Exercise

By Jonny Bowden

There's probably no one out there who hasn't gotten the message that exercise is good for you. But when it comes to the question of how much, how often, and what results you can expect, the answers are all over the map.

Any physical activity from walking around the mall to running a marathon, doing Pilates to lifting weights counts as exercise. Ideally, you want to include both exercise for your heart (running, jogging, stair climbing) and strength training in your routine. Here are some of the documented benefits of exercise:

Stronger Bones
Weight bearing exercise (i.e. jogging and walking) helps build bones and protect against osteoporosis.

Better Mood
Studies have shown that regular exercise has a significant positive effect on mood and can lift you out of a mild depression. Exercise also helps deliver oxygen to your brain, keeping neurons healthy and your performance sharp.

Heart Health
Exercise is one of the best ways to protect and strengthen the heart. It also lowers blood pressure. And exercise is one of the best ways to increase HDL (the "good", protective cholesterol in the blood).

Diabetes Prevention and Management
Exercise lowers blood sugar and increases the sensitivity of the cells to insulin, which is a great thing. We want to be insulin sensitive; the opposite is insulin resistant, which sets us up for diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome.

Better Sleep
Poor sleep is a stressor that increases cortisol, which signals the body to store fat around the middle. Increased cortisol also leads to muscle breakdown and causes the body to overproduce insulin.

Exercise is one way to improve sleep. Physical activity tires you out and makes you more likely to sleep soundly. It also increases feel-good chemicals in the brain that help you feel good and more relaxed.

Reduced Cancer Risk
Researchers aren't exactly sure how it works, but have found that exercise can lower the risk of colon, prostate and breast cancer.

Strong Muscles and Joints
People who exercise regularly tend to have stronger joints, less pain and greater mobility as they age.

Weight Management
The overwhelming majority of people who maintain a healthy weight exercise regularly.

Exercise and Weight Loss
It's simple: Working out burns calories. To maximize the burn, do interval training, where you exercise at a high intensity for 30 seconds to a minute before falling back to a more relaxed pace while your heart calms down. Repeat for up to 10 times a workout.

For weight loss, strength training is more important than you might think. Calories are burned by muscle, so the more muscle you have the more calories (and fat) you burn. Building muscle is the best ally you have in the battle of the bulge.

Though exercise by itself is probably not the most effective way to lose weight, it's the most effective way to keep it off. To lose weight, you need to change your diet (in addition to exercise). But research from the National Weight Control Registry shows that people who are successful in losing weight maintain it by exercising at least 30 minutes every day.

To get the benefits from exercise you don't have to spend all your spare time on a treadmill. Most professionals recommend a goal of at least 30 minutes a day of some kind of physical activity. With exercise, some is always better than none.