Exercise gives you more energy.
When you exercise, you increase the number of red blood cells, which in
turn increases the amount of oxygen sent to your muscles. As a rule, people
who exercise tend to sleep better and have more energy than those who don't.
Exercise delays the deterioration
of muscles. As you age, the strength and size of your muscles decrease
by about 1% a year. But when it begins to decrease depends on your activity
level. If you don't exercise, this decrease begins in your thirties. If
you consistently do some form of aerobic exercise, it doesn't start until
your sixties. To maintain muscle strength and size most effectively, combine
aerobic exercise with weight lifting.
Exercise helps prevent the
decline of the central nervous system. This system naturally declines
with age, as evidenced by slower reaction times and muscles that don't
move as quickly. But studies show that active older people often have faster
muscular movement than sedentary younger people.
Exercise is good for your skin.
It increases the blood flow to the skin, which provides it with nutrients
and gets rid of wastes. Studies show that exercisers have thicker skin
than sedentary people. Thick skin ages more gracefully -- it wrinkles less
and later than thin skin.
Exercise can help prevent osteoporosis.
A Tufts University study compared women who walked briskly four times a
week to inactive women. The walkers increased spinal bone size by .5%,
while the sitters lost 7%.
Exercise can help prevent high
blood pressure. Often, you can reduce high blood pressure by losing
a few pounds through regular exercise.
Active people have lower heart
rates and experience less cardiac decline than sedentary people. The
heart's pumping capacity decreases with age, but exercise plays a role
here as well. For inactive people, oxygen processing efficiency declines
by 1 to 2% a year, beginning at age 40. However, those who exercise experience
only one-third the decline of sedentary people.
Exercise can be as effective
as psychotherapy in treating moderate depression. Studies show that
aerobic exercise has an anti-depressive effect on patients with mild to
moderate depression. It also decreases anger, fatigue, and confusion.
Exercise temporarily reduces
anxiety, muscle tension, and blood pressure. Research shows that people
have these results for two to five hours after a moderate- to high-intensity
workout.
Exercise benefits everyone
-- young, old, and in between. Exercise has been shown to increase
test scores of grade-school students and a sense of well-being of the elderly.
E x e r c i s e:L
o s eF a t, N o tW
e i g h t
Exercise raises the body's
metabolic rate, which helps keep fat off. While body weight changes
little as we age, body fat increases. Much of this fat shifts from extremities
to the abdominal area, where it can contribute to hypertension and heart
trouble. Moderate exercise such as walking may be all that's necessary.
Exercise can help people lose
fat around their midsection faster and with less dieting. A University
of Washington study found dieters had to lose four times as much weight
as exercisers to lose the same amount of "central fat" tied to heart disease.
The amount of fat you burn
has little to do with how much you sweat. Sweat is not a good measure
of how much energy you're using because it's more dependent on factors
like room temperature, humidity, lack of conditioning, and body weight.
Sweat reflects lost water, not lost fat.
It's nearly impossible to reduce
your body fat level to 2% or less. You have two types of fat in your
body -- essential fat and storage fat. Essential fat is necessary to the
brain, nerve tissue, heart, bone marrow, and cell membranes. Adult males
have approximately 3% essential fat, while adult females have from about
12-15% essential fat, due to the reproductive process. Storage fat is simply
excess energy that the body has stored as fat. The total amount of storage
fat varies from person to person. Experts recommend a total body fat percentage
of 8-15% for men and 13-20% for women.
E x e r c i s e:
M o d e r a t i o n i s t h e K
e y
More exercise is not always
better. Your body will respond positively to an appropriate amount
of stress. Exceeding that amount can be a waste of time. Some evidence
indicates that people who run seven days a week are no more aerobically
fit than those who train three or four days a week.
"No pain, no gain" makes no
sense. A sensible exercise program may be uncomfortable at times, but
it should never be painful. It should place a reasonable demand on your
muscular and cardiovascular systems without subjecting you to a risk of
injury.
Women are not inferior in the
exercise arena. While there are more than 150 identifiable physiological
differences between men and women, these differences are not related to
how well a person can perform if properly trained. While men tend to be
stronger, faster, and more powerful, women usually have a higher level
of flexibility, coordination, manual dexterity, and balance. Both sexes
can become considerably more proficient in all areas with training and
exercise.
Exercise is not a contest.
The old adage, "Do your best and leave the rest" should apply to your exercise
program. Since fitness is an individual matter, comparisons with other
people are meaningless.
If you want to stick with your
workout, find one you enjoy. Exercise can and should be enjoyable;
the secret is to find an exercise you like. Research confirms that if you
don't like a particular exercise, you probably won't stick with it.