Why we should exercise

Benefits of exercise for your heart and for your health in general:

Lower your risk of coronary heart disease and stroke:

With as little as 30 minutes of cardiovascular activity most days of the week, you can significantly decrease your risk of heart disease!

Decrease your risk of high blood pressure: As you get older, you are at greater risk of a raised blood pressure.

Regular physical activity can help to prevent this increase as well as lower an elevated blood pressure.

Six million South Africans suffer from this condition and should take heed.

Improve your blood lipid profile (cholesterol and triglycerides):

Regular exercise has the ability to lower LDL levels ( “bad” cholesterol) and raise HDL cholesterol (“good” cholesterol).

Lower your risk of breast and colon cancer and possibly various reproductive cancers:

Research shows that the incidence of certain cancers could be significantly reduced if we made healthy lifestyle choices, which include not smoking, healthy dietary habits and regular physical inactivity.

Decrease your risk of Type 2 Diabetes (adult-onset):

Excess abdominal fat and inactivity can promote adult-onset diabetes, which plagues approximately 1.5 million South Africans!

Improve your bone density and decrease risk of osteoporosis:

One in two women and one in eight men aged 50 and over will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime; related to their low bone density.

Fortunately, weight-bearing exercise is a very effective tool in improving bone density and in decreasing loss of bone density with ageing.

Improve long-term weight control:

Exercise raises your metabolic rate (the rate at which food energy is burned), so less of it is stored.

The extra muscle mass you gain from regular exercise, further increases your metabolic rate both at rest and during exercise (muscle tissue burns up much more energy than fat).

Improve your mental alertness:

Research shows that exercise improves the “executive control processes” of the brain, for example, your ability to make plans and establish schedules.

Improve your psychological well-being:

Inactivity is a major risk factor for depression.

Exercise, on the other hand, improves your sense of well-being, vigour and vitality and decreases stress, anxiety and negative emotions.

Enhance body function in older adults:

Regular activity is one of the best age-defying treatments available and it is for free! It also decreases the risk of falling in the elderly, which could have severe consequences, for example immobilisation due to a hip fracture.

Lower your medical expenses:

Exercise should decrease your need for medications, as well as visits to doctors and hospitals!

Don’t deny yourself the extraordinary benefits of exercise

Get moving now!