As well as becoming more body conscious with each passing day, the good news is that many of us are also becoming much more health and fitness conscious as well, placing much more emphasis on our health and well-being as well as how we simply look on the outside. In times of processed junk food, “miracle diets” that do nothing, unhealthy crash diets, and ridiculously unhealthy foods such as deep fried chocolate bars or pizzas, it’s no wonder people are becoming fatter and living shorter as a result. In this day and age, health and fitness has never been more relevant and more crucial, yet it is about so much more than looking good on the outside. It’s about finding the right balance of a healthy diet and regular exercise that not only helps you get your weight under control, but generally improves your health and quality of life as a whole. With exercise and fitness for example, many people engage in exercise purely for fat burning or muscle building purposes when in reality there is so much more to fitness than looking good. To emphasize that point, here’s a look at 5 prominent fitness facts you probably didn’t know beforehand.
Exercise improves brain health
As well as helping you to burn fat and get fitter and healthier, another great benefit of regular physical activity is the fact that it has been proven to boost brain health and power as well. So, not only will your body get a real boost, so too will your brain as well. As we exercise, we naturally enjoy more energy levels as our metabolisms are forced to increase and generate more energy by burning calories. Natural serotonin levels within the brain also increase, which is especially beneficial as this hormone helps to promote mental focus and clarity, allowing us to think clearer, to concentrate more, and to focus more at various tasks at hand. So, not only does exercise help benefit you in the gym, it can also help improve your everyday life as well, increasing productivity at work, or even around the home, allowing you to become more organised. This in turn, not only helps you, it helps those around you as well, so just think about that the next time you workout.
Exercise increases your energy
Now, although we briefly touched upon the fact that exercise can increase energy levels, generally you’ll probably be pretty surprised to find out that exercise actually increases your energy as surely you’d have thought it would leave you feeling tired after you finish. However, it isn’t until you relax and unwind late at night that you begin to feel tired, as exercise during the day can actually lead to pretty dramatic spikes in your energy levels. This is because as we exercise, various hormones such as endorphins are secreted into the bloodstream, and are then carried around the body. These endorphins make us feel energised and focused. As mentioned before, the metabolism also gradually increases as you perform more and more exercise, so the faster your metabolism becomes, the more energy you have.
It isn’t difficult to find the time to get in shape
We humans are great at finding excuses, and in reality, if we spent half as much time being productive as we do looking for excuses, we would get much more done in far less time. Ask anybody complaining about being out of shape why it is they’re out of shape, and they’ll tell you that they “don’t have the time to exercise”. Ask them what they did last night, and they’ll say they spend it sat on the sofa watching pointless soap operas. So, they have the time to sit down and complain about being out of shape, yet in their minds they’re far too busy to work out? In reality, finding the time to exercise is not difficult and truthfully it can be achieved in as little as 10 – 20 minutes if you know what you’re doing. You don’t need to go to the gym, you don’t need to go jogging or cycling, you don’t even need to leave your home if you don’t want to. You can perform bodyweight exercises, you can follow fitness DVD’s and workouts, or you can invest in a stationary bike and exercise whilst you watch the TV if you like. Why not get your friends and family members involved and go on days out to the park or swimming perhaps. You can always find the time to exercise, even if it means going to bed half an hour later, or waking up half an hour earlier.
Exercise can help prevent numerous diseases
Another fantastic benefit of exercise is the fact that it has been proven to help prevent numerous different diseases, for a variety of different reasons. To begin with, exercise strengthens and boosts the immune system, which is the body’s natural defence against illness and disease. The stronger an immune system, the healthier an individual will be. Numerous studies carried out over the years have revealed that exercise can help to prevent strokes, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, hypertension, arthritis, high cholesterol, and certain forms of cancer. In reality, there is no one major health issue where physical exercise will not have a positive effect and benefit it in one way or the other.
Exercise allows you to consume more
When people are looking to lose fat, they often cut back on their calorie consumption and end up eating less, which leaves them feeling tired and hungry. By exercising regularly however, you can actually eat more than before, and still lose weight, or at the very least, maintain your weight without having to worry about getting fat. This is because not only are you burning more calories when you exercise, but you also naturally increase your metabolism in a rested state, which means you burn more calories than before, just to maintain your body in its current state. This is by far, not an excuse to binge eat at weekends, or after a workout, but it does mean you can have decent sized portions of food for dinner, and the odd cookie/cake for dessert isn’t going to set you back several weeks in the process.
