Moving your way to heart health
I always chuckle when new research comes out about exercise and heart disease. Que the BREAKING NEWS press release… This just in. New research has shown exercise can help lower your risk of heart disease. But here is the thing, it is true. Exercise is a powerful tool that can lower the likelihood of developing heart disease, improve blood pressure, improve lipid profiles, enhance sensitivity to insulin, improve body composition (such as lean muscle vs fat mass), and your relationship with stress. The list is probable much longer, but at the fear of droning on and on I will pause there.
If exercise is such a potent mediator in reducing the risk of heart disease and improving both cardiovascular and metabolic health, everyone is doing it right? Not exactly, 1 in every 2 people are not meeting weekly exercise target of 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity.
But when I talk to people about exercise, most are not interested in exercising more for various reasons
I do not like gyms
I do not know what to do
I walk my dog
I play golf (this one is a joke… but not)
My response is always, exercise is personal and slightly challenging. It should be meaningful, sustainable, and joyful.
Meaningful: We are buys, and taking time to go to the gym can take you away from your family or other duties. So choose an activity that is meaningful for you. If you like the gym, go to the gym. But if you do not, let’s pick something else.
Sustainable: Pick something that you can easily do. Is it exercising in your basement, Walk-jogging around the neighborhood, playing paddle ball at your local community center. There are going to be times when you miss a day or week of exercise due to a life stressor, so you want your exercise routine to be easy to pick back up.
Joyful: You want to look forward moving your body. This helps you stay motivated when it is dark out and you want to stay in bed.