Honoring Your Health with Exercise
Exercise is a key component of a healthy lifestyle. The
benefits of making exercise a regular part of your daily routine are numerous,
and range from improved cognitive function to decreased risk for an array of
chronic diseases. In fact, exercise has been proven to be so beneficial for health that in 2008, for the first time ever, the U.S. government established
the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans to help
educate the public about exactly how much and which types of physical activity
we should get in order to reap the incredible health benefits it can
provide.
However, the way we think about and approach exercise can
often influence the degree to which it enhances our overall health and
well-being as much as the frequency and intensity of the exercise! So
how can we get the most out of our physical activity while still honoring our
overall health?
1) Choose activities
you actually enjoy
Exercise shouldn’t be just another chore you have to cross
off of your to-do list every day—it’s an activity that should be enjoyed, and
it can take many different forms. Exercise is not limited to activities you do
with weights, on machines, or in classrooms at the gym, although this is
typically what people think of when they hear the word. Rather, “exercise” is any sort of physical activity that gets
your heart pumping and your body moving. So if you hate the monotony of running
on a treadmill or sweating on a spin bike in a classroom with 30 strangers,
don’t force yourself to do it! There are plenty of other ways you can increase
your activity throughout the day, whether it’s by linking up with a friend for
a walk in the park, riding your bike to class or work, joining an IM sports team,
or just dancing to music in your living room.
2) Ignore the numbers
Move your focus away from the “number of calories burned”
display on workout machines and fitness trackers and towards how it feels to
move your body and be physically active. The number of calories you burn during
a workout depends on a range of factors including (but not limited to) gender,
body weight, fitness level, genetics, and your individual metabolism. Most of
the time these factors are either not considered or not known with accuracy by
the technologies that are purportedly tracking your calorie burn, so the
numbers these machines generate during any given workout are probably wildly inaccurate.
Instead of obsessing over inaccurate numbers, focus on the enjoyment you get
out of the activity and what regular physical activity does for your health,
both mental and physical. Regardless of the speed or intensity of your workout,
you should always feel like you accomplished something important afterwards
because you did—even light exercise is beneficial for health, and some activity
is always better than none at all!
3) Don’t compare your
workout to others
To get the most out of your workouts, it is important to
remember that they are just that—YOUR workouts, and nobody else’s. Any two
individuals are naturally going to have different physical strengths and
weaknesses to begin with because our bodies are all designed differently. Plus,
your body’s physical performance on any given day is influenced by a variety of
physiological and environmental factors. So it is completely unreasonable to
compare your workout to anyone else’s at the gym—and besides, exercise isn’t a
competition! Appreciate what your
body can do today, and be patient and
respectful of your body’s unique abilities as well as its limitations as you
work towards achieving your fitness goals.
4) Take rest days
If you exercise frequently, it is not only okay to take rest days, but it is essential for overall health,
performance, and recovery. This is especially important if you exercise intensely
on multiple days per week. Intense bouts of exercise place a considerable
amount of strain on our body systems and even cause our muscle tissue to break
down. If you fail to give your body sufficient time between workouts to rest
and rebuild damaged tissues, not only will your exercise performance suffer,
but you may also experience mood swings, hormonal dysregulation, sleep
disturbances, impaired immune function, chronic fatigue, and increased incidence
of injuries such as stress fractures and muscle strains. Therefore making sure
that you are respecting your body’s needs for rest and recovery when you are
physically active can be as key to maintaining overall health and wellness as
the exercise itself, especially if your workouts are more intense!
5) Fuel your body
properly
Making sure you’re getting enough nutrients in your diet to
adequately meet your body’s energy requirements for exercise in addition to your
usual daily activities is essential both for fueling exercise performance and
for facilitating proper recovery. Food is to your body as fuel is to a car—when
we fuel it properly by consuming a balanced diet that incorporates a variety of
nutrient-dense foods, we ensure that all of our body systems can function at
optimal levels. However, the more active we are, the more “fuel” we need to
maintain that optimal level of functioning; because the more fuel we use
exercising, the faster we empty the tank, and you can’t drive a car on an empty
tank! So to get the most out of your workout, make sure you’re putting
something in the tank before you hit the gym, whether it’s a full meal or a
small snack, and then be sure to refuel afterwards with plenty of water and
nutritious foods to satisfy your body’s needs so you can power through the rest
of the day.
