The Importance of Exercise
The Importance of Exercise
Exercise has many benefits and is so important for your overall well being, not just weight loss or maintenance. Starting a new workout program was the stipulation for getting into this challenge group because it is the first step in getting healthy and taking better care of yourself.
If there was a magic pill you could take that would give you all the benefits of exercise everyone would be scrambling to take it!
12 Unexpected Benefits of Exercise
Exercise combats health conditions and diseases: Being active boosts high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or "good," cholesterol and decreases unhealthy triglycerides. This one-two punch keeps your blood flowing smoothly, which decreases your risk of cardiovascular diseases. Regular physical activity can help you prevent or manage a wide range of health problems and concerns, including stroke, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, depression, certain types of cancer, arthritis and falls.
Exercise improves mood: Physical activity stimulates various brain chemicals that may leave you feeling happier and more relaxed. You may also feel better about your appearance and yourself when you exercise regularly, which can boost your confidence and improve your self-esteem.
Exercise boosts energy: Regular physical activity can improve your muscle strength and boost your endurance. Exercise and physical activity deliver oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and help your cardiovascular system work more efficiently. And when your heart and lungs work more efficiently, you have more energy to go about your daily chores.
Exercise promotes better sleep: Regular physical activity can help you fall asleep faster and deepen your sleep. Try to exercise at least four hours before bedtime or you may be too energized to fall asleep.
Reduce stress: One of the most common mental benefits of exercise is stress relief. Working up a sweat can help manage physical and mental stress. Exercise also increases concentrations of norepinephrine, a chemical that can moderate the brain’s response to stress.
Improve self-confidence: On a very basic level, physical fitness can boost self-esteem and improve positive self-image. Regardless of weight, size, gender, or age, exercise can quickly elevate a person's perception of his or her attractiveness, that is, self-worth.
Prevent cognitive decline: While exercise and a healthy diet can’t “cure” Alzheimer’s, they can help shore up the brain against cognitive decline that begins after age 45. Working out, especially between age 25 and 45, boosts the chemicals in the brain that support and prevent degeneration of the hippocampus, an important part of the brain for memory and learning.
Boost brainpower: Various studies on mice and men have shown that cardiovascular exercise can create new brain cells (aka neurogenesis) and improve overall brain performance. Studies suggest that a tough workout increases levels of a brain-derived protein (known as BDNF) in the body, believed to help with decision making, higher thinking, and learning.
Sharpen memory: Regular physical activity boosts memory and ability to learn new things. Getting sweaty increases production of cells in hippocampus responsible for memory and learning. A study showed that running sprints improved vocabulary retention among healthy adults.
Help control addiction: The brain releases dopamine, the “reward chemical” in response to any form of pleasure, be that exercise, sex, drugs, alcohol, or food. Unfortunately, some people become addicted to dopamine and dependent on the substances that produce it, like drugs or alcohol (and more rarely, food and sex). On the bright side, exercise can help in addiction recovery. Short exercise sessions can also effectively distract drug or alcohol addicts, making them de-prioritize cravings (at least in the short term).
Get more done: Research shows that workers who take time for exercise on a regular basis are more productive and have more energy than their more sedentary peers.
Tap into creativity: A heart-pumping gym session can boost creativity for up to two hours afterwards.
This 12 week challenge is going to be a journey into health & fitness. You may feel overwhelmed with all the new habits you need to create, but we are going to break it down into working on one thing at a time. This week we are only working on customizing a fitness routine that will work for you. Below I have given you list of resources and ideas to help you, but we also want to chat with each of you individually during the week to see what you decided and if you need any more ideas. You may need to tweak your new plan as time goes on, which is to be expected.
Creating a Fitness Routine
When implementing a new fitness routine it’s really important to do it in a way that is sustainable. We want you to continue working out regularly long after these three months are up! We are your coaches for life and will be available to help you adjust your routine with all the life changes that will be sure to occur. You will need to take into consideration how much time you want to spend working out and your personality. If it’s not fun you won’t want to keep doing it!
When should I workout? I love working out first thing in the morning, but you need to find time during the day that you can maintain. It needs to be a time when you aren’t going to derailed. Some do it early in the morning before anyone gets up, others do in the afternoon on their lunch breaks or after work or when the kids are in bed. Try different times if you need to and find out when works best for you!
How often should I workout? Another thing to consider is how long and how often you workout. The minimum to get the feel good benefits is 30 minutes a week. The minimum for cardiatric benefits is 30 minutes three times per week. You don’t need to workout everyday if that isn’t reasonable for you. If you are just getting into a fitness routine, you may want to start out with 10 minutes a day. Try out the 10 Minute Trainer and then you can add more time or days as you go on. For the first month I would suggest that you schedule six workouts a week and then you can find what days and times work best for you.
What workout should I do? The best workout for you to do is one that you WILL do. Have you found your soul-mate workout? The workout that you look forward to doing? The great thing about Beachbody on Demand is that there are a lot of options so you can try a bunch of them to find what sort of workouts you enjoy.
What is your personality? You don’t need to feel like you have to do a high impact workout if that doesn’t fit your personality. There are lower impact workouts like PiYo, Yoga Booty Ballet, or Tai Cheng that might fit your personality better. If you don’t feel like you’ve worked out unless you are super sweaty, pick workouts that will do that for you like Insanity, P90X, and TurboFire.
What are your goals? If you enjoy working out in general, you may want to think about your specific goals or how much time you want to spend working out. You can increase the intensity of your workouts and decrease the amount of time you need to spend doing it. If you are looking for a high calorie burn workout you should pick a HIIT (like TurboFire) workout or weightlifting (like ChaLENE Extreme) or a combo of the two. Slim in 6 is a good one for those who are new to fitness and want to lose weight.
How should I schedule my workouts? All programs come with a professionally designed workout calendars that you can download on Beachbody on Demand (or is hard copy if you have the DVDs). I love to do full programs and follow the calendar to a T because it takes the guess work out and keeps me motivated as I feel pressure not to miss a day.
Plus if you complete a full program and send in your before and after pictures and measurements you get a free tee shirt! Getting my t-shirt from my PiYo challenge meant a lot to me and I really felt like I accomplished something :) I have done PiYo, Brazil Butt Lift, 3 Day Refresh, 21 Day Fix, Les Mills Pump, Les Mills Combat, and the 21 Day Fix Extreme and loved all of them! https://www.teambeachbody.com/…/contest-info-and-contest-wi…
Want to try different programs? If you would rather mix things up you can also pick two or three programs and choose or create a hybrid calendar. There are a lot on teambeachbody.com or there are blogs that have hybrids that other customers/coaches have created. We are happy to help you find one that will suite your needs. I also have a 28 day calendar for those wanting to try all the different programs on Beachbody on Demand that I posted in the group. I have recently come up with my own plan. I am basing it on a TurboFire and ChaLEAN Extreme hybrid, but I'm also going to be trying out other BOD workouts each week that match my type of workout.
Here's my schedule:
Sunday = Rest day
Monday = HIIT cardio & abs
Tuesday = weightlifting
Wednesday = cardio intervals & abs
Thursday weightlifting
Friday = PiYo/Stretching/Yoga
Saturday = Long cardio
Make a date with yourself! As soon as you decide what your workouts are going to be for the next 30 days, make sure you put all your workouts in your calendar! When you wake up for the day you’ll know exactly what workout you’re doing and when. You’re not going to try to workout, you are going to workout!
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