Tag Archives: fitness

Exercise for Muscle Growth

In order to obtain muscle growth, physical activity is necessary in the form of weight training, in particular high-intensity interval exercise.

Physical activity is one of the four aspects of lifestyle, which have a major influence on our health and well being.
The other three are: nutrition, stress, and synthetic chemicals. Nevertheless, half the Australian population doesn’t have adequate exercise and one in eight adult is totally sedentary.
Being fit does wonders for the working of our bodies and minds, for our attitudes and moods and for the prevention of degenerative diseases and early aging.
The evidence for benefits in relation to heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure are overwhelming. More recent evidence confirms that there are benefits also for the prevention of adult-onset diabetes, osteoporosis, colon cancer, anxiety and depression.
In contrast to these benefits, sedentary living may be responsible for as much as one-third of the fatal cases of heart disease, colon cancer and diabetes.
When we analyze the large number of benefits which are responsible for being fit, it’s easy to get motivated to get started with activity, or to keep it up, whatever the case may be.

Some people will tell us – possibly to try to convince us or themselves that exercise is unnatural or unnecessary – that they don’t care for big, bulky muscles.
Women sometimes believe that exercise will make them over-muscled and unfeminine. While it is true that exercise can be used to build big bulging muscles, the amount of exercise required for body building as far more than for normal fitness.
The physical beauty of a man or a woman is due largely to the quality and shapeliness of the muscles. Properly developed muscles which in repose do not bulge, but are smooth in contour and firm in appearance, giving a pleasing and attractive outline, which was obviously part of nature’s plan! Only fitness and good health can achieve and maintain the body beautiful!

Would you like to stay in attention-grabbing muscular shape for as long as you’re alive and be able to exercise?
And become mentally and physically tough to withstand the stress, pressure and problems that come your way during your time on this planet? If you say “yes” to both of these questions, then read on.

Proper weight training can give you this – and contrary to the general opinion, it doesn’t have to take joint-busting, spine-crushing poundages. Your muscular look can last a lifetime, without soft-tissue damage or a lot of work, if you train smart.

Whether you’re 18 years and just starting your muscle building journey or a 50 year old trainee who has been lifting for years, training smart means training in the most efficient, safest and fastest ways to build muscle and burn fat.

Mayo researchers compared high-intensity interval training, resistance raining and combined training in a twelve-week study.
They monitored molecular and metabolic changes in adults, divided into age groups of between 18 and 30 and between 65 and 80 years.
All kinds of training increase lean body mass and insulin sensitivity, but only high-intensity and combined training improves aerobic capacity and mitochondrial function in skeletal muscle.

Mitochondria are tiny energy-producing structures inside cells. They change with age and activity, and tend to decrease, both in content and function, as we grow older. One result is that we have less energy.

In the study, high-intensity interval training also improved muscle protein content that not only allowed cells to create more energy, but also caused muscles to grow bigger, especially in older adults.

The ability of the mitochondria to generate energy was increased by 69% among the seniors, and by 49% in the younger group.

Over the past decade, Steve and Becky Holman have developed a workout system for men and women, that they call the F4X Training System. It is a revolutionary way of combining four specific exercises done in literally a matter of minutes. That’s all you need! And you can’t find this youth-enhancing system anywhere else!

You don’t have to do endless cardio sessions, as the F4X Training System is a great cardiovascular workout, and you don’t have to spend an hour a day in the gym.
The F4X Training System will be your personal breakthrough, to achieve your ideal body, to stay in tip-top shape with minimal time, and to have a life outside the gym.

However, you have to be prepared for some hard work – anything that gives you this kind of radical age-defying results that have stood the test of decades, will never be like a walk in the park.But it’s fast, efficient and safe.
This is a routine you’ve never seen before, and you will get in and out of the gym in record time.

Our bodies all age, one day at a time, but you can slow the aging process down and totally reshape your body,
to the point to where you look ten years younger in less than 90 days.

The F4X Protocol has three phases. Each phase is designed to give you exactly what you want for your body.
These few simple variations in the F4X Protocol plus the F4X Lean Meal Plan, will get you exactly where you want to go.
If you want to lose 50, or even 100 pounds or more, you will be doing Phase 1, with slight variations in movement style and nutrition.

After you start to lose all the weight you desire, only then you should procede to Phase 2, the F4X Shape. Once you lost all your fat you wanted, you can get some more muscle on your frame. Here you will slightly change your lifting style and nutrition plan. An added benefit of the F4X Shape phase is that you burn even more body fat because you’ve added lean muscle. Muscle burns 95% of your calories at rest. So the more muscle you have, the more food you can eat!

If you like the look of a fitness pro, what is called “a mini bodybuilder, you proceed to Phase 3, called the F4X Build.
You can build 15-20 extra pounds of muscle on your frame. It’s the same fundamental plan with some slight variations to the lifts and diet.

You remain in total control.
Here is the really good part, and especially for the ladies, you are in total control. You can simply stop when you have gained the muscle you want. And then you maintain it while using an even easier protocol.

Steve and Becky’s motto is: Make it simple, yet make it challenging!

If you like to wake up energized before the alarm goes off, rarely if ever be limited by typical age-related aches and pains, radically alter the shape, tone, and body fat you currently have and drop all the weight you desire in just 90 minutes per week, and so much more, than make a wise decision and start with the F4X Training System.

For more information about the F4X Training System, visit: https://tinyurl.com/ty4b87z

Healthy for Life with Exercise

If people would realize how many health benefits exercise can offer, there would be no hesitation in getting started with some form of exercise.

Especially older folks are harder to get motivated, because they think the exercise will cause an injury. At the contrary, exercise will keep there overall fitness level and muscle strength in optimal form. It’s a matter of choosing the right form of exercise.

Swimming, walking and gardening are very suitable for older people.
Swimming has the advantage that their body weight will be partly supported by the water, which makes it possible to exercise without risking any bodily harm.

Walking is the best exercise you can have, because it’s natural. Good long brisk walks give a lot of benefits- the whole body begins to respond.
You breath properly, your circulation and heart benefits, and it’s good for the mind and positive thinking.

It’s only in recent years that fitness gurus have recognized the supremacy of brisk walking. In contrary to jogging, brisk walking provides a lot of benefits without any problems. Walking is almost as important as the right food. You need to eat properly and exercise properly, the two together gives you the best results.
The internal organs of the body need tone and for this most of them depend almost entirely on physical activity.

Exercise produces big results whether we’re 40, 60 or 80. According to the Human Physiology Laboratory at Tufts University Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, we respond well to exercise at any age. Muscles grow, bones strengthen, and metabolism increases. Our body fat decreases while blood sugar and balance improve. I proved this to myself when I taught strength training at a retirement residence. With modest effort, exercisers in their 80s grew stronger and more vital. We were all delighted.

Reduced muscle strength is associated with age-related disability. The most common cause of muscle weakness is inactivity. After three months of high-intensity muscle training, healthy men over 60 experienced gains similar to those reported for younger men training with similar intensity and duration. People who were stronger remained more independent and less burdened by advancing years.
Any type of exercise helps, but combining aerobics, strength, and flexibility works best. For most people, aerobic exercise is an easy place to begin.

As we breathe deeply, the diafragm – which separates the chest from the abdomen – rises and falls repeatedly, massaging all the internal organs, particularly the stomach, small intestine, bowel, lungs and liver. The stretching and relaxing of the intestines is vital in preventing that widespread form of ‘self poisoning’ : constipation.
Exercise does keep you regular!

In the mid-eighties, a vital clue to the right exercise for lifelong
health was uncovered by brilliant research in biochemistry.
Biochemists established that all cell replication in the immune system and therefore all immune strength is dependent on availability of the amino acid glutamine. Your immune system uses a ton of it.
But immune cells cannot make glutamine. Only muscle cells can do
the job.
So your muscles have to supply large amounts of glutamine to your immune system every day in order to maintain it. That’s it!
The mitochondria of muscle are the furnaces in which most of your
body fat and sugar are burned for fuel. Muscle is what stresses
your skeleton to maintain your bones. We also know that muscle is
the vital link which also maintain your immunity and hence your
resistance to all diseases. Muscle is the health engine.
Which so much overwhelming evidence that muscular exercise is
essential to health, what are we doing about it? A big fat zero.

Muscle is the health engine.
It’s a proven fact that the right exercise not only maintains your heart, your lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy level of body fat and even your intestinal function, but also some more subtle functions, like insulin and your body’s dealing with sugar.It has been known for more than fifty years that lack of exercise leads to glucose intolerance.

However, not long ago research has shown that getting of the couch and start moving, not only maintain insulin function to deal with the sugar, but it also can reverse decades of damage. Insulin dependent diabetics, for example, using the right exercise program, can increase insulin efficiency so much that some patients, who have used insulin daily for years, no longer need it.

In healthy people, the right exercise completely protects glucose tolerance against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes.
Healthy old men who maintain a lifelong exercise program, have the same healthy insulin efficiency as young men. A high sugar diet, which progressively destroys insulin metabolism, makes it virtually mandatory to exercise if you want to avoid glucose intolerance as you grow older.

Most physicians believe that hardening of the arteries, a degenerative process, is inevitable. Dr. Lakatta at the National Institute on Aging Research Center in Baltimore, is showing in ongoing experiments, that regular exercise maintains arterial elasticity and even reverses arterial hardening that has already occurred.
I could fill many pages citing numerous bodily functions which are maintained by regular exercise. But I will keep it short.

Research recently undertaken has revealed the major way in which exercise protects you against all diseases. It started with the evidence that exercise increases the overall number of white blood cells. Followed by more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of lymphocytes, interleukin 2, neutrophils and other disease fighting components of the immune system. There is no
doubt that the right exercise strengthens your immunity. And it also strengthens your resistance to all forms of damage, decay, bacteria, viruses, toxins and even radiation. Closing with the wise words of Louis Pasteur, the father of modern medicine:”Host resistance is the key.”

For an exercise program that teach you aerobics, weight lifting and
nutrition for athletes, click here!

Diet & Weight-loss

If you are looking for some practical advice for weight-loss and keep it off permanently, the following information will help you to achieve this.

For weight-loss, five days weekly exercise of 30 minutes is much superior to three days weekly of 70 minutes, even though the total weekly exercise time of the three day people is an hour longer. In order to keep that metabolic rate churning, frequent exercise is the key.

For healthy, permanent weight-loss, depriving yourself is not the answer. 
Deprivation and bingeing become a vicious circle, and that's just one of the many problems with dieting.
         
circuit-training

Another thing is that diets are temporary, therefore, the results have to be temporary.
The fact of the matter is that dieting doesn’t work. It never has and it never will.
If diets worked, would the rate of obesity in America not decreasing each year in stead of increasing? In 1982, fifteen billion dollars were spent on weight-loss schemes in the US alone! If diets worked, that incredible high amount of money would surely put an end to this problem, wouldn’t it?
The fact is, that this ridiculous high amount is increasing by one billion dollars every year. In spite of the new diets that come and go, the problem is becoming worse.

Natural Hygiene
Natural Hygiene is the most remarkable approach to the care and upkeep of the human body. Natural Hygiene will teach you how to eat. The loss of weight is only one of the benefits of Natural Hygiene as a life-style. A significant increase in energy and overall well-being is also one of the benefits of Natural Hygiene.

Natural Hygiene is practiced today by people around the world who enjoy long, healthy, disease-free lives. The basic foundation of Natural Hygiene is that the body is always striving for health and that it achieves this by continuously cleansing itself of deleterious waste material.

It is the science of understanding the effect that food has on the length and quality of the life of a human being. It’s focus is on prevention and healthful living.
It teaches people how to eliminate the cause of their health problems, rather than constantly battle the effects of continiously violating natural laws.

The underlying basis of Natural Hygiene is that the body is self-cleansing, self-healing and self-maintaining. It is based on the idea that all the healing power of the universe is in the human body; that nature is always correct and cannot be improved upon.

The Natural Body Cycles
These cycles are based on rather obvious functions of the human body.
On a daily basis we take in food (appropriation), we absorb and use some of that food, (assimilation), and we get rid of what we don’t use (elimination).
Although each of these three functions is always going on to some extent, each is more intense during certain hours of the day.

1) Noon to 8 P.M. Appropriation (eating and digestion)
2) 8 P.M. To 4 A.M. Assimilation ( absorption and use)
3) 4 A.M. To noon Elimination ( of body wastes and food debris)

Our body cycles can become apparent to us if we simply witness our bodies in action.
Obviously, during the hours we are awake we eat (appropriate), and if we put off eating, our hunger tends to increase as the day progresses.
When we are sleeping and the body has no other noticeable work to do,
it is assimilating what was taken in during the day. When we awaken in the morning, we have what is called “morning breath”, because our bodies are in the midst of eliminating of that which was not used – body wastes.

Physiologically our bodies want to eat early in the evening so that at least three hours can pass which is the time needed for food to leave the stomach and the assimilation cycle can start on time.

The reason that 62% of the people in America are overweight is that our
traditional eating habits have consistently violated the all-important elimination cycle. In other words, we have been taking food in (at a record pace!), and we have been using what we need from that food, but we have NOT been getting rid of what we can’t use. Far more time is spent appropriating than eliminating. So the secret of loosing weight is to get rid of the toxic wastes and excesses we carry around.

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Metabolic Imbalance.
Natural Hygiene use the word “Toxamia” what modern science now calls Metabolic Imbalance. The human body is finely designed to stay in balance in terms of tissue building up (anabolism) and tissue breaking down (catabolism).
An excess of one over the other is called “metabolic imbalance”.

By keeping your system toxin-free, you significantly increase your change of having a comfortable body weight, because excesses of toxins in the body are the fore runners of obesity.
Your body is building toxamia daily in two ways:
Through the normal process of metabolism and by residue left over from the foods which are not efficiently utilized.

As far as your weight concerned, common sense will tell you that if more of this toxic waste is built than is eliminated, there is going to be a build up of the excess. That translate in overweight.
To make things worse, toxins are of an acid nature. When there is an acid build up in the body, the system retains water to neutralize it, adding even more weight and bloat.

So how do we maintain metabolic balance and accomplish the removal of toxic waste from the system while still enjoying our food?
There are three easy to follow principles or tools, that can assist you in doing just that. The first of these tools to help you realize your goal of permanent weight loss is.

The principle of High-water-content Food
Water is important for our survival, and so is food and air.
What do we mean when we talk about high-water-content food?
Our earth we are living on contains 70 percent water for survival. And so does our bodies. May be you find this hard to believe, but it’s a fact.
When you consider those two facts, wouldn’t it make sense that to maintain a body that is always in top condition, you must consume a diet that also contains 70 percent water?

If your body is 70 percent water, so where does it get that water from if you don’t replenish it on a regular basis? From the moment you are born until the last breath you take, your body is craving this essential of life.
This is besides drinking water, that’s another subject. Drinking water does not bring the results I’m talking about.
When we talk about high-water-content food, there are only two types of food that have that high water content: they are fruits and vegetables. They should predominate in our diet.

All the nutritional requirements our body has – all the vitamins, minerals, proteins, amino acids, enzymes, carbohydrates, and fatty acids that exists and that the human body needs to survive – can be found in fruits and vegetables.
The nutritional requirements are carried by the water in those fruits and vegetables into your intestines, where all nutrition is absorbed.

However,I believe we have to supplement our diet with high-quality nutritional supplements, because modern farming techniques, using chemical pesticides and fertilizers, destroy a large part of the minerals in the soil and the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables.
Selenium, for example, an important mineral that protect against cancer, can’t be found in Australian soil anymore.
Even when you buy organic food, the food gets polluted water and air from the environment. So it’s good to keep this in mind.

If you are an athlete, it’s important to eat an alkaline diet, that is: a diet that is rich in fruit and vegetables. All exercise increases body acidity.
See www.nutrobalance2.com/ the alkaline/acid food theory.

Besides carrying nutrients into the body, water performs the essential function of cleansing the body of toxic wastes.

All three of our body cycles function with the greatest ease when supplied with the water in fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.
If you want to be vibrantly and vigorously alive, in the best possible shape, you have to eat food that’s alive.

The importance of proper food combining has been proved as a result of
intense research over the last 100 years.
Food combining teaches us that the human body is not designed to digest more than one concentrated food in the stomach at the same time. Any food that is not a fruit or a vegetable is concentrated.
The principle of correct food combining is based on 11 different food groups and associated individual foods. You can get a food combining chart from “Laugh with Health” from the Internet.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that drinking any liquid during a meal will upset the natural digestive process of the juices in the stomach. You should not drink within an hour before a meal or within two hours after a meal.

Most people like fruit but don’t know how and when to eat it.
The correct consumption of fruit is closely associated with proper food combining. Fruit is, without doubt, the most beneficial, energy giving, food you can eat.

Fruit has the highest water content of any food. Fruit requires less energy to be digested than any other food, in fact, almost none.Fruit is glucose in the body.
Fruit does not digest in the stomach. It is essential to eat it on an empty stomach and you should never eat it with or immediately following anything else. This is also very important. Fruit is the most important food that you can eat.

How long do you have to wait before you can eat fruit, depends on the type of food. After a salad or raw vegetables you have to wait 2 hours.
After a properly combined meal without meat – 3 hours
After a properly combined meal with meat – 4 hours
After any improperly combined meal – 8 hours

From the time you wake up in the morning till noon, eat ONLY fresh fruit and fruit juice. When you eat fresh fruit on an empty stomach, it has only a positive effect, it accelerates weight loss.

The detoxification of your system is very important so that energy can be fried up to be used in reducing weight. Any time you alter your eating habits, your body has to adjust itself to that change and by doing so can initially leave you feeling out of sorts. See any temporary discomfort as the cleansing process taking place and health returning.

Protein is the most complex of all food elements. It is the hardest for the body to break down. Remember, the strongest animals are plant and fruit eaters, not meat eaters.
Keep in mind that all dairy products except butter are extremely acid forming.

No weight loss program nor the benefits mentioned in this article will work without proper exercise. You can find an excellent exercise program here that gives you anytime fitness.

Exercise for Good Health

When we realize how many health benefits physical fitness can give us, it’s easy to get motivated and get started with exercise, or to keep it up, whatever the case may be.
When we have health, we have hope, and when we have hope, we have everything.

Exercise as a life saver
Renowned exercise guru Dr Kennith Cooper conducted one of the best studies by following 13,344 men and women for 15 years. This conscientious research, taking into account all major interfering variables, like age, family history, personal health history, smoking, blood pressure, cardiovascular condition, and insulin metabolism, showed that, at the follow-up after fifteen years, reduced risk of death was closely correlated with physical fitness. This included death from cardiovascular diseases,
a variety of cancers, and even accidents.

Strengthening heart & lungs
Many studies prove that exercise protects your body by maintaining vital capacity, and therefore maintaining adequate oxygenation of tissues. The health benefits of restoring vital capacity are superior to any drug or medical treatment.

Blood pressure protection
In a typical study, sedentary hypertension patients, aged 55 to 78 years with elevated blood pressure
where followed. After participating in an exercise program, systolic blood pressure felt by a whopping 20 mmHg. Regular exercise will lower blood pressure in almost anyone.

Lower cholesterol level
Cholesterol is essential to every function of your body. It forms part of all organs, including your heart and your brain. Recent research showed that average cholesterol levels in runners and bodybuilders ranged between 158 mg/dl and 183 mg/dl. It proves that exercise makes the healthy difference.

Exercise and Cardiovascular Health
Cardiovascular diseases are far out our biggest health problem. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in the U.S. Heart disease and cancer combined, account for almost 50% of all deaths each year and affects nearly 14 million. It kills more than twice as many Americans as all cancers, 9 times as many as all other lung and liver diseases together, and 28 times more than all forms of diabetes. There are good reasons to warn everybody starting an exercise program to have a thorough medical and physicians approval before they start.

Cancer prevention
A study by Dr Kenneth Cooper showed that cases of all forms of cancer were closely related to lack of physical activity. Unfit men and women where 300% more likely to develop cancer. But the best findings from this study is that you have to move only a smidgen out of couch potato land to prevent cancer big time.

Exercise against all diseases
The right exercise maintains your heart and lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy level of body fat, even your intestinal function. The right exercise in healthy people completely protects glucose tolerance against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes.

Research has revealed the mayor way in which physical activity protect you against all diseases. It started with evidence that physical activity increases overall white blood cells. Then came more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of disease fighting components of the immune system. There is no longer a reason to doubt that the right exercise strengthen your immunity.

Exercise is a medicine to create a positive change in a person’s physical, emotional and mental states.

If you like all of the above, I can recommend one of the best exercise programs on the internet to improve and maintain your overall health!

Related Articles – exercise, fitness, cholesterol, cardiovascular health, cancer, diseases, immunity,

Nutrition: The Key to Fitness

 

The key to fitness is nutrition and everyone of us has previously ‘lain in his own platter’.
We are mainly what we eat and, in the words of Cervantes, ‘the stomach carries the heart and not the heart the stomach.’

It is true that exercise, restful sleep, peace of mind, regular habits of elimination, bathing, etc., are all factors in keeping fit, but these will avail us nothing if our nutrition is at fault.

Modern research scientists no longer regard germs as the primary cause of disease, and their study of the body’s chemistry and the part played by nutrition in health and disease, is opening up important new vistas of research.

It is now recognized that most common illnesses are closely associated with nutrition and arise from lack of vitamins and minerals, just as some more serious ailments, which where dominant in the old days, such as scurvy, rackets, anaemia, beri-beri, pellagra, and nerve trouble are equally deficiency ailments, and respond to appropriate vitamin therapy.

Periodically, new and successful uses of vitaminss in diseased conditions are reported in the world’s medical journals and more and more physicians are prescribing vitamins instead of drugs.

Many people wonder why the terrible epidemics which formerly ravaged the earth – typhus, yellow fever, typhoid, cholera, malaria, etc. -have largely brought under control, yet the degenerative diseases, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, stomach ulcers, nervous breakdown, colitis, cataract, and kidney and liver ailments are all on the increase.

The reason is that the plague or ‘dirt’ diseases, spread by vermin, mosquitoes and human contact, are disappearing owing to improved methods of hygiene and sanitation.

The degenerative diseases arise primarily from man’s continual tampering with natural foods, thereby depriving them of vital nutrients that Nature, in her wisdom, incorporates in our foodstuffs to ensure good health.

It is a tragic commentary on these times that most people only begin to take an intelligent interest in their health, after they have lost it. Nature requires that we co-operate with her, and we cannot escape the consequences of our refusal to do so. Postponement merely increases the severity of such consequences.

You can read more about nutrition by visiting my blog post: Phytonutrients, compounds
from the garden.  Also: Facts about Healthy Foods

Physical Activity makes you feel great!

Physical activity is one of the four aspects of lifestyle, which have a major influence
on our health and well being. The other three are: nutrition, stress, and synthetic chemicals.
Nevertheless, half the Australian population doesn’t have adequate exercise and one in eight adult is totally sedentary. I refer to my article: Benefits of Exercise

Being fit does wonders for the working of our bodies and minds, for our attitudes and moods and for the prevention of degenerative diseases and early aging.
The evidence for benefits in relation to heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure are
overwhelming. More recent evidence confirms that there are benefits also for the prevention of adult-onset diabetes, osteoporosis, colon cancer, anxiety and depression.

In contrast to these benefits, sedentary living may be responsible for as much as one-third
of the fatal cases of heart disease, colon cancer and diabetes.

When we analyze the large number of benefits which are responsible for being fit, it’s easy
to get motivated to get started with activity, or to keep it up, whatever the case may be.

We have to keep in mind that it is important for any physical activity that it should be
enjoyable, otherwise there is a big change that we discontinue sooner or later.
It is important to think of fitness as part of normal health and part of our normal life,
not just an eccentric hobby. It may surprise you that only a small amount of regular
physical activity can make the difference between a body which is sluggish, lethargic,
lacks tone and is overweight and one which is energetic, fit, trim and good looking.

Walking is the best exercise you can have, because it’s natural.
Good long brisk walks give a lot of benefits- the whole body begins to respond.
You breath properly, your circulation and heart benefits, and it’s good for the mind
and positive thinking.

It’s only in recent years that fitness gurus have recognized the supremacy of brisk walking.
In contrary to jogging, brisk walking provides a lot of benefits without any problems.
Walking is almost as important as the right food.  You need to eat properly and exercise
properly, the two together gives you the best results.

The internal organs of the body need tone and for this most of them depend almost entirely on physical activity. As we breathe deeply, the diafragm – which separates the chest from the abdomen – rises and falls repeatedly, massaging all the internal organs, particularly the stomach, small intestine, bowel, lungs and liver.
The stretching and relaxing of the intestines is vital in preventing that widespread form of
‘self poisoning’ : constipation. Exercise does keep you regular!

The heart is a much more powerful and efficient organ than is commonly thought and
is capable of meeting all the emergencies of life. The fear that exercise will damage a
healthy heart appears to be entirely wrong. Muscle fatigue occurs long before heart strain.

In preventing heart disease and stroke, regular physical activity is a major factor in raising
the beneficial HDL form of blood cholesterol, while leaving the level of harmful LDL
cholesterol unchanged. As far as fat is concerned, studies have shown that even a high-fat
diet coupled with exercise is safer than a low fat diet with no activity at all.
For protection against heart disease I refer to an article in Nutrition Studies.:
exercise & cardiovascular health.

At its peak during intense physical activity, a healthy heart might level off at a pulse of 190
or less without strain, whereas in an unfit person the heart might be pushed to 220 or more, which is dangerously high.

The fitter you are, the slower will be your resting pulse rate.
The typical rate at rest is about 72 beats per minute, but for a fit person,
this may fall to 65, 55 or even 45, if you are very fit.

The brain works at a great rate, for which it needs abundant nutrients and oxygen.
Without oxygen we become tired and yawn. Increased circulation clears the brain and
sharpens the senses.

Because the nervous system also steps up its rate of functioning, repetitive exercise makes
nerve control more efficient and more automatic. The more efficiently we walk or run,
the less energy is needed.

Active muscles receive increased nerve impulses, blood supply and greater nutrition.
Development of the whole area takes place. Even the bones that are involved become
tougher, denser and less liable to breakage.

Some people will tell us – possibly to try to convince us or themselves that exercise
is unnatural or unnecessary – that they don’t care for big, bulky muscles.
Women sometimes believe that exercise will make them over-muscled and unfeminine.
While it is true that exercise can be used to build big bulging muscles, the amount of
exercise required for body building is far more than for normal fitness.

The physical beauty of a man or a woman is due largely to the quality and shapeliness
of the muscles. Properly developed muscles which in repose do not  bulge, but are
smooth in contour and firm in appearance, giving a pleasing and attractive outline,
which was obviously part of nature’s plan!
Only physical activity  and good health can achieve and maintain the body beautiful!

.