairs more often. Muscular endurance is the ability of the muscles to perform without getting tired. Body composition is the amount of muscle, fat, bone, and other organs in the body. A person's body weight may not change, but that number does not tell how much is fat and how much is muscle. Body composition is a very important part of physical health. Flexibility is the range of motion around a joint. Having good flexibility will help to prevent injuries during physical activity. Once a person is efficient in all of these areas, they are considered to have good physical fitness.
Good nutrition is one significant part of fitness, and something that most Americans are not getting enough of. One major part of healthy eating is calories. A calorie is a way to measure how much energy a food is providing to your body. The amount of calories per serving of food can be found on the label of the food that you are eating. A person also has to watch out for calories from fat. The calorie from fat number tells you how many calories in that serving are coming from fat. For most people, no more than 30% of all the calories they eat in a day should come from fat.
So if a person eats 2,000 calories a day, no more than 600 of these calories should come from fat. How many calories per day a person should have depends on age, gender, weight, and amount of physical activity you plan to do that day. Since calories are the amount of energy in the food a person is eating, a person who is more active should have a greater intake of calories than a less active person. This is true because when a person consumes calories, your body is storing the energy it has just taken it, and this energy can be used, or “burnt off” during physical activities.
If a person consumes to many calories but does not do enough physical exercise, these calories will turn into fat, so a person who is not doing a lot of physical activity, and taking in too many calories has a higher risk of obesity and other health related issues, as well as mental and emotional issues. On the other hand, if a person who is physically active does not get enough energy, it is less likely that they will reach their wanted performance. These athletes will be tired and run down since their body is burning more energy than it has the ability to. Also, if a person does not get enough calories, they may break down rather than build up muscles.
Athletes will not be as strong or as fast as they could be. If a person is not getting enough calories for a long period of time, this can lead to growth problems and other serious health risks. If a person is concerned about what types of food and how much they should be eating they can refer to the food guide pyramid. This will show a person the serving size and types of food they should be eating.
