Diet And Weightloss

Many of us need to follow an exercise program in order to get or remain healthy! Below, you’ll find several good reasons why you should start exercising now.

1. Exercise contributes to fat loss.  It is well proven from scientific research all over the world that physical exercise contributes to weight loss. If you burn more calories than you consume through nutrition, you’ll lose weight. When you exercise, you burn more calories than if you don’t. It’s really simple - the more you exercise, the more weight or fat you’ll lose or burn.

2. Exercise helps prevent disease. The chances of developing several serious diseases has been proven to decrease when exercising. These diseases include heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke.

Around 4 out of 5 deaths caused by heart disease and cancer are linked to factors that include stress and lack of exercise. What this shows is that many of the risk factors and diseases caused by not exercising can be very harmful your health. To try and prevent this from happening, start exercising. It’s really that simple!

3. Exercise can improve some diseases. Many severe and minor diseases can be improved or even healed through regular exercise. These even include the diseases listed above. By following a regular plan, you can also decrease HDL cholesterol levels, decrease triglyceride levels, and decrease your blood pressure as well.

Exercising on a regular basis will also reduce the risk of prostate cancer for men, breast and uterine cancer for women and much more. All of this is scientifically proven, which is why you should start exercising today.

4. Exercise can enhance your state of mind. Everyone knows from the many scientific studies that regular exercising will lead to an increased release of endorphins in the body. These chemicals will fight depression and make you feel happy. The body releases these endorphins only 12 minutes into the workout.

There is another chemical known as serotonin that is increased during and after a workout. The increased levels of serotonin in the central nervous system is associated with feelings of well being and decreased mental depression. The chemical can also help you sleep better at night.

5. Exercise will enhance your wellness, help in your persistence to exercise and stay on  track. When you are in great shape and fit, you’ll have more energy and you’ll notice that your overall mood is improved. You will experience that you can stretch beyond what you thought were your limits and that you can do more than you thought possible. Exercising regularly will give you more energy which can help you be more productive at home and at work. It can give you new goals and a sense of purpose and something to focus on and aim for.

6. Exercise will help in your social capabilities. Working out on a regular basis will boost your self esteem. This can help you look better and you’ll be more comfortable and happy with yourself. Exercise will  help you to become more active and will also increase your interest in sex and can help you to improve your marriage or your partner relationship.

After knowing all of these tips and reasons to exercise, you shouldn’t hesitate to get out there and do it whether if be at home or signing up at a gym. Take a little bit of time out of your day and start exercising - you’ll feel better than ever before and your body will thank you. And remember, you are doing this for yourself, no one else.

For many people who are overweight, starting an exercise program can be quite difficult and daunting.

What you need to understand is that you don’t have to immediately start going out for long-distance runs. In fact, to do so if you are quite overweight, could be detrimental to your health. This also applies if you haven’t if you haven’t been involved in a fitness program for a long period of time.

In the beginning of an exercise program, it is better to start by going for walks and don’t be too concerned if initially they’re short walks and slow ones at that. Work up slowly and play it safe.

You can’t expect to run before you walk, and you will find that once you start taking the steps towards your goal, it will become easier and easier.

Even if you don’t like to exercise, you need to be aware of the fact that exercise is one of the fastest ways for you to reduce weight and improve your health. It will also speed up your metabolism to help reach your goals. The more exercise you do, the more energetic you will become and this in turn will make it a lot easier for you to achieve your daily activities.

Exercise also helps to flush out toxins in the body and improve your digestive system with increased blood flow throughout the body. Consequently, even small levels of exercise are going to be beneficial to some degree.

Any exercise that involves the use of resistance such as weightlifting,  will boost your ability to lose weight considerably faster as muscle burns fat and any muscle that you can build will help to lower your fat levels. These resistance training type exercises also help to increase the strength of your bones and that becomes very important as you age.

If possible, it is good to have some physical activity each day. You should assign time to do a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise three times per week. If you find that you can’t do that initially, don’t be too concerned as you will build up to it before too long. Most people end up enjoying it and make it part of their regular daily or weekly routine and lifestyle.

Also, see here.

The following is a bit long but I really hope you enjoy it. Tell your friends  too. This will be an unusual and different kind of posting but I thought it was too good not to reprint - Dave Barry’s Colonoscopy journal:

… I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis. Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn’t really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, “HE’S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!”

I left Andy’s office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called “MoviPrep,” which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America’s enemies. I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous.

Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn’t eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.

Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.)  Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon. The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, “a loose watery bowel movement may result.” This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviePrep is a nuclear laxative. I don’t want to be too graphic here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, “What if I spurt on Andy?” How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked that when you are actually naked. Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down.

Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn’t thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was “Dancing Queen” by Abba. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, “Dancing Queen” has to be the least appropriate.

“You want me to turn it up?” said Andy, from somewhere behind me. “Ha ha,” I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like. I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, Abba was shrieking “Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from the tambourine…”

… and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ. And there it is. I really have nothing else to add - Dave.

New posting probably tomorrow, 06/14/08 - Larry