Are You Active Enough to Stay Healthy and Well?

The manual or physical work that was a big part ofprogram containing mostly strength training activity as
our ancestor's life has all but been removed from ourthe condition of your muscles is the main contributor to
modern day lives. Hard work, from farming to simplythe health of your metabolism (your body's engine).
doing household chores without appliances is no longerYour metabolic health depends on the effectiveness
part of ordinary life for most people. But the problem isof the body's chemical and physical reactions from
the human body is designed to be active - very activeconverting food into energy to repairing and renewing
and needs the stimulation of vigorous movement tothe body's cells and tissues to building resistance to
stay strong and healthy.aging and disease. Your levels of strength, stamina,
This lack of physical activity in our lives has becomebody composition (muscle/fat ratio) and energy give
such a serious threat to our health it now has a nameyou your quality of life and can only come from the
- Sedentary Death Syndrome or 'SeDS'. Thehealth of your metabolism. And since your muscle
frightening facts are that not only adults are developingtissue is the main driver of your metabolism it starts
this disease but children are as well. And the cause is -and ends right here.
too much food and too little physical activity.Make no mistake about the correct type of activity
Our collective obsession to being glued in front of athat is needed to give the most health benefits. Long,
screen of some sort has a lot to answer for as ourslow endurance type of activity (walking, jogging or
activity level drops to the equivalent of sleeping whencycling) is great as part of an active lifestyle but
we are parked in front of these modern miracles.cannot give you the muscle strengthening of proper
Between that and the bad food choices that areexercise. Working the major muscle groups through
made when sitting in front of these screens it is notheir full ranges of motion under a load is what is
surprise that two thirds of the worlds population arerequired to deliver metabolic health which in turn gives
overweight and 50 percent have at least one seriousyour better weight management and true anti aging
health condition.benefits.
The legacy we now leave behind and perhaps theModern exercise programs are more concerned with
greatest tragedy is that health ailments previouslywhat happens to the body long after the exercise
associated with the older population will now affectsession is over as opposed to old fashioned exercise
children. This will serve to drastically decrease not onlybeliefs that were only concerned with what happened
the quality of their lives but the length of their lives asduring the session.
well. It is now predicted that children being born todayProper exercise to maintain health and wellness should
will have a 20-30 year reduced life span. So, it seemsbe viewed more as part of a lifestyle and not as a
although we will leave them the wonder of modernlaborious undertaking best suited to athletic enthusiasts.
technology we also leave them this horrifyingIt is far easier to find time for a couple of sessions
inheritance.each week than to risk having your life cut short by a
To avoid the severe decline in health that leads to thekiller disease that could be stalking silently from within. It
risk of over 50 illnesses and diseases due tois each of our responsibility to make sure we are not
inconsistent or non existent physical activity is such aanother victim and we only have to give a little bit of
simple one. Get yourself started on a proper exercisetime and a little bit of effort each week to ensure this.