Uncovering the Benefits of Regular Physical Activity in Healthy Diet Plans
Regular physical activity provides immediate and long-term benefits to people of all ages and stages in their lives, such as improving brain health, decreasing symptoms of depression and anxiety and helping people maintain a healthy weight.
Exercise can help you reach and maintain a healthy weight by decreasing risk factors for heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and certain cancers.
Cardiovascular Exercise
Cardiovascular exercise, commonly referred to as cardio, provides significant health benefits for your heart. Activities such as running, swimming, biking and tennis all count as cardio exercises which strengthen the cardiovascular system while improving circulation and increasing HDL cholesterol levels – plus it can help maintain a healthy weight while lowering risks associated with diabetes and pre-diabetes.
Regular exercise also improves your body’s ability to take in and utilize oxygen during workouts, enabling longer and faster workouts without becoming fatigued as easily. Exercise also boosts heart and lung health while simultaneously lowering blood pressure which lowers risk for strokes and heart diseases.
Before beginning a cardio routine, make sure you warm up for 5-10 minutes by performing slow and gentle stretching exercises. This will allow your muscles to adapt more effectively during workouts.
Strength Training
Strength training (or resistance training), also known as resistance exercise, can help strengthen bones and muscles while increasing balance. Strength training exercises a muscle or group of muscles against external resistance such as free weights, a weight machine or your own body weight. For best results it is essential to utilize proper techniques with light free weights or low resistance bands at first; then gradually add weight or intensity as time goes on.
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend that adults and children of all ages engage in at least two days per week of moderate to intense muscle-strengthening activity such as walking, jogging, swimming or dancing that strengthens muscle. Aerobic exercise such as brisk walking, jogging, swimming or dancing also helps increase metabolism while burning calories; both forms can prevent natural muscle wasting with age known as Sarcopenia.
Flexibility Exercises
Physical activity helps you achieve or maintain a healthy weight by burning calories and building strength, endurance and flexibility.
Flexibility exercises such as stretching can help loosen tight muscles and joints, relieving stiffness and making movement easier every day. They may even prevent injuries such as muscle strains or sprains by stretching muscles before engaging in other physical activity or by stretching proactively before an incident happens.
Stretching can be done alone or as part of a fitness regimen. Before stretching, always warm up by running in place or walking briskly for several minutes to prepare. While stretching, be sure to breathe through it without bouncing – yoga, pilates, and tai chi are great forms of stretching; dynamic stretches may even add movement that boost performance!
Yoga
Yoga offers benefits to your strength, balance and flexibility regardless of where it takes place; whether in a studio in New York City or at home. Yoga practiced regularly can reduce stress levels while increasing mindfulness.
Recent review of 8 trials demonstrated that yoga could provide similar relief from low back pain and improve function as exercise does, with results similar to exercise alone.
Young adult yoga practitioners were more likely than non-practitioners to report healthier dietary habits and higher levels of physical activity, using qualitative interviews to explore underlying themes related to how yoga impacted these behaviors; such as motivation to eat healthfully, increased mindfulness practices during meals, emotional eating management techniques and the ability to balance yoga with other activities.
