Exercise: A Crucial Component of Complete Health

No matter how old you are, no matter what your health condition is, exercise will improve your physical and emotional health. With exercise comes great health. Exercise brings life to your body, moves your lymph and blood, clears out toxins, and raises the oxygen and nutrients in all your cells, organs, heart and brain, along with maintaining healthy weight. Exercise greatly decreases stress, depression and anxiety, while improving sleep, hormonal balance, brain function and increasing positive emotions. Exercise is often difficult to get started, though once you begin moving you will start to feel great. If you have not exercised in awhile, you may feel tired or sore at first, but the rewards are tremendous. Once you get in the habit the opposite will happen, you will begin to miss it, you will recognize the tremendous energy, health and wellness you feel from exercising.

I suggest keeping it varied, just like with food or anything else, be careful not to get in a rut of the same old type of exercise. Here is a short list of what you might include: free weights, treadmills, stair climbers, yoga, pilates, skiing, biking, brisk walking, swimming, mat exercises, dancing, hiking and the list goes on. Be certain to include some high-intensity interval training 2-3x a week.

Belonging to a gym can be great, especially in the winter months. I work out for an hour at the gym 2-3 times per week. I like to warm up on the stair machine. I stopped using the elliptical runner because I saw a video where it explained it was bad for the knees and posture, and I stopped using a lot of the gym weight machines for similar reasons. I now do most of my exercise on the mats and with a few free weights. It is amazing how much endurance, muscle strengthening and overall conditioning you can accomplish this way. On days I don’t get to the gym it is easy to do a lot of this right on my living room carpet. You can use the machines in the gym, or you can learn to create a fantastic program simply down on the floor and with a few free weights. I highly suggest having a session with a personal trainer now or when you first start out, as you can learn a lot and avoid a lot of injuries. If you do have any injuries or weak areas, then working with a personal trainer is even more important. Furthermore, they can assist you with setting goals and creating a well-rounded program.

Though many of us get motivated going to the gym and exercising with a friend or around others, a lot of exercise can be done at home and outside. I always begin every day with some yoga stretches and squats. I take brisk walks every day outside in the fresh air. I hike year round and swim in summer. I also dance a lot. I read a research report that said partner dancing, in particular Argentine Tango is one of the most beneficial ways to exercise of all. I love exercising because it keeps me feeling great and young, with perfect blood pressure and weight, along with so many other health benefits.

Food and Supplements to Support Your Exercise Program

The basic exercise wisdom is to eat carbs before working out and proteins and fats afterwards. Eat lightly before working out. Be sure to be having adequate protein throughout the day to keep, repair and build muscle. When I am working out heavily or I am not having time to eat enough food protein for one reason or another, I supplement my diet with Vital Nutrients ProWhey whey protein isolate powder. I also like Premier Whey Peptein Powder. If you can’t use whey we have Metagenics Perfect Protein Pea and Rice though research says vegetarian protein is not equal to animal based protein. The Vital Nutrients ProWhey is an isolate protein powder minus most the casein found in many whey powders that make them more difficult to digest like milk. It is also higher in protein amino acids than regular whey. It is also well tolerated by many people who are sensitive to dairy and don’t have major dairy allergies. I usually mix it in unsweetened almond milk or macadamia milk. You can have it in just water as well.

Be sure you are well hydrated before, during and after exercising. When sweating a lot, be sure to add extra electrolytes to your drinking water. This can easily be done with Premier pH Minerals.

We have many more protein and nutrition powders on our website to make delicious drinks healthy drinks.

Exercise has been proven over and over to increase health, longevity and well-being on every level. Get up, get out and enjoy it!