Thursday, April 30, 2009

Reasons to Exercise During Menopause

It is important for everyone to exercise, it makes them healthier. For women this becomes even more imperative with age. As menopause starts in on a woman, a lot of bodily changes can occur. Some of them can be warded off by exercise.

Women that are too sedentary especially during menopause can wind up with weight gain, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cause bone loss. Women when not active enough can also suffer from insomnia, back pain due to weak muscles, poor circulation, problems breathing, and even breathing problems.

As far as the bone loss goes, exercise helps the body produce calcium, which helps the bones get stronger. Weight bearing exercises are vital for this. This can actually result in new bone growth when needed.

Women who exercise regularly lower their blood pressure and regulate their overall health. It lowers stress of everyday life on top of lowering blood pressure, which helps the mood swings of menopause. The heart is made stronger through exercising and can help women have fewer problems with it. Also, certain endorphins (hormones that make you feel good) are released into the woman's system that improves the mood. Cardio workouts are what are needed for heart health.

Hot flashes can also be helped with exercise. Working up a sweat exercising can result in the whole body getting cooled off. Cool off the body and help regulate the body temperature at the same time.

A woman's metabolism can slow down as they age and go into menopause. Exercising can boost the metabolism rate. When the metabolism is high enough the body can burn calories more efficiently. This helps the body maintain and even lose weight. No weight loss diet is complete without exercise in fact. Women burn off fat at a much higher rate when they exercise regularly.

Women need to exercise to stay healthy and happy. No matter what their age exercise is vital to a woman's health. But during menopause, it becomes even more important to the health and well-being of the woman. It helps her maintain her weight and can even help her lose weight. It can lighten her moods, lower her blood pressure, and keep heart disease from happening.

So all you women menopause or not out there get up and start moving! Develop a regular exercise routine today. Women need to try to at least exercise 3 to 4 times a week when they can't do it every day. Of course an everyday routine is the best. Walking, jogging, swimming can be paired with some weight lifting workouts for a good routine.

As with all exercising women should consult a doctor first before starting, especially if the woman has not been exercising. She would not want to hurt herself by pushing herself too hard to quickly. The doctor can make suggestions on how to get started. So women need to look into all this today and start being healthier today.

4 Reasons Why Exercise Will Not Help You Lose Weight If You Are Obese

Losing weight when you are obese can be a daunting task. Everybody tells you that you need to eat less and exercise more. Seems logical enough because the reason you are obese is because you eat too much and do not exercise enough, everybody knows that. My question to you is, how has it been working for you? All these beliefs about exercise and eating less have led to the worst epidemic this world has ever seen. Reflect on this for awhile. Does it make sense or is it time to change the way we think. Are you just part of the problem or do you want to be part of the solution? Lets look at some of the reasons exercise cannot help you lose weight if you are obese:

  • 1. When you exercise, your body is burning calories it does not need in order to sustain life. If you are too big, your body is trying to store as much energy as it can. For every calorie burnt your mind wants to replace it in order to protect you. The more you exercise the more your body needs to eat.
  • 2. Your body needs all it's energy to protect all that fat around your vital organs. Where will it find the energy to help you burn calories? Every time you undertake an action plan to start exercising your body will shut you down. You become more and more tired and just want to sleep. You just can't find the energy to supply the effort to exercise. This does not at all take away from your desire to exercise, it just happens in your mind.
  • 3. Your body is designed to assume just so much abuse. All the fitness trainers will tell you you have to push yourself and be motivated. I do not disagree with these statements, if you are not very much overweight. Exercise, if you are really big, may put not only your joints and all your moving parts in danger, but also your vital organs that are having a hard time just to get the air and the blood they need to keep to alive. Once again your mind will protect you be telling you to stop. It will really protect you. Protecting you from harm in every way it can, that is the message you are sending to your body. Exercise will only hurt you, not help you.
  • 4. Exercise is for winners. You need to earn the privilege to give your body the help it needs to get fit. Being really fat is not part of the help your body is looking for by exercising. It's time to rethink all this exercise thing. Food for thought

5 Reasons Why Exercise is So Important

If you are yet to know that exercise is important for good health, you are already living a high risk lifestyle. It's true! If you don't know, it only means you have been doing all the wrong things all these years and your case must be looked into urgently. Your muscles will become flabby and weak. Your heart and lungs may fail to function properly. What you don't now is that, you can even afford to eat all the wrong foods if your are exercising regularly. That means, lack of exercise may be killing you more than the cigarette you are smoking.

The importance of exercise will take a full book to highlight. Let's take a look at a few especially those you must know. You probably need to know these before you get up and start working out.

1. Disease Prevention- As mentioned above, exercises may just be the reason why a lot of us who smoke and drink excessively are still alive today. Regular exercise is necessary for physical fitness and good health. It cut downs significantly, the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure. It also promotes longevity.

2. Improves Stamina and Physical Endurance- When you exercise the body builds up strength gradually and with every additional day of doing so, you become stronger and much more able to thrive under pressure. Your anaerobic levels improve and if you are running it is common to find out that you will still be rearing to go while others who have not been exercising like you need to stop and take a breath.

Aerobic exercise involves continuous and rhythmic physical motion, such as walking and bicycling. How does it affect the heart? The heart develops and become accustomed to handling higher metabolic demands of the body and so even when you exercise for unusually longer periods, you do not get tired because the heart can still cope with the higher demand.

3. Muscles Strength- Exercising with weights causes muscles hypertrophy. That is, the muscles grow larger and become stronger. This improves your strength and even makes your grip a lot more firm. Your posture can be improved, and your muscles become more firm and toned.

4. Flexibility- As you exercise it makes a lot of sense to practice a variety of exercises as different forms of exercise serve different purposes. Stretching exercises are also important because it helps to circulate lubricants in the joints adequately. Stretching also ensures that the continuous joint movement gives no room for joint stiffness this way you stay flexible and reduce you chances of getting a fracture occurring.

5. Weight Loss- As you must have heard before, you can not loss weight without exercises. It is improper to try to loss weight on diet alone. Exercise is responsible for burning your body fat to help you loss the it. Exercise is also a key to weight control because it burns calories. If you burn off more calories than you take in, you lose weight. Taking in less amount of calorie alone will not help you loss weight you need to exercise to assist the weight loss process.