Physical activity is good
for you. We all know that, but if
fitness has never been your cup of tea and you just can’t seem to get started,
this could be tough. People come up with
all kinds of excuse. There is always
that time issue and then there are the sore knees that make it hard to get down
on the floor, always something.
You are retired now so what
could possibly be more important than taking care of your body and maintaining
your independence? What if you fell down
and those same knees and lack of endurance made it impossible to get up again?
What if your doctor wrote an
activity prescription? Think of exercise
as a pill. What if a pill could improve
your blood sugar readings, lower your blood pressure, improve cholesterol and
help you lose weight, and what if a pill could do all of those things without
any side effects. What do you think of
that?
Unfortunately, such a pill doesn’t
exist. Stephanie Karpinske, R.D. wrote
an interesting article called The Activity Prescription for Diabetic Living
magazine (fall 2009) that emphasized that you could get all of those benefits
for free, from one source: regular
physical activity. Doctors discuss the
importance of exercise with their patients on every visit but maybe if they
wrote it out on a prescription pad more people would take it seriously. By not addressing exercise as a health issue
they are implying that it isn’t very important.
A prescription needs to be
specific whether talking about how many pills to take or how many steps to
take. A mix of aerobic exercise and
strength training is best. Find an
exercise that you enjoy but even then you should increase your intensity as you
get stronger. For example: wear a pedometer. See how many steps you take on an average day
and start increasing by 500 steps each day until you reach 10,000 (one foot in
front of the other). Exercise can make a
difference and you owe it to yourself to be healthy, active and independent. We can’t afford not to do this. The most important member of your health care
team is “you.”
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