Keep Away From the Swim If You Want to Lose Weight

One of the best all-around exercises, swimming increases both cardiovascular and muscle strength. There is hardly any stress on your body’s joints, because water turns you into a kind of weightless underwater astronaut, making your every movement an easy, flowing one. But water also offers resistance that helps you build muscle strength and tone.

Doing laps in a pool — no matter what the stroke — is excellent exercise. You can also “take a walk” underwater or perform calisthenics like leg lifts or arm circles. Research shows that water actually offers an equal aerobic workout in less time than one on dry land. A half-hour of walking in water equals the energy output of a two-hour walk in the woods, one study showed. Make sure you’re about chest deep (to benefit from the resistance) and simply go for a stroll.

However，there’s something you should know: Swimming isn’t the greatest exercise for losing actual pounds, according to at least one study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

Researchers followed the progress of a group of moderately obese but otherwise healthy young women who were trying to lose weight by exercising without changing their diets. The women were divided into three exercise groups. Group one rode stationary bicycles, group two took brisk walks and group three swam laps in a pool. All of them slowly but steadily increased their daily exercise period to 6. 0 minutes. After about six months, the bike-riders had lost 12 percent of their initial weight and the walkers lost 10 percent, but swimmers lost none, and then,keep in mind that swimming has been proven effective in improving muscle tone, and firm muscles contribute significantly to losing inches, if not pounds.

A Brisk Walking Has Similar Benefits Equal to Jogging

A research study looked at 332 middle-aged, overweight men who needed to lose weight and lower their blood pressure and cholesterol levels. A direct correlation existed between the daily number of steps taken, weight loss, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. The more steps taken, the more weight was lost. Blood pressure and cholesterol levels dropped, too. A brisk 10,000 steps, a mile or two depending on the length of your stride, made for optimal benefits.

You’ve been using a significant amount of energy ever since that first tottering step you took as a child. Walking is an easy, painless and powerful form of exercise. Studies show that you burn about 100 calories for every mile you walk. This may not sound like much, but it quickly adds up.

The ideal walking program consists of a minimum of a 20-minute walk at least three times a week. To enjoy maximum benefits, don’t just drag your feet along the sidewalk but get your whole body involved. Bend your elbows, flex your hips and torso, relax your chest and shoulders and take brisk steps at a comfortable but challenging stride.

A brisk hike to your job (if that’s realistic) has benefits equal to jogging the same distance, minus all the sweat. Peter Arnold, manager of a busy sales department, swears by his twice-a-day two-mile trek to work, which he started after successfully losing weight on a diet. “Walking gets oxygen to my brain, loosens up my joints and gets me ready for the day. Why set aside a special hour or join a health club when I have to get to work anyway?”

The faster you walk, the faster you burn calories. If you’re already a walker, add some action with speedwalking. In the middle of your regular walk, walk as fast as you can for a minute or so. When you get comfortable with that, add another minute or two. Bend your elbows and pump your arms to add momentum. Be sure not to strain yourself. You’ll know you are if your legs turn into knots. If that happens, slow down!

In the long run, try to cover a mile as fast as you can. Making a mile in 15 minutes is great, and twice that is an ideal workout. Remember, when you’re speedwalking, do a slower walk for 10 or 15 minutes as a warm-up and again afterward as a cool-down.

Easy Ways to Stay Health for Life

You can improve your fitness level through moderate, everyday physical activities.

The Surgeon General's report defines fitness as "the ability to carry out daily tasks with vigor and alertness, without undue fatigue and with ample energy." Even after years of a sedentary lifestyle, people can achieve this level of fitness if they perform regular, moderate physical activity. Spending more time on less vigorous activity provides health benefits similar to shorter, more intense workouts. Everyone can accumulate the daily equivalent of 30 minutes' moderate exercise. Briskly walking 15 minutes from the bus stop home, then gardening for 20 minutes or riding a bike for another quarter hour will do the trick, and the experts urges people to "think daily and think moderation" when it comes to exercise, ''Choose something you like and stick with it, "

It's true that Americans can optimize their fitness by taking up more vigorous sports such as swimming or jogging. But it’s not necessary to disrupt your hectic daily schedule by rushing off to a gym, swimming pool or jogging track.

Moderate physical activity brings important health benefits.

More than 60 percent of adults do not perform a minimum 30 minutes of moderate physical activity daily. Worse, 25 percent are completely inactive. This sedentary life-style increases as we grow older and is even more common among women than men. The report makes clear that this widespread inactivity contributes to "premature death and unnecessary illness" for millions of Americans each year. Moderate exercise, however, can help shield us from many diseases:

Cardiovascular Disease

Dozens of studies suggest that exercise increases the level of "good" HDL cholesterol in the blood, which acts like a scavenger of "bad" LDL cholesterol, the main component of arterial plaque, by transporting it to the liver for elimination in bile. People who are physically active can maintain an improved HDL-LDL ratio for several days after exercise.

Regular exercise also lowers high blood pressure by relaxing the vascular system. Even better, exercise increases the capacity of the heart's coronary arteries and may help develop small new capillaries and arterioles to branch from the main coronary arteries and provide increased blood flow to the heart. Exercise also enhances blood enzymes that break down dangerous clots, which can cause heart attacks.

The American scientist evaluated almost 1 0,000 American men ages 20 to 82 for cardiovascular fitness at an interval of five years. Those who improved their fitness through exercise had a 64 percent reduction in death from cardiovascular disease compared with those who remained unfit.

Colon Cancer

Several major studies worldwide have shown that regular physical activity significantly reduces the risk of colon cancer. It has been theorized that exercise helps to prevent this dreaded disease just, behind the death rate of prostate cancer in men and breast, cancer in women by increasing the production of a chemical compound called prostaglandin F2 alpha. This may accelerate intestinal activity, which decreases the time potential carcinogens are in contact with our digestive tract.

Adult-onset Diabetes

As many as 16 million Americans are afflicted with adult onset diabetes, which is most prevalent in sedentary obese people. Almost 170,000 die each year of complications of the disease,In diabetes, the metabolic balance between glucose and insulin is disrupted, leading to dangerous blood-sugar levels and organ damage. Regular exercise contracts the skeletal muscles, which enhances glucose metabolism in our cells. Exercise also helps reduce abdominal fat, which many experts believe is a major risk factor for diabetes.

Osteoporosis

Weight-bearing exercise such as walking and dancing helps prevent the crippling bone loss of osteoporosis. Bone cells respond to weigh, bearing by proliferating to build stronger bones. Elderly people who exercise moderately have far fewer fractures and fall less often than their sedentary peers.

Depression and Anxiety

Regular moderate to vigorous exercise can reduce depression and anxiety, perhaps by increasing the metabolism of brain chemicals called monoamines, which elevate mood. The raised body temperature from exercise also decreases muscle tension, which may contribute to an improved sense of well-being. Studies of adults suffering from mild to moderate depression showed that at least 30 minutes of exercise, three or more days a week, greatly improved their mood.

It's never too late to start becoming physically active.

Middle age is when many people slide into inactivity, then they were exhausted halfway up a small hill and they're in terrible shape.

If people added moderate exercise to their daily lives, their fitness steadily improved, in their mid-50s they could take brisk walks and bike rides, and regularly camp and hike in the Cascade mountains. They will be fit and healthy, and can't imagine going back to being a couch potato. "

Older people can benefit as well. Maryland resident Mois Zople was 75 when he was told he had heart disease. In one year he underwent three balloon angioplasties to clear a clogged coronary artery. His physical therapists recommended moderate exercise to help keep her arteries open. Mois was reluctant to walk, however, due to a painful arthritic knee. His lifelong fear of water eliminated swimming. There’s not much I can do, he thought.

Then one day in 2002, he decided to regain control of her life. Instead of taking the elevator to his fifth-floor condominium, he began slowly climbing the stairs. He also began a regular program of water walking. Since then he has also taken swimming lessons and swims a quarter-mile three times a week. He hasn't suffered chest pains for three years. "I feel better than I did ten years ago." he said shortly before his recent 80th birthday.

At present, the challenge facing us is motivating all Americans toward a level of physical activity that can benefit their health and well-being, actually you always find some ways to stay health for your life.