This is Week 4 of The Wellness Year Program
Exercise helps with:
• Weight control
Regular exercise not only burns calories (3500 calories equal 1 lb), but also encourages the body to lose fat instead of muscle. By preserving (and building) muscle, exercise also causes an increase in the rate calories are burned during exercise, thus resulting in a person being able to eat the same amount but lose weight. (Note: this assumes you keep at some aerobic exercise program, as well) .In contrast, a person who loses weight through dieting only may lose muscle, and thus get into a vicious cycle where they burn fewer calories and therefore need to consume even fewer calories to keep weight off.
• Cancer prevention
Moderately active people have lower rates of cancer. In the case of breast cancer, for example, exercise causes lower estrogen levels, which is beneficial for preventing breast cancer.
• Boosts immunity in moderate doses/decreases it in large doses
According to studies involving Olympic athletes, the benefits of moderate exercise on immunity decreases when one does strenuous exercise on a regular basis.
• Mortality prevention depends on how much exercise one is doing at any given time, not how much one did in the past
• Prevents osteoporosis: bones respond to demand by getting stronger, and to inactivity by getting thinner. After age 40, women will lose bone mass unless they do strength exercises (weight training) twice per week. Weight bearing exercise is most beneficial for this particular purpose (for example hiking is better than swimming). People who are thin, pale skinned, blond, blue-eyed and smokers are at highest risk of fractures from thin bones (osteoporotic fractures).
• Helps with osteoarthritis
In osteoarthritis, large joints ache after a day of regular activities. Paradoxically, regular exercise can improve symptoms by strengthening the muscles and tendons that surround the joint, thus preventing some of the inflammation and pain. In addition, of course, reducing one’s weight helps arthritic joints by decreasing the load they have to bear. It may prevent arthritis altogether.
• Helps with depression and anxiety
Studies of people with depression show that they can benefit from regular exercise.
How much is needed to see a difference:
The short answer is “quite a lot”, though it depends on your starting point and goals.
We were initially told that 30 minutes, 3 times per week was enough. This later became 5 times per week. But it was not based on research.
In September 2002. the Institute of Medicine reviewed the health habits of the people with the healthiest weights and found that most of them actually did an hour of moderate exercise every day. This is the basis for the latest recommendation.
A study of people who lost weight and kept it off revealed that on the average, they expended 2500 calories per week, which is the equivalent of about 90 minutes of exercise each day.
In another study, people with pre-diabetes reduced their odds of developing full-scale diabetes when they did 80 minutes per day of regular exercise.
Ways to fit it in to daily life:
- make it functional: walk or bike to work or running errands
- make it convenient – sign up for a gym near home or buy home equipment
- make it fun – find activities you like, go with a partner
- break it up into small portions – 15 minutes four times a day
- do more strenuous exercise for a shorter time
- stay active – walk to a co-worker instead of using e-mail, park a little further away when you can, walk up stairs
Action step for this week:
Answer the following questions:
1. On a scale of 1-10, how important is it to you to incorporate more regular exercise into your life?
2. Why not more, or less important?
3. On a scale of 1-10, how confident do you feel that you can meet this goal?
4. Why not more, or less confident?
What is it that I could do to support you in reaching your goal? E-mail me!
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