Perhaps your GP has recommended that you exercise more, or you have had a recent health problem. Maybe your family has been nagging you to get off the couch, or you’ve decided it’s time to lose some weight.
How do you find the motivation, time and resources to get fit, particularly if you haven’t exercised in a while? How do you choose the best type of exercise? And do you need a health check before you start?
Overcome barriers to exercise
Motivation
Understanding the effect a sedentary lifestyle has on your health often hits home only after a serious event, like hearing bad news from your doctor. For some people, that’s usually enough motivation to get started.
Surviving serious illness as a result of an inactive lifestyle, such as a heart attack or stroke, can also be scary enough to provide great motivation.
So if you haven’t exercised for a number of years or haven’t exercised before, it’s a good idea to check with your GP before starting.
So you need to stay motivated enough to stick with your exercise program. You can track your training or fitness level and set some achievable goals to keep you going.
Lack of time
Finding the time and effort to fit exercise into your daily routine is a challenge. We know that being “short on time” is a common reason for not exercising. And many people, such as office workers, vehicle or machine operators, have low activity levels at work and don’t feel like exercising after a long day.
One way to overcome these barriers might be to attend a group exercise session or join a sports club. If you find exercise boring, you can encourage a friend to join you or join an exercise group to make it enjoyable. If you played any sports in your youth, that could be an option.
Having a friend to work out with or supportive teammates gives you a sense of commitment, so you have to be there and you will be challenged if you don’t show up.
Means
You don’t need to join a gym with lots of fancy equipment to get in shape. There are plenty of YouTube videos of safe workouts that you can follow and adjust as you get fitter.
This shows a 15-minute cardio workout you can do at home.
Many exercises, like squats, push-ups, and sit-ups, don’t need special equipment. And instead of building muscle strength with weights at the gym, you can fill milk bottles with water.
Yes, you will huff and puff. but it gets easier
You may be thinking about starting aerobic exercise, like the cardio exercise above, or walking, jogging, swimming, or biking. They all need oxygen to provide energy for several minutes or more.
When we perform aerobic exercise, our heart rate increases along with our respiratory rate and depth. This is because this type of exercise requires oxygen to provide energy to keep going.
When we are not used to this type of exercise, our body is inefficient at using the oxygen we breathe to generate energy for our skeletal muscles. That’s why when we start an exercise program we pant more, tire quickly, and may not finish the exercise.
But if we continue to exercise regularly, our bodies become more efficient at using oxygen and we get better at generating enough energy to run our muscles.
During weeks of regular exercise, the number and efficiency of our body’s mini-powerhouses, the mitochondria, increase in every cell. This increases the energy that they can supply to the muscles, the exercise becomes easier and we recover faster from each session.
That’s why it’s important to continue and repeat exercise sessions, even after a shaky start or a few setbacks. Yes, it can be challenging, but aerobic exercise gets easier over time as your body gets used to providing the energy it needs.
Thinking of yoga or simple stretches? This is what you can expect
Yoga is a great way to start an exercise program and you can do it at various intensity levels. Stretches and other movements improve flexibility and strength. Yoga also emphasizes breathing and relaxation through meditation.
Yoga, like other forms of exercise, will be challenging to begin with. But it gets easier over the weeks as your body adjusts. Therefore, it is important to be persistent and make exercise part of your routine with at least three sessions of up to one hour each week.
At first, your muscles may be sore. While this can be uncomfortable, the pain goes away after about a week. You can reduce this pain by starting at a low intensity and gradually increasing it over the first month.
Once your muscles get used to the new movements, the pain will be minimal as you progress.
take care of your joints
We know that being overweight or obese has Negative effects in the heart, bones, joints, and other organs, including the pancreas, which regulates glucose (sugar) levels in the blood. Obesity can also affect brain health and is linked to poor cognition.
The good news is that regular exercise can help reduce these negative effects.
But if you’re overweight or obese, exercising can put a lot of stress on your joints, particularly the articular surface, the cartilage surface of the bones that are in contact with each other. Therefore, the hips, knees, and ankles can become swollen and painful.
Therefore, it may be best to include exercises that reduce weight bearing, such as water exercises or using a stationary bike or rowing machine. Once you’ve lost some weight and your cardiovascular function has improved, you can add more walking or jogging to your exercise program.
The right diet helps you propel yourself
A healthy diet that you can maintain long-term is a very important part of any exercise routine. Not only can it help you lose weight, but it can also provide the right kind of fuel to fuel your new exercise program.
Getting plenty of fiber from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains will help lose weight and keep it off while exercising.
Sugar, especially the kind found in soft drinks and candy, is low in nutrients and increase the risk of diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases. So cut back on refined carbohydrates like some breads and rice, sugary cereals, and refined pastas, as these include sugars we’re trying to avoid and have had the fiber removed. Replace them with oatmeal, carrots or potatoes.
It’s best to avoid fad diets, which tend to be restrictive and difficult to maintain. They can lead to a yo yo effect where you lose weight only to have it come back.
In one word
Once you’ve decided to start exercising and have had a medical check if necessary, start slowly and increase your exercise routine over weeks and months. Make it interesting and enjoyable, perhaps by exercising with a friend or a group. Set some achievable goals, try to stick to them, and don’t give up if you have a setback.
Losing weight and getting fit requires different approaches for different people, so find what works for you and make it part of your lifestyle. Increase the intensity and frequency of your exercise gradually from a minimum of three times a week for 20 minutes to longer, more intense sessions more frequently.
andrew lavenderProfessor, School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Sciences, Curtin University
This article is republished from The conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the Original article.
