The Winter Wellness Diet - 7

EFFICIENT EXERCISE IS THE OTHER HALF OF THE BATTLE
Many of the rural cultures described in, “Healthy at 100” naturally work exercise into
their lives. They live in areas where getting a whole body workout is just part of living
an everyday life. Going to the gym isn’t necessary because they are lifting, hiking,
pushing, pulling and working all day long. For you and I who live in suburbia, chances
are that our daily routine involves less strenuous activities. Therefore, going to the gym
or finding a way to exercise is not just important, but essential to our overall health and
well being. Exercising is not just about burning calories and raising our metabolism. It’s
important, but there are other critical reasons to exercise and get plenty of physical
activity.
For weight loss, exercising to burn calories and raise our metabolism is essential.
When it comes to getting healthy though, it’s crucial you understand how that exercising
is affecting you inside your body. Raising our heart rate pumps blood around our body
and increases the circulation. Blood carries oxygen which is vitally important to every
cell in our body. So the more we get our blood pumping, the better our circulation is and
the more cells in our body get the amount of oxygen they need to operate efficiently.
Generally our blood pressure comes down which means the most important muscle in
our body, our heart, doesn’t have to work as hard to circulate the blood.
Knowing that, now we can talk about exercising more effectively in order to circulate
that blood around better. Blood (and oxygen) goes to the muscles that are working the
hardest. Just hopping on the elliptical (called precor sometimes) machine at the gym is
better than nothing, but it doesn’t really stress our muscles for maximum benefit. I
believe these types of machines are part of a great warm up. They get our hearts
pumping and blood starting to flow.
To lose more weight we need to burn more calories. Since we don’t want to spend all
day in the gym I’ll give you some philosophies to consider for the most efficient workout
(most calories burned for the time spent). For short bursts of energy our muscles
typically use ATP derived from glucose (carbs) already present in our cells. The
endurance muscles that are used for longer, cardio workouts are accessing our fat
stores and burning those for energy. It all has to do with the types of activity you are
doing and the oxygen that is present at the time. I’ll leave it to the author of a different
book to explain that to you if you’re truly interested. For now what I am suggesting with
the WWD is to exercise in such a way that you keep your heart pumping hard the whole
time. Work in weights so you are using multiple muscles and burning energy in multiple
ways which increases the efficiency of your workouts.
*A good warm up is important to get your body in calorie burning mode, but it also helps
prevent injury. If you hurt yourself and can’t work out, you aren’t losing weight or getting
healthier. I have seen this time after time, someone gets all motivated to work out and
lose weight and OUCH, an injury, and they can’t work out for weeks.
*Weights (dumbbells) can help you work more muscles and in different ways to burn
more energy
*Switching exercises throughout your workout will work different muscles, resulting in
better blood flow and circulation throughout your body with more calories burned.
*Keeping breaks to a minimum to drink water or quickly catch your breath will help
maximize the time you are working your muscles.