Maintaining a fitness or diet routine might not be as easy as attending classes. Given that the average college or university student faces a lot of stress with all the classes, projects and semesters, maintaining a healthy diet and exercise routine often becomes very difficult. Here are some great diet and exercise tips that will motivate you to adopt a better lifestyle.

Alter your perspective

To have a successful student life, you must come out of the couch potato mentality and start thinking like a sportsperson, so far as dieting or exercising is concerned. Student life does make you very busy, but that should never be an excuse for following a proper exercise regime or diet plan. You might have to indulge in workouts at odd hours and follow a diet plan that you may not like, but accept these things as a unique blessing rather than as a sacrifice.

Set a proper goal

For exercising as well as following a diet plan, you must set realistic goals including milestones. For instance, if you have too much of a sweet tooth, you need to limit your sugar intake. You may start off with having sugar in tea once every alternate day and gradually move to once in two days or three days. This gradual progression and fulfillment of milestone will boost your spirit as you move ahead towards your goal.

It is not always necessary that a goal should be a very organized one. You may consider losing some pounds before the second semester and exercise your way towards it. But you must stay away from unrealistic goals (something like losing five pounds in 5 days!), which unnecessarily fill your mind with a lot of stress.

Chart out a regular workout and eating time 

If you are committed to your exercise regimen, you would not find it hard to exercise at the wee hours of the night or before the sun rises. If such timing fits into your busy schedule, simply go for it, but maintain regularity. While preparing your workout schedule, say a weekly or fortnightly one, try to give a minimum of half an hour to one hour for your body. Find out when you are a bit free and make your workout program accordingly.

The same thing applies while you are preparing your dieting schedule. Make your schedule such that you do not skip any meals because that will make you weak. Make sure to drink lots of water and healthy snacks in between classes, which will keep you energized.

Go for variety

It is rightly said that variety is the spice of life. Yes, we all need variety and change in order to remain motivated, even when it comes to dieting or exercising. So, the best thing would be to design your exercise regimen to rope in a range of exercise procedures. Whether you are doing yoga or aerobics, if you include activities that give you enjoyment, you will always look forward to doing them.

In case of your diet too, go for variety each week, or each day (if you can manage that), but ensure that you are always eating healthy. As a student it might not always be possible to go for variety in lunch or dinner, but you can always alter your snacks.

Take support from others

In order to stick to a dieting schedule or a fitness program, you do sometimes need encouragement from others. You may ask for support from your peers, teachers and family members, or even join an online community or social networking site where you can interact with nutrition experts and fitness trainers.

About the author Bio

Having been a beneficiary, April believes that education has the ability to transform one’s life. She manages a blog for peer-to-peer learning at http://digitalsenior.sg/ where everyone shares their university experience in Singapore.