Who Knew This One Simple Choice Could Have So Many Health Benefits?

How about exercise as fun?!  People don't want to do what they "should" do--they only do what they enjoy!

If it is not then it should be apart of your daily routine, some form of exercise, get out and sweat a little.  Raise that heart and breathing rate.  Add this to your balanced meals, proper rest, sunshine, clean water, and a good spiritual posture.  This is what good health is all about.  Once we were told this, or that is happening to your body because of old age, or heredity, then we found that most of what we chalked up to age and heredity, also came down tohow well, or how poorly we treated our bodies.  I will be the first to say some of our illnesses are generational, because our children learn from us.  If we have poor eating habits, so will our children.  If we do not exercise properly, our children will likely follow in our foot steps.  This is why it so important that we as parents set good positive examples for our children.

The other side of the coin is just as important, research, find that which is good, that which enhances life, adds to the quality of life, and try to avoid that which destroys that quality.  We only get one.  

It's so true about people's attitude towards exercise. Somehow, exercise is viewed as hard, back-breaking work, or tiresome or full of drudgery. I am always trying to explain to people that it GIVES you energy and doesn't take it away. One thing I recommend to people who don't want to do it or put it off, etc., is to NOT go to a gym, NOT go get a personal trainer, NOT go buy a bunch of exercise gear, etc., at least not immediately. All that stuff can be a major wall between wanting to exercise or not. "I want to start exercising, but I have to join a gym and get some gear first...." which is so easy to forget about and put off. To start out, just stay at home, alone in your bedroom, with some enjoyable music playing, where no one can see how adept or non-adept you are at whatever exercise, and just start to do some exercises. If you want to be extra safe, google HOW to properly do them first - proper sit ups or proper push ups - whatever. It doesn't cost money and you don't have to go anywhere. Start carefully and do it for as long as you like. If you ache the next day, wait another day or two before doing it again, but ultimately, don't wait until your muscles stop aching altogether - exercise again when there's still a bit of that worked out feeling in them and go from there.

   Anyway, my point is that you can do it right here, right now, without money and without going anywhere.

Exercise is a required nutrient ... I needed that to strengthen my resolve to exercise more. Tq. Dr. Mercola.  

When I find myself mired in the sedentary mode, I start back into exercise without exercising.

Clean my house more/more thoroughly.

Maintain my own landscaping, including hauling dirt, mulch and plants from here to there.

Find more reasons to walk, like taking a quick stroll around the outside of my local grocery store BEFORE getting a cart or picking up one item.

Intentionally park as far away as possible.

Make three trips up and down the stairs instead of one.

Spend hours per day, tightening and maintaining my stomach and leg muscles (every red light finds me concentrating on pulling my abs in and tightening my glutes).

Dozens of  ways to become stronger and more active without spending a dime, nor dressing special.  Then, once you are feeling stronger and healthier (which you will if you commit to extra movement EVERY day), you feel up to an  actual exercise session.  Which is where I am now.

Great article Dr. M

I love walking, always have, and I am usually accompanied by my dogs.  I walk two miles in the morning, and another two in the afternoon.  Then I started strength training at the gym, and I discovered I had a talent for it as I am naturally incredibly strong and can handle more weight than most men, even though I am a woman.  I did a half hour three times a week.  Then I got a personal trainer who convinced me I should do every exercise twice, if not three times, and my half hour enjoyable workout became more than an hour.  I stopped enjoying it.  I found myself looking for excuses not to go to the gym!  I eventually quit.  Conclusion:  exercise must be enjoyable.  If you don't like it, no matter how "good" it is for you, then you will do your best not to do it.  I wish I had never gotten that personal trainer.  I would still be a happy weight lifter right now.  Now I am thinking of getting some weights and starting again but I will check out Dr. Mercola's You Tube exercises first.

I haven't played tennis in 40 years. I used to be pretty good. I've picked it up again this year & am amazed at how much ability I still have. My husband & I play for an hour each morning, Mon-Fri. I feel spectacular & can tell the difference an hour of tennis makes. I've tried every other conceivable type of exercise over the intervening years...bodybuilding (Body for Life), Pilates, Tai Chi, Health Rider, Nordic Track, Bowflex, racquetball, running, walking and more. But the only exercise I've ever enjoyed is tennis. I would rather play tennis than do just about anything else. If I had the time & stamina to play 8 hours a day (which is what I did in college...practiced on a backboard from noon til 8pm, 5 days a week), I would do it. However, I must work for living.

The simplest way I've found to make sure I exercise regularly is to integrate exercise into my daily routine.  I've never been one to appreciate gyms and fitness classes--all those contrived forms of exercise--which works for many people, but not for me.  

Some things that work for me:

Using a reel mower to mow the lawn.  Baking all bread products and therefore doing a lot of kneading--it's great for toning the forearms and has almost eliminated carpal tunnel symptoms.  Growing a large biointensive garden.  That means double-digging the garden beds (no tiller!), weeding, lots of bending and maneuvering, sifting compost and manure in the spring, turning the compost pile (which is huge).  Playing a 15 minute game with my son each day (lately it's been frisbee).  Hand-weeding the lawn instead of using chemicals. Parking in the back of store lots. Never taking elevators.  Walking wherever I can.  When I used to live in a walkable town, that amounted to at least 5 miles per day.

In addition to all the little ways I integrate exercise into daily life, I also schedule longer walks and bike rides, but really, I believe all the little things add up tremendously.

I would love to exercise as I did for over 50 years.  The article states, "Your body is an efficient machine, and if you do the same type of exercise day after day, you’ll become quite good at it."  My problem (that wasn't mentioned) is that almost any type of exercise which lasts longer than 5 minutes produces pain for days.  I can't walk due to sacroiliac dysfunction, I can't do free weights because it makes my back and shoulders sore, and swimming produces pain too.  So what do seniors, who like myself can't exercise anymore, do to promote health?  I guess this article is targeted at the already mobile and healthy and I will just have to feel bad that my health will decline because I can't take this advice.

Put exercise on the top of your "to-do" list everyday.

As a triathlete (that sometimes sounds weird for me to say as it's is only recently that I have become more than just a finisher) I work all year for three races. It's having the goal out there that seems to give the workout part of its meaning. My friend runs a triathlon program and her motto is "Get Out There!" Have a goal and do it. Learning proper  swimming techniques and things like "Chi Running" help me enjoy the two parts of the sport that I like the least though. Now I look forward to all the training. Anaerobic system, lactate threshold workouts are very hard, but make me feel great. I'm amazed at my body's failings, successes, past, present and future.

I agree with the comments about short, intense workouts less frequently.  I've watched my neighbor (post-partum, C-section) go from visibly out of shape to looking extremely physically fit with her 'regular' clothes hanging on her in the time period of 3 months.  All this while only doing T-tapp as soon as the Dr. released her to begin exercising.  It's all about working out smarter, not harder.

I would just like to ask that people do not judge others to harshly. Some of us have been in car accidents that prevent us now from doing the long walks or knee bends or cycle riding. Life isn't kind to some of us. I am trying to find an exercise I can do with ruined legs. Oh, and no pool close by to use so please no water classes.

a great supplement for exercise and health is twin lab's super rich yeast plus powder. it is made naturally and contains the whole spectrum of amino acids and minerals, with nothing questionable. dr mercola, if you read this, perhaps you could make a product such as this.

Exercise does not have to be done to the point of being out of breath or failure. That is one reason that I do not recommend running as exercise. While those who  do run love the runner high that they may get, they don't realize that this "high" is coming at a price of depleting their adrenals and stressing the entire system, weakening their chi, enzymes and other nutrients. Doing regular deep breathing exercises such as those taught in Chinese chi-gung and martial arts is the number one thing anyone do truly do for their health, because true health is dependent on the amount, strength, balance and flow of ones chi. When you have sufficient chi and it's flowing well, then proper exercises such as light to moderate strength training which includes push ups, core exercises like crunches, leg raise and holding exercises, as well we squats and stances are really all that you need to keep the bones, muscles and tendons strong but supple without over tightening the muscles as a lot of heavy weight training can cause.

Of course eating as much organic foods as possible, taking proper amounts and types of supplementation from whole food sources, enzymes and probiotics, meditation for the mind and to further build up chi are also very important. The mind body connection that is developed through Chinese type meditation is critical since the healthier and stronger is your brain, the healthier and stronger your body will be and the longer it will last.

This is what the Chinese called "Marrow/Brain cleansing" or washing. They use large amounts of chi that are generated over many years through deep breathing exercises such as "The 8 Pieces of Brocade" which you can preview at ChineseHealthandFitness.com and other meditation techniques to move that chi up to the brain and deep into the bone marrow. Since the bone marrow generates the blood, the rejuvenated blood then is able to carry fresh oxygen and chi to the entire body. Cleansing the brain has even greater results!

And Tai chi and qi gong can be enjoyed by people of any age and ability as the movements can be modified, but as you do them, your range of motion naturally increases manifold.

I am still amazed how little is talked about the benefits of exercises like taichi and qi gong which are slow but work every muscle of the body, including the heart for optimum health in developing your inner life energy which will prevent all diseases. When I was in China, I saw so many articles there how cancer was treated and cured by these exercises, and it is not a metaphysical process. Everything can be understood scientifically from the martial arts point of view to the healing.

Read the latest research in "Body by Science".  It turns out that an infrequent (as in once per week), brief (as in 15-20 minutes), intense strength workout (or intense intervals) gives a maximum fitness benefit over the long run with minimal expenditure of time.  Totally counter-intuitive and sure to be attacked by those invested in multilple hours per week pumping iron or pounding the cardio machines.  Turns out a very simple principle leads to maximum fitness:  conduct very intense, brief work-outs, followed by sufficient time to allow recovery of the "micro-wounds" in the musculature (typically 4-7 days at least).  This simple concept is anathema to the vast majority of the fitness crowd and related vendors where more is always better.  As for the "normal" Joe -- he will not accept the discomfort of pushing muscles to the max, albeit briefly.  As a result, vitually nobody follows this prescription.  We have had 30-40 years of alternative approaches and the U.S. population just keeps getting more obese and unhealthy -- maybe its time for a science-based unconventional approach ...  Nothing wrong with jogging, yoga, stetching, hiking, etc. --- it's just that such activity is not where the main fitness benefits accrue ...

I agree with DDS_203.  Chronic pain is a frustrating obstacle to fitness and the joys of exercise.  The best discussion I've seen of this topic is the chapter on UFOs - Unidentified Fitness Obstacles - in The Mind-Body Makeover Project by Michael Gerrish & Cheryl Richardson.  They address ways to accommodate common health complaints that make exercise difficult.  

I believe that walking, squatting, bridges and some variation(s) of a push up are the most important exercises for the body. In many countries they squat to go the bathroom and they use squatting to sit. In North America peoples' legs and joints and generally very weak and fragile in comparison. This can be seen when you get North Americans to try and do many squats. Google Farmer Burns and Matt Furey for more information about exercise. However I don't recommend you buy anything from Matt Furey, because it appears he stole all his material from others.

I was an athlete up until the age of 23, then I was paralyzed from the chest down in an automobile accident.

I can move my right arm ok and barely move my left, so when I move them in upward movements after a few

tries with my left arm I am give out and unable to even move my arm. I can swing my right arm up and around

15-20 times and also be worn out and can barely lift my arm. But since I am not using my lower extremities

then no blood is pumping or my heart isn't getting any benefits although it felt like a heavy workout session,

or so I am told, is this correct???

Dr. Mercola: Thanks for you insights and not being prejudice & stereo typing Chiropractors & Chiropractic.  It is both refreshing and encouraging having practiced & preached Health & Wellness since 1978.  

Haha, Sucking on a Mars bar. That cracked me up. Who would do such a thing?

Anyway, yeah, I think it's about time asses got off of sofas and started living their lives instead of life living them.

Good call Heidi,

Whatever you do choose an exercise you really love. Personaly that means bush walking especiall in hilly areas, SCUBA diving, snorkeling, cycling and occasionally a little weight work.

All the healthy 70+ year olds that I've known exercise regularly, usually walking swimming or cycling. If you have resistance to,or fear of exercise you might want to try learning EFT or see a good EFT practitioner, NLP'er or Hypnotherapist to clear whatevers holding you back.

Beware of excessive competitive sports however, many adreniline junkies and professional sports people (especially contact sports) can barely walk by the time they reach 60 - 70.

Russell

Did I miss where you cited studies supporting your belief?