Saturday, November 15, 2008

Physical exercise & health

It appears that alot of people mistakenly believe that exercise is only for aesthetic reasons and not for medical health reasons. However, more and more people are realising the health benefits of regular exercise when they take action to reverse threatening health problems.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (1995) it showed that a lack of regular physical exercise is the attributed as the cause of approximately 12% of the 2.1 million deaths in the United States each year. This translates to about 250,000 people. High numbers of research studies have shown the direct relationship between lack of physical exercise and heart diseases, cancer, diabetes, anxiety and depression. Despite these studies proving this direct link, only 15% of US adults take part in regular vigorous activity and 60% report that getting effectively no exercise at all from a regular or sustained leisure activity (Pilzer 2003).

When I was growing up most of us did not have the internet or the vast array of computer games etc available, so we went outside to pursue our leisure activities. This was back in the late 80s and early 90s. As the internet age has developed and also increasing shortage of time available to people has resulted in less time for active leisure activities and an increase in eating fast food. Most people do lead sedentary lifestyles - their occupations require them to sit at a desk for most of the day and thus have little time for exercise outside of work.

Today, more than 65% of American adults are considered obese with over 80% overweight. These numbers are shocking and I believe that people need to think about taking charge of their own health with proper whole food diets supplemented with high quality vitamins and regular exercise. For those people who are serious about losing weight and regaining their health, there is a RESET program that you can follow to jump start your weight loss and eliminate un-necessary cravings for carbs or sweet foods. This program lasts for 5 days and the average weight loss is 5 pounds for most people and this number can be greater depending on how overweight you are. Once you have reset your metabolism for that 5 day period, you can now enter the transform phase where you continue with developing healthy eating habits and regular exercise. Find out more information via this website: http://www.oneplanet.usana.com/

This is an excerpt taken from the book "The Wellness Revolution" (Pilzer, 2003)

"The best we can do today when it comes to preventive or wellness medicine is to seek out the natural type of diet and natural program of exercise originally prescribed by Hippocrates. Today, this means the following:

1. Eating the proper amount (calories) and types of foods (e.g unsaturated fats, soy, fibers) to maintain optimal health and avoid obesity

2. Avoiding harmful chemicals and hormones in our food--especially those contained in dairy and animal foods

3. Eating foods (including supplements)that yield a daily supply of our requisite vitamins, minerals, and basic amino acids (proteins)

4. Exercising throughout the day to yield the equilivant of a natural amount of exercise

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