NEW ARTICLES EVERY MONTH
August 2007
THE PATH TO BETTER FITNESS
EXERCISE FEELS GOOD
Sports physicians recommend that you burn 1,500 calories per week through endurance training. First of all, it keeps you younger looking and healthy because when demands are made on the heart, it works more efficiently and lowers your cholesterol and blood fat levels as well as blood pressure. Secondly, it keeps you slim and happy because regular exercise improves circulation to the brain by up to 30 percent. Regular exercise also releases the happy hormone serotonin into your system and promotes the creativity-promoting hormone ACTH. Stress hormones are reduced and insulin levels in your blood are regulated. In a way, your flexibility increases and your body slims down almost as a side effect. Because exercise has so many positive results, you shouldn’t have any problem with motivation, right?
MOTIVATION: THE ABC’S OF MOTIVATION
Fifteen hundred calories – that’s about two hours of jogging, three hours of hiking or four hours walking in the woods. That should be totally doable! However, if your inner couch potato starts to object, get motivated by asking yourself about your personal goals: Don’t you want to look better? Lose weight? Or just feel healthier? Write down your goals on a piece of paper and hang it some place like your bathroom mirror. Find an exercise partner. Exercising with someone makes it more fun and talking yourself out of it more difficult. Try out different types of exercise that match your type, your exercise goals and your needs. Next month, we will show you how you can make your workouts fun and how you can add variety to your personal exercise plan. Until then, try to take control of your weaker self!