You can’t get rid of it with exercise alone. You can do the most vigorous exercise and only burn up 300 calories in an hour. If you’ve got fat on your body, the exercise firms and tones the muscles. But when you use that tape measure, what makes it bigger? It’s the fat!
Jack LaLanne
More than 140 million Americans are overweight, of these 66 million are considered obese. People who are obese are more likely to be at risk for heart disease and stroke.
Physical activity has a positive affect in lessening the risk of stroke in men and women. Statistics show that people who engage in moderate physical activity have a 20% lower risk of stroke while those who engage in vigorous physical activity have a 27% lower risk of stroke (Sacco et al.2006).
Recent research suggests that moderate to high levels of physical activity have the following benefits:
· Lowers blood pressure (if high).
· Reduces body weight.
· Enhances vasodilatation (widening of the interior of blood vessels).
· Improves glucose tolerance.
· Promotes cardiovascular health.
The combined death toll from stroke this year from January 1, 2008 to March 28, 2008(9:38 am) is 35,731. This number is staggering in the time span measured. I can’t help but wonder if we all took our health more seriously what would that number be.
I gotta work out. I keep saying it all the time. I keep saying I gotta start working out. It’s been about two months since I’ve worked out. And I just don’t have the time. Which uh..is odd. Because I have the time to go out to dinner. And uh..and watch tv. And get a bone density test. And uh.. try to figure out what my phone number spells in words.
-Ellen DeGeneres
By now I’m sure you know that regular, moderate exercise is one of the best things you can do for your health and well-being. What you may not know is that new research is showing that regular exercise helps reverse the aging process, gives you more energy, makes you smarter and may even grow new brain cells (a process called neurogenesis).
New research is showing that regular exercise may cause your brain to grow new neurons. Until nine years ago it was thought that you were born with a certain number of neurons and they decreased in number as we got older. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies showed older adults continue to generate new neurons. More recently researchers found with just three hours of walking a week for three months caused so many neurons to grow that the size of people’s brains grew! The best part of this new research is that the part of the brain that grew the most is involved in memory and cognitive function. After three months those who exercised had brain volume of people three years younger. The senior author of this study, Dr. Arthur Kramer, concluded that cardiovascular fitness is associated with sparing brain tissue. These results also suggest a strong biological basis for aerobic fitness in maintaining as well as enhancing central nervous system functioning and cognitive fuctionioning in older adults.
Go pump some neurons! Expand your craniums!
-Robin Williams in the movie Mrs. Doubtfire
People who exercise regularly are less likely to develop high blood pressure. Aerobics and resistance training have the ability to lower blood pressure, effects that are largely independent of weight loss.
A single exercise session can reduce blood pressure by 5 to 7 mm/hg; this reduction may persist for as long as twenty-two hours. In just one to two weeks after returning to a sedentary lifestyle the high blood pressure benefits are reduced. Aerobic exercise is more beneficial than strength training in reducing blood pressure; however strength training should still be performed.
Tips
If you focus on results, you”ll never change. If you focus on change, you”ll get results.~Anonymous
There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There’s no such thing as life in-between.~Pat Riley, basketball coach
Many people think diabetes is a genetic disease that is not the whole story. For type 2 diabetes your environment plays an important role, by environment I mean how much exercise do you accumulate on a daily basis and diet (how many ring dings do you really eat). Your lifestyle plays a more dominant role in preventing this disease than your genetics. Diabetes is a genetic disease; if you are predisposed genetically simple choices in everyday life can prevent this dreaded disease.
Diabetes has reached endemic proportions, affecting 170 million individuals worldwide. An unfortunate consequence is a weakening of the body’s insulin regulation, elevated insulin and blood sugar are clinical features of non-insulin dependant diabetes. When insulin function starts to break down, blood sugar levels rise leading to diabetes and pre-diabetes. Regular exercise increases insulin sensitivity so that blood sugar can be transported to the cells of the liver, muscles, and adipose tissue to be used for energy. Improvements in blood sugar metabolism have also been documented with strength training.
The mechanisms for improvements are not fully understood, it appears that regular aerobic and strength training exercises do offer protection in the development in the onset of type 2 diabetes.
