As a fitness model, you have to look your best. You have to be healthy, athletic and flexible, so your nutrition and exercise are perhaps the most important tools of your trade. This means consuming healthful foods to allow optimal body maintenance and to provide adequate fuel for high-energy work sessions. Fitness modelling also requires regular physical exercise.
Fitness Models Promote Wellness
Fitness models promote healthy lifestyles and physical recreation. This is in contrast to fashion models, whose work focuses on the unrealistic imagery of super-light bodies and unnatural features or physical exaggerations. Fitness models represent the more normal world of wellness and sports, so having toned arms and legs, smooth, defined muscles and healthy body weight all contribute to the fitness model's message. According to Proper Nutrition for Athletes, good nutrition and healthy weights are crucial for athletic health. Fitness models should exemplify this look.
Proteins and Fats Build and Preserve Muscle
The phrase "You are what you eat" refers to the quality of your nutrition and its effect. As a fitness model, whether vegetarian or meat-eating, the same principles of smart nutrition apply: You need protein for tissue maintenance, healthy fats for cardiovascular health and inflammation control, and carbohydrates for energy. The best protein choices include lean red meat, chicken, turkey, fatty fish (salmon, tuna, sardines), yogurt, milk, eggs and soy products such as tofu. Dietary fats containing essential fatty acids for muscle-tissue health include olive oil, walnuts, almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and avocados.
Carbobohydrates as Fuel
You also need carbohydrates for proper brain function and physical energy. Carbs and fiber are found in these nutrient-dense fruits: berries, melons, kiwi fruit, bananas, peaches and avocados. Vegetables vary in carbs, but here are some of the most nutritious: broccoli, spinach, red cabbage, yams and squash. Other healthful carbs are in whole-wheat breads and pastas, whole oats and other whole cereals (bran, wheat germ and rice) and low-sugar granolas. Nutritious options for condiments are honey, blackstrap molasses (it contains iron), olive oil-based salad dressings and fruit butters.
Physical Maintenance
Exercise keeps your muscles toned, strengthens your immune system and creates endorphins in the brain for a feel-good mentality. Find activities you enjoy: walking, weight training, swimming, cycling, dancing, field sports---and do them consistently. For best results, combine endurance activities with weight training; for example, perform a cardio or endurance workout of 30 to 60 minutes three days a week, alternating with three days of weight work. Always take at least one day a week off for recovery, tissue repair and to prevent burnout.
Three Specific Exercises
These three exercises are great supplements to push-ups and pull-ups. Air-bicycling: Lie on the floor or across a chair-seat and slowly pedal your legs in mid-air for two minutes, concentrating on your hips and abdominals. Rest and repeat three times. Open-leg bends: Place your feet apart, turn them slightly outwards, keep your heels down and slowly bend your knees for a gentle inner-thigh stretch. Press upwards to a standing position and repeat 10 times, working up to three sets. This conditions your thighs, butt and hips. Sit-ups: Lie down and draw your knees upward until your feet come off the floor 12 inches, and cross your arms. Contract only your stomach muscles to raise your shoulders off the ground six to eight inches, slowly relax to the ground again, and repeat. Work up to 30 sit-ups.
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