Benefit of Exercise

People believe the advice of ’30 minutes gentle exercise per day’ constitutes walking to the car, according to this BBC article. How funny. While this is valuable exercise to the more mobility-challenged among us, most people need to do more than walk to the car and back.

I am renowned for being lazy. I have had small spurts of energy in the past that saw me getting out the Tae-Bo DVD, or sporadically joining the gym only to waste a membership on not attending. But then I wasn’t serious about weightloss then: I am now.

When I first started to want to lose weight this time I had it in my mind that I would eat 1500 calories per day, while doing no exercise and after a year I would be a svelte, healthy individual. But alas alack, life is not that easy. If it were I’d never have gotten fat in the first place.

I tried for a few days to manage what I was eating on its own without exercise but it just didn’t work. So I talked to myself and asked how I could get into this weightloss malarky. In the past exercise has always reduced my appitite so I knew if I started exercising, and keep it going this time, then everything else should fall into place.

I started going to a gym. I was reluctant on so many levels. I was fat and would be judged. I was agoraphobic and didn’t think I could manage a public space. I was prone to panic attacks and scared that if my heart went faster by working out then I would collapse and die from a heart attack. But I also knew that if I didn’t do something, I would collapse and die of a heart attack anyway. Eventually. And I knew that the reasons for my reluctance were not reason enough to claim back my health. So what if someone judges me for being fat? They’ve been doing that for years and I have survived it. And anyway in truth they probably respect me for making the effort… as for the agoraphobia I knew if I kept going out that it would get easier so not going out was not a sensible thing to do and I told myself many people exercise every day and do not have a heart attack so it is highly unlikely that I will. At first I was obsessed by the heart monitor but eventually I stopped looking. All the hurdles I was putting on myself in terms of going to the gym were surmountable, and I knew it.

So I went with the view that I will eat what I want as long as I work out. Within a couple of sessions I was telling myself I will eat what I want but make healthy choices and exercise and then after about 1-2 weeks I was watching everything I ate and exercising – and beginning to lose weight.

Of course it helped that I had the weightloss nurse, the Xenical and the gym instructor to be accountable to but the fact that I was soon back on track with my weightloss showed just how powerful exercise was.

Then I had a shoulder injury and had to take what turned out to be 6 days off the gym and my body started craving bad food again, so I forced myself to the gym even though I was still in pain and all cravings disappeared.

Don’t get me wrong, I too have days – weeks sometimes – where I do not want to work out, I am only human after all. Sometimes I dread the cross trainer from the time I leave the gym until the next time I arrive but I keep going. Not because I am a martyr but because I know if I don’t the only person I am hurting is myself. In addition to weightloss, going to the gym has helped me go down 2-3 dress sizes in 2 months, it has increased my confidence, cured my agoraphobia, panic attacks and mental health issues, increased my mobility and my cardiovascular health has really gone through the roof. Inside my chest feels sooooooo much better. I never thought it was an issue but as I get fitter I really feel the difference. I don’t get puffed out anywhere near as easily and can do so much more with my body. All of this makes every minute suffered in the gym (if you want to see it as suffering, I prefer to think of it as improving my health) worth it, x1000.

Rosabel pointed out the other day that we have the wrong approach to exercise. Exercise is mainly seen as a way to lose weight, not a necessity for general health. I know when I was at school I HATED exercise with a passion but I really think that is down to how it was sold to us from the teachers and school (plus my family hating it). We *had* to do 2 sessions per week because we *needed* exercise. The thought that exercise could be fun was never entertained by anyone. It became a chore and the real sport was in coming up with a good enough excuse to get out of it (I still wonder why having a period was reason enough to sit out!) And school sports were competitive, it was all about the winning and many children who would not be likely to win were encouraged to leave it to those at the top of their sport. This was esculated by the annual sports day event. The only thing I ever did was the egg and spoon race!

I agree with Rosabel that it needs to be instilled in kids – from a very young age – that exercise is good, fun and necessary for good health. I think it doesn’t help that we live in a cold climate where outdoor activities are not encouraged, I’ve always admired Australia for it’s mentality to exercise and the outdoors.

Exercise doesn’t mean you have to slave away in a gym. You can take a walk, jog in your local park, take the kids on excursions in the holidays, spring clean the house more often, hopscotch, skip, buy and use dumbells, get off the bus a stop earlier, leave the car at home when you pop to the shop… anything, you just need to be creative to get your body to move!