The Importance of Exercise

That's right,...exercise. I know, I know you don't want to hear it. Well keep reading anyway!

If you are like most people, you don't like to exercise. WRONG! You do too like to exercise, you just don't know it yet! You just think you don't like to exercise because you've never done it consistently enough to see the benefits that come with it. Yeah sure, you may have done some exercise while dieting or something like that so you could lose those last 5 or 10 lbs before your first trip to the beach, or some other similar reason. But I bet after you lost that weight (or for many of you, before you even reached your goal) you stopped exercising. That's unfortunate...

There are so many benefits you get from exercising, that it's amazing that so many people don't do it! Of course you all know that when you exercise, you will probably lose weight too and that's the only reason most people do it. But there are so many other benefits to exercising that you might not be aware of, so I'll fill you in real quick. Here are some of the other benefits to exercising that most people don't usually think about:

• It makes you breathe harder than normal, which makes you breathe from your core by using your diaphram, which get the lymph fluid in your body moving, which helps remove toxins from your body, which improves your immune system and how you feel in general.


• Breathing harder also increases the amount of oxygen in your blood, which allows more oxygen to get to not only your muscles but you brain too, which helps your brain work better.


• It improves the efficiency of your lungs to be able to extract oxygen from the air you breathe. This is called your VO2 level. As this increases (your lungs become more efficient), your normal breathing patterns slow since you don't need to take in as much air to get the same amount of oxygen into your blood. This also makes your heart not have to work as hard so your heartrate will slow down.


• Increased oxygen in your bloodstream happens because when you are exercising and your muscles are demanding more oxygen than normal, your body responds by creating more red blood cells that can carry more oxygen through your body. This then improves your blood pressure as well as your body's ability to deliver oxygen to your muscles and your brain.


• Exercise makes your muscles work harder than they normally do, which breaks them down. This makes your muscles rebuild themselves to be stronger and more powerful than before.


• It puts a larger strain on your bones than normal, which makes them become more dense and therefore stronger, preventing osteoperosis, improving posture and strength.

Those are just the reasons that I know of myself with no medical education (besides a few books I've rented and read from the library in the past). But even these reasons should be enough to convince you that exercising is well worth the effort. Not only will you improve your health, but you'll feel better, have more energy, and your brain will work better too!

It may be difficult at first to make yourself start exercising on a regular basis. So what? Do it anway! After you have exrecised regularly a few times, it'll get easier. As you continue to exercise on a regular basis, you will notice that you feel better, have more energy, and it won't be as difficult to "make yourself" go exercise as it was in the beginning. Eventually, you will begin to look forward to exercising! I'm sure you know of at least one person who runs on a regular basis and says it's because they like it. This is a common phenominon. When you exercise regularly for a while, you get addicted to it. But that's okay because this is a good addiction (as long as you don't go overboard of course...as they say too much of any good thing can still be bad for you).

So go start exercising on a regular basis. If it's tough at first, stick to it anyway! You're worth it, and you will be very happy you did! And if you already exercise on a regular basis, then let me congratulate you for being awesome! Keep it up!!! =)