 Healthy, Sexy, Happy © 2011 by Nancy Deville |
Nancy Deville is a bestselling health, fitness, and beauty writer whose mission is to inspire health for the mind, body, and spirit through eating a diet of real, whole, living food. Her latest book is Healthy, Sexy, Happy: A Thrilling Journey to the Ultimate You (Greenleaf, 2011), from which this excerpt is adapted.
I was 24 before I did any kind of exercise at all. I'd been a sedentary smoker for 10 years. After quitting smoking, I got interested in running. I didn't know a thing about training or stretching. The first pair of running shoes I bought were men's, because they didn't make running shoes for women back then. (We've come a long way, baby.) It also wasn't socially acceptable for women to sweat, so people made grimacing faces when I'd finish a run with sweat running down my legs. I ran six miles nearly every day for 20 years. Every year on my birthday, I'd run 10. My life pretty much revolved around running. If I was invited out, I would ask myself, Is it worth staying up late? I liked to go to bed early so I could get up at the crack of dawn and run.
Because running is injurious to the body, endorphins – internal opiates that reduce pain and heighten pleasurable emotions – are secreted. Dopamine follows, an excitatory, feel-good neurotransmitter. You can raise dopamine levels by using cocaine, marijuana, sugar, cigarettes, or alcohol, or by exercising. Ever since I discovered running, it's been a no-brainer that exercise would be the healthy choice. I'm no exercise physiologist, but after all this time I know enough to share what I've experienced about exercise.
First, regular exercise is antiaging. It stimulates the release of the longevity hormone, human growth hormone (hGH), from the pituitary. HGH accelerates repair of all tissues, stimulates immunity, and increases muscle building and fat burning, providing us with more energy.
When You're Sedentary...:
- You face accelerated aging
- You're susceptible to anxiety, depression, and tension
- You can't make decisions
- You face a decline in cognitive abilities
- You have decreased energy and increased fatigue
- You face fat gain and muscle loss
- You experience more feelings of aging and lose your joie de vivre
- You're at increased risk for heart disease
- You're less able to quit addictions
- Your sex drive vanishes
- You don't sleep as well
- Toxins accumulate in your body
When You Exercise Regularly ...:
- You can achieve your optimal weight more easily
- You have incentive to quit addictions
- You lessen your risk of heart disease
- You achieve mental alacrity and sharpness
- Your mind is clear
- You reduce anxiety, depression, and tension
- You sleep better
- You slow the aging process (because of hGH)
- You purge toxins (through sweat)
- Your sex drive returns
- You can make clear decisions
- You gain energy and self-esteem
- You feel good
The Basics
You may be expecting me to say, "Exercise at your upper-working heart rate, for 30 to 45 minutes, three to four times a week."
Not exactly.
Some people like to exercise every day. For others, who have kids and a full-time job, that's just not possible. Try this: Just do something fun as many days as you can to feel good, look better, be happier, and live longer. The goal is consistency. If you're really tired or out of shape, you only need a little exercise to start rebuilding muscle mass.
Here are some more fundamentals:
- Exercise in the morning. And if you have trouble sleeping, definitely get your exercise in before 2pm.
- Exercise at your level. Everyone is at a different fitness level. You may be out of shape, or recovering from an illness or injury, moderately fit, optimally fit for your age, ultra fit , or extremely buff. Once a person gets fit, she or he doesn't generally need a kick in the butt to exercise, beacuse exercise rocks. You'll be blown away when you see how many fun things there are to do that qualify as exercise. Also, remember to give yourself credit. Not everyone is a professional athlete, but we all have athletic prowess that we can develop.
- Support your musculoskeletal system. You don't have to take up yoga, like I did. The jackpot, though, is if you can develop an exercise lifestyle that incorporates strength, endurance, and flexibility.
Goals for Your Exercise Program
Strength. Unless you exercise moderately on a regular basis, you can lose one to two percent of your muscle mass every year after age 30. Staying strong means you remain a vital, active participant in life. Optimal physical functioning and longevity are both associated with strength. What's more, weight-bearing exercise has been proven to impede bone loss. Bone mass reaches its maximum density between ages 24 and 40. After that, it declines at about one half of one percent per year. Whatever exercise you chose, try to fit in some kind of weight-bearing activity.
Flexibility. As we age, we lose flexibility. Increased flexibility improves range of motion, decreases risk of injury, eases creakiness, and prevents aches and pains. Yoga and Pilates are the best activities for gaining flexibility. If you choose another exercise, it is important, both to prevent injury and to increase flexibility, to stretch before and after each session.
Endurance. Although a significant decline in endurance occurs after age 40, regular moderate exercise can help prevent it. (This applies to sexual endurance, too.) You can improve your cardio-respiratory endurance, no matter your fitness level, by exercising for a sustained amount of time, keeping your heart rate elevated. Improving endurance through exercise doesn't improve the condition of the heart itself, but it reduces the total workload of the heart. If you're out of shape, start slowly and work up to more intensity, until you can easily work out at your target heart rate. (You can find numerous sites online to help you calculate your target heart rate.) Walking is an excellent way to begin to build endurance. Start on a flat surface, and graduate to hills and walking faster. Keep your chest lifted and your chin up, and swing your arms, hand rising above your heart. To maximize your benefits,
cross train — that is, do something different as often as possible.
Interval Training. Interval training consists of intermittent high- and low-intensity exercises repeated in short sets. One reason I love yoga is that it is inherently interval training. Your "sprint" can be as short as 30 seconds or as long as 20 minutes, followed by a corresponding recovery period. Interval training is beautiful for busy people because you can cut your workout time to 20 minutes (plus pre- and post-workout stretching). Your session might look something like this:
- Warm up with stretching or easy movements for a few minutes.
- Hit it as hard as you can for 20 to 30 seconds until you are out of breath.
- Recover for 90 seconds.
- Feel your core body temperature rising.
- Feel muscle burn (due to lactic acid).
- Work so you're sweating by the second or third rep.
- Do seven to eight reps.
Psych Yourself Up!
Since I bought that very first pair of men's running shoes, I developed a habit of psyching myself up for exercise. Every night before I go to bed, I visualize my exercise for the next day. When I wake up in the morning, I'm ready to go out and do it — no matter what. My intent is set in stone. I visualize myself hiking or doing yoga or whatever and how much I am going to enjoy it. If I don't go through this process I face a nearly insurmountable psychological resistance.
You can do the same thing. To begin with, don't think negative thoughts about yourself. It will only defeat your intentions. Instead, reinforce your positive beliefs about exercise. Remind yourself how good it will make you feel and look. Tell yourself that exercise is fun. Then make it fun. Exercise has been a huge part of the enjoyment and pleasure of my life. Exercise epitomizes a lifestyle of health, sex, and happiness.
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