Move, and your body will thank you
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The toughest part of exercising is getting your shoes laced up and forcing yourself out the door. Once you get outside though, it does get better. Hearing the birds sing, watching a fox scamper across the field or visiting your neighbors' horses can stimulate your workout.
It’s easier yet if your passion is playing golf or saddling up to go roping, because it doesn’t even seem like exercise.
My uncle Jim ropes and ropes tough, and he is nearing 76. Right now he is recovering from an unrelated shoulder injury, but he had the surgery so he can still rope.
Exercise is important, especially considering the USA obesity epidemic continues to worsen according to “F as in Fat 2010: How the Obesity Crisis Threatens America’s Future.” The report published by the Trust for American Health said obesity rates increased in 28 states during the past year and now exceeds 25 percent of the population in more than two-thirds of the states.
In Montana, to graduate from high school, students are required to get one unit of health enhancement class with a half-unit each year for two years. A unit equals 225 minutes of class time per week. Health enhancement melds “age appropriate content in physical activity, nutrition, alcohol/tobacco/drug use and abuse, family life and sexuality education, prevention and control of disease, accident prevention and safety, violence prevention, mental and emotional health, personal health, consumer health, community health and environmental health” according to the Montana Office of Public Instruction website.
Although most schools don’t show students how to rope, physical education classes in schools are beginning to teach students sports and games they can participate in their entire lives.
Just a sampling of activities people can participate in no matter what their age include:
• basketball
• biking
• bowling
• canoeing
• croquet
• cross-country sking
• curling
• dancing
• fishing
• gardening
• golfing
• hiking
• horseshoes
• kayaking
• riding
• team roping
• running
• skating
• skiing
• sledding
• softball
• swimming
• treadmill
• walking
• weight lifting
• yoga
Then there are sneaky ways to get more exercise into your life, like parking far away from the store and walking. I resist this, and my daughter constantly nags me about it. Also taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking around downtown and doing errands, gardening, walking to the mailbox, riding your bike to work, using a push mower instead of a riding mower and walking when you talk to you family on your cell phone.
Being overweight can compromise your health and shorten your life, with issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol levels, heart disease, stroke, cancer, gallstones, back pain, joint problems and even infertility.
As we all know, exercise and diet are the best ways to deal with weight. As someone who has fought my weight my whole life, I can say it’s easier to know this, than it is to do something about it.
Whatever you chose to do, move. Make yourself put down the remote and get off the couch. Go swimming, ride your bike or head to a gym or exercise class with a friend. Studies show if you exercise with a buddy, you’ll do it more often. Who knows, maybe you’ll settle the world’s problems as you’re walking together.
