6 Reasons to Get Fit and Healthy
6 Reasons to Love to Get Fit and Healthy
“I want that six-pack!”
Along with other visual reasons for getting fit and healthy, this kind of reasoning can make you want to give up easily when the going gets tough. Because of this, it is important to remember that you got to have bigger and better reasons for starting your fitness journey today. The benefits of regular exercise can go very far even if the scale has shown you that you haven’t dropped a single pound. Better sleep, increased energy, and improved mood are some of the equally valuable impacts that you will begin to notice as you keep moving forward.
So instead of just trying to lose weight to be able to wear the clothes you want or to look hotter than ever, here are 6 reasons to love to finally get fit and healthy:
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- Less to no more joint pains
As you begin to make more movements by working out, you will notice that you feel lighter after your time at the gym. And when you lose weight, you are also making it easier on your joints and bones. Apparently, excess weight tends to put pressure and additional force on your joints and bones. This does not only affect how well you can exercise your body but also cause you pains as you go through your daily tasks.
Dr. Heather Bartlett is a board-certified family physician and also founder-owner of The Bartlett Medical and Wellness Center in Ohio. He has observed how most people think that if they ever gain weight, then their body will also adapt to the additional weight. However, the opposite is true. The body is not capable of providing any support in order to properly function in this case and that means the extra weight will translate into pain.
On the other hand, if you work to lose some pounds, you are actually doing yourself a huge favor. For each pound that you lose, that is equivalent to a 4-pound reduction on the stress that you put on your knee joints. This has been confirmed in a research that was published in 2005 in Arthritis and Rheumatism. And so imagine if you lose 50 pounds – that would mean that you will be relieving yourself 200 pounds of painful pressure. In the same study, the researchers have seen how each step that the subjects took and thousands of steps later, a huge reduction in the force on their knees was observed. Ultimately for you, it would mean less discomfort and pain every time you work out.
- More Stress-free Life
Stress is literally a killer. A Stress in America survey of 2015 has found that collectively, stress levels are increasing – affecting both physical health and work life. Exercise has been confirmed as a stress-buster and if you are like most people who is easily prone to or often exposed to stressful situations, putting on your fitness hat is definitely going to provide you relief. The stresses around you will not magically disappear but working out will help you cope with them and provide you a healthy way to deal with them. It is going to be your natural happy pill especially when you exercise on a regular basis.
Keep in mind that stress can have serious consequences on your weight in the same way that sleep does. Chronic stress often leads to weight gain. What happens is that when you are stressed, cortisol, a stress hormone, will also increase in adverse levels and stimulate your appetite. This in turn will drive you to crave for foods that are high in sugar as they tend to counteract stress sensations and provide you temporary relief from the unpleasant feelings. These kinds of foods are aptly called “comfort food” and surely, you are familiar with them.
If you can identify with chronic stress and you are suffering from it, then this is something you need to address first before you dive into any weight loss program. Otherwise, you will only continue to gain weight because you will always turn to food for comfort. Instead of turning to food when you are feeling stressed, find an exercise or an activity you love and have a healthy way of coping with the stress.
- Hormonal balance
Guess what, when you lose weight, you also support your hormones and this includes the hunger hormones that affect your hunger and satiety. Dr. Kyrin Dunston who has lost a hundred pounds and has kept it off says that the fats in your body are not just for decoration. The same fats are actually metabolically active and that they produce hormones as well as inflammatory chemicals that influences and alters the way that the body functions.
Specifically for women, fat makes estrogen and that means extra amounts of estrogen when you become too fat. But when you are able to lose weight, then a hormonal balance is achieved where you experience less pre-menstrual syndrome or PMS symptoms; your periods become less painful or uncomfortable; and there is less likelihood of breast cysts developing. All these is a direct result of shedding excess fat and achieving that hormonal balance.
In the same way, having healthy levels of the thyroid hormones, insulin, and cortisol plus other adrenal hormones result in optimal functioning for the whole body. Weight loss helps you achieve such healthy levels because otherwise, the same hormones are going to go haywire and won’t be able to communicate to the body properly being messengers that carry important information for its proper functioning.
- Improved mood
You cannot underestimate the power of a good mood because being in a bad mood can ruin the rest of your day, make you unproductive, and make you end up feeling all stressed out. And, nothing else beats a healthy diet more in helping you get that positive attitude all day long. Needless to say, a diet that is high in sugar or processed carbohydrates spells disaster on your endocrine and nervous system. Meanwhile, if you opt for healthier carbohydrates sources, you will notice how your mood can positively change. In addition, while processed carbs give you dangerous sugar crashes and energy fluctuations, lean protein and healthy fats lift your mood and ultimately make you feel happier.
Even more, a balanced diet composed of protein, fat, and carbohydrates fuels your body to perform at its utmost and also frees you from emotional stress as you start to make healthier food choices. And so if this is something you want to pursue, start by checking off any issues that seem unrelated to your fitness journey but actually affect you emotionally. When you start losing weight, you can go back to your list and you will notice how you have become more emotionally stable with less of the issues that you used to have. You will realize that achieving fitness both has an external as well as an internal effect that is very beneficial for your whole being. You will become more self-confident, sociable, and enabled to improve all areas of your life including love, work, and family life.
- Better and sounder sleep
Lack of sleep is a common issue for over a third of the American adult population. A good majority do not get enough sleep and sleep for less than 7 hours on a regular basis. It is no wonder then that they suffer from all sorts of health issues as the long-term effects of lack of sleep seeps in. Dr. Patricia Salber, editor in chief of The Doctor Weighs In, confirms that decreased hours of sleep leads to fatigue that in turn demotivates you to exercise or to have the willpower to resist overeating. The result is failure to reach your desired weight or worse, more weight gain.
On the other hand, when you are able to have at least 7 hours of sleep daily, you are powering up your whole body to face the challenges of the day. You will be able to fight off your cravings as well as keep your hunger hormones at bay. As you do this on a regular basis, you become strong enough to keep it going and follow such a healthy routine for the long haul. Eventually, you will be able to lose weight and sleep more soundly at night. So yes, sleep and fitness have a mutually beneficial and encouraging relationship. You shed off those pounds, you become more active, and then you will find yourself sleeping better too. Get fit and healthy so you can sleep better and then sleep more soundly to live a healthier, happier life.
- Be more sociable as you desire
First off, engaging in physical activities can give you more reasons to be sociable. Joining in exercise groups or enrolling in fitness classes will allow you to interact with other people and make fitness more fun. When done as a group, you become more motivated and committed to stick to your fitness routine and weight loss goal. In this case, you gain more friends while you lose more pounds. This is one of the best strategies that you can employ to achieve your desired body weight.
And when you do, certainly your self-esteem will get boosted and you will feel more confident to face other people. Whether you are an introvert or extrovert, being with people and being sociable can give you that sense of being happily human. Being able to relate well with other people and socializing with them is good for your emotional and mental health. So go ahead and get back in shape – your friends are waiting for you.
Are you ready to lose weight, build muscle, or feel more fit? Join Beachbody On Demand, and get unlimited access to Beachbody’s world-famous programs, including 80 Day Obsession, 21 Day FIX®, Insanity, P90X® and 100’s more. Don’t miss out on your chance for amazing results. Sign up today!
