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Articles: Exercise Made Easy
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Exercise Made Easy
Move it or you won’t lose it
Excerpt from Dr. Max Sawaf’s new book
"Anti-Aging Made Simple"
When people are asked why they do not exercise 85% state they have no time. The fact is that exercise should take no more than four hours per week. You will gain the time back in terms of increased energy, brain power, stress reduction and well being. The trick is not to
enrol in a gym that is too far. Proximity counts for a lot.
Getting there is half the battle. If you have no access to a gym close by then you need to invest in some simple equipment at home. Exercise should not take more than 45 minutes. Five minutes for stretching. Ten minutes to lift weights and build muscle. And 20 minutes on the bicycle or treadmill to strengthen the lungs and the heart, and ten minutes to get there and take a quick shower.
When choosing the right weight for a specific exercise, pick up any weight and do the exercise. If you cannot do 12 repetitions the weight you picked is too heavy for you. If you exceed 12 reps the weight is too light for you.
You get most of the benefit of exercising any group of muscles with the first 12 reps. Do not waste time doing much more. Make sure your movements are slow with the drum bell and you are not throwing the weight too quickly. You need to use slow resistance and not momentum.
We are not tired at the end of the day because we get too much exercise. We are tired because we do not get enough exercise. We are mentally, physically and emotionally drained from being sedentary. The reality is that your life is so full in these years that you cannot afford not to exercise. Of course you will be too tired in the first month as you get back in shape. Do not over do it and go slow for few weeks.
The only issue is that it is tough to keep on the motivation to exercise when life is crowded with obligations and stress. So rely on structure more than motivation. Carve out time to exercise, make it “protected time” and guard it fiercely against intrusion. It makes sense to think of exercise as a job because once you pass the age forty, exercise is no longer optional. You have to exercise or get fat and old. We do not wake up and think about whether or not to go to the gym every day, any more than we wake up and think whether or not to go to work. Do not leave it up to your mood as you would never keep it up. Stick to a time that you put on your schedule and stick to it. Once you drag yourself to work or to the gym you find yourself doing the routine.
Open-heart surgery is hugely popular these days, apparently because so many people prefer it to reading about aerobics, working out or quitting smoking. The surgery is not really that tricky anymore. All the surgeons have to do is cut open your chest with an electric saw, and then crack your sternum like the shell of a lobster with a huge pair of shears. Snip, snip, snip.
And then the team – don’t worry they’ve done this a thousand times-cranks the bones back so the doc can reach in… I was a cardiac anesthesiologist at Boston University before going back into cosmetic surgery. I have seen the black lung of smokers when they should be pink. I have also seen thousands of heart vessels clogged with cholesterol being cleaned with cottage cheese like substances being removed.
If you do not care for going to the gym, chose anything you enjoy doing such as brisk walking, tennis, volleyball, basketball, soccer, rope jumping or belly dancing. What counts is to get moving and to use your body muscles instead of limiting muscle usage to using your fingertip for operating the TV remote control or for clicking on your computer mouse while exercising your chewing muscles!
The keys to overriding the decay code that the brain sends to the different parts of the body and the shut down mode triggered by decreasing muscle mass is to have daily exercise, emotional commitment, reasonable nutrition, and real engagement with living. But it all starts with exercise.
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