Why Exercise?

Physical activity is necessary for good health, and most people do not get enough in their everyday lives. Besides helping with weight control, exercise strengthens your heart, improves circulation, helps prevent many illnesses, and makes it easier to do everyday activities. If you are very active in your job, hobbies, and/or household and garden chores, and walk or bike often instead of riding in a car all the time, you may not have to do formal exercise to maintain health, but most people are not that active.

Home Exercises

There are a number of exercises you can do at home. There are body weight exercises like pushups, pullups, crunches, squats, and lunges. You can get some dumbbells, or if you don't want to do that, elastic exercise bands are inexpensive and easy to use. They also take up very little space, folding up to the size of a paperback book. For cardio exercise, you can jump rope, or get an exercise video. You can have a good home exercise program with an exercise video and some elastic exercise bands.

Walking or Running to Burn Fat

You can burn fat and calories by either walking or running. In general, how much depends on how far you go, and running the same distance takes less time than walking. Still, if you prefer to walk, do that and just go for a longer time. To get much weight loss, you should walk or run at least three miles most days. You can get better results by combining your exercise with a little calorie reduction. Cutting out some junk food like a soda or doughnut every day works great, and the cardio exercise is especially good for burning fat in the stomach area. You don't have to do your walking all at once. You can do 20 minutes or so twice a day if you want.

Burning Off the Calories You Eat

It is difficult to calculate how much activity it takes to burn off calories from a certain food, for example, how far you would have to walk to burn off a Big Mac. Although you see such calculations frequently, they are approximations. Calories burned in activity depend on the size of the individual as well as the intensity of the activity, and the calories in food depend on how much of it you eat, and sometimes even the preparation. It's better to consider overall calorie consumption and activity level plus exercise. Still, it can be fun to try to figure out the food and exercise caloric relationship. The U.S. government has a huge database of nutrients in foods, including calories. See it at www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp. Georgia State University has posted a list of calories expended in certain activities: www2.gsu/edu/~wwwfit/physicalactivity.html#calories.

Fitness and Stress

Stressed? Go work out. A fitness program helps take your mind off the car payments, the boss, the kids, and in some cases the fate of the free world. People with high levels of health and fitness who experience high stress have less sickness than fitness-challenged people with similar stress levels.

Mental Health

Feeling blue? That's the time for fitness! When you're down in the dumps, get down and boogie for health and fitness. Both aerobic exercise and resistance training are proven treatments for depression. Besides, if you do extreme sports, you'll be too busy worrying about your rappeling or bungee cord to be depressed.

Fat to Muscle

It is a common fallacy that working out with weights will cause your fat to turn to muscle. Muscle and fat are two different kinds of tissue. When you do weight training, you will build up muscle, but that muscle will take the place of fat that you lose. When you first start a weight loss diet program, you may want to concentrate on cardio exercise, along with your healthy eating, and add weight training later. If you prefer, you can start weight training right away, but don't neglect the cardio.

Shaping Arms and Shoulders

Women with large breasts and broad shoulders can do biceps curls and triceps extensions with a weight that allows 10-15 repetitions to shape their arms without looking bulky. For shoulders, lateral dumbbell raises with light weights can help shape shoulders. Rows or pulldowns can help strengthen the back, but go easy on chest exercises.

Weight Bearing Exercise

Weight bearing exercise strengthens your bones. Weight bearing exercise refers to you supporting your own weight. Swimming, where the water supports you, and bicycling, where the cycle supports you, are not good for this purpose although they are great cardio fitness exercises. Running is excellent, and even walking reduces the risk of hip fracture in older people.

Jump for Your Bones

Just jumping 30 times a day will make your bones stronger and improve your health and fitness. But don´t do it cold. Warm up until you break a light sweat. You just have to jump up and down, not off of anything. It's the impact that stimulates your bones. You need two things: a soft surface to land on and your doctor´s ok.

Weight Training and Your Heart

Weight training can help your heart and is even being recommended to many people with heart disease. When your muscles are stronger, your heart doesn´t have to work so hard when you do activities such as lifting, pushing, or shoveling. Heart rate and blood pressure response stay lower when a load is lifted.

Exercise Helps Your Brain

Fitness gives your brain a boost. Exercise, especially aerobic exercise, helps maintain or enhance cognitive power. So run and lift for mental fitness and health. Your brain cells love oxygen and stimulation.

Ten Thousand Steps

As the old saying goes, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. How about 10,000?

An interesting new way to make sure you are getting enough exercise to improve your health and fitness is to count the steps you take during the day. The target is 10,000. You can count them however you figure out (it´s a footstrike, so left-right is 2) or use a device called a pedometer. Running or jogging steps count as well as walking, and the device counts steps on the treadmill, StairMaster, elliptical trainer, and pedal revs on the upright but not recumbent bike. Steps taken during sports like tennis or soccer will also count.

You´ll probably be surprised at your total, but this is a great health and fitness motivational technique for your fitness workout. 10,000 can help control weight as well as improving cardio fitness, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and diabetes risk.

Take Vacations

Airport lines, security screenings, delays all pale in comparison to a shortened lifespan. Pack some fitness equipment in your carry-on and exercise (just use plastic so you don't set off the metal detector.) Or take a drive in the country to a B&B where you can hike for fitness.

It's been shown that men who take more vacations live longer and have better health than those who never get away. Take an active vacation, such as skiing, hiking, snorkling, or walking all around a city that is new to you, and you'll get even more benefit.

Weight Loss for Cardiac Health

Obesity puts a strain on your heart. Exercise and fitness improve your heart health and constitute weight loss support, but some dietary adjustment is usually also called for if you want to lose weight. To lose weight, improve cardiovascular health, and lower cholesterol, cut back on calories from saturated fat, eat more fiber, and stock up on fruit and veggies.

Children Fit in 60 Minutes

Keep your kids healthy with fitness! Unfortunately, kids are leading an increasingly sedentary lifestyle surrounded by junk food (even in schools). The USDA and the Centers for Disease Control promote youth fitness and health through several programs such as VERB, Powerful Bones for Powerful Girls, BAM!, Body and Mind, and Kids Walk-to-School. No matter what the youth fitness program, the USDA and CDC recommend 60 minutes per day of physical fitness activity for children and adolescents.

It's important to note that kids don't have to go a full hour straight. A fitness routine for your preteen or teen could include a run in the morning, a game of Frisbee with friends and the dog in the afternoon, and shooting hoops at night. Just make sure your child or teen enjoys some muscle exercise and some cardio, and burns some calories. It's one of the best, most lasting gifts you'll ever give your children.

Preventing Breast Cancer

Active women in a fitness program have a lower incidence of breast cancer, although the mechanism of prevention is not clear. Exercise may also help breast cancer patients recover faster.

PMS

Women with severe premenstural syndrome may have low levels of beta endorphins. A fitness program raises beta endorphin levels, as well as reducing stress, which is also associated with PMS.

Recovery from Smoking

Exercise can help you quit smoking. And quitting smoking can improve your exercise and sports performance. If you crave a cigarette, go out for a walk or run or bike ride instead, and let the craving pass.
If you can't quit cold turkey, try a fitness break from nicotine. One week of not smoking doesn´t allow your lungs to recover from the effects of smoking, but it does improve your muscle fitness and exercise performance. And that may make it easier for you to quit for good.