Reason 3: Health Benefits
Sometimes we have to be selfish to be unselfish! Airlines teach put the oxygen mask on yourself first and then help those around you.
Truth is you cannot really love another if you don’t love you!
You cannot take care of another if you don’t first take care of you!
If you don’t care about aesthetics (how you look) and your metabolism (ability to eat more without weight consequences), do you care about your parents, your spouse or partner, your kids, your grandkids, your siblings, your friends, your pets, etc?
Do you? How the hell can you be anything for anyone else if you don’t first take care of yourself? Love yourself? Value you?
Our health, whether good or bad, has a trickle down effect on those we love. Not only does it have a direct impact on what we can and cannot do for them or with them; our behaviors and habits serve as role models.
It’s time to get very real!
Don’t you want those you love to feel good, feel strong, have an abundance of energy, and have great health?
What example are you setting?
Sorry, not sorry, for being so forthcoming and blunt. There is no room for sugar coating! Our lack of care has made insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals unbelievably wealthy and they bank on us abusing our bodies.
So if vanity (aesthetics) and creating a fat burning machine (metabolism benefits) were not enough to convince you to get off the treadmill (or couch) and pick up some dumb bells then I hope that people getting rich while you are feeling more and more like shit and the love you have for your loved ones coupled with your desire to care for them will be a big enough kick in the ass to motivate you to start making change!
You have heard me say we sculpt in the gym and reveal what we have sculpted with nutrition. That is 100% true; however, we have the ability to tip the scale (body muscle percentage to body fat percentage) where what we have sculpted gives us the upper hand on nutrition (we become fat burning machines) and our overall health (more muscle gives better health). So let’s explore some of the health benefits that come from lifting weights.
Most of us are going to have the gift of living a long life… how we live that long life and the quality of those years will be greatly determined by how we care for the brilliant machine we have been given.
For Gods sake too many of us take better care of our cars than we do our own bodies!
What if we thought of our body as our dream vehicle. How would we care for it? Maintain it? Treat it? Love it? Our bodies ARE fine tuned machines and how well or not we care for them, maintain them, treat them, and love them has a huge impact on how many years our bodies will give us; and more importantly, the quality of those years.
Nothing replaces great health or gives you quality of life more than truly living a healthy and fit lifestyle does.
NOTHING!
Reality is we are living longer and longer. I wish I could say this is true because we are taking better care of our bodies. Reality is too many of us are dependent upon medicine and medications. We may be living longer but are we living with the freedoms that comes with great health, strong bones, and energy to do whatever we would like to do. Or are we restricted because of blood sugar issues, blood pressure issues, heart disease, weak joints and bones, low energy… and low libido?
You see we have a choice in how we grow old!
Make a choice to care for your body by creating health and fitness habits that create optimal health to prevent if started early enough or reverse if started after diagnosis. Again, it’s not a perfect world so many of us have to reverse damage already done. The great news is most health ailments can be greatly improved if not completely reversed.
What will convince you to start today- right this minute on making health and fitness a priority in your life?
Aesthetics?
Metabolism?
Role Model- Loved Ones?
Health Benefits? Lets explore as I know from conversation after conversation most just don’t have the facts and I believe that when people have facts better decisions can be made.
Make no mistake when it comes to health and fitness there are right decisions and there are wrong decisions!
Here we go on some additional health benefits!
1. Blood Sugar Benefits: Our liver and skeletal muscle store glucose as glycogen. However, if you don’t exercise regularly, and more specifically, train with weights, you lose your ability to store carbs. When you don’t have any place to put them, blood sugar rises, the pancreas secretes insulin, and you store fat.
People are born with Type 1 diabetes and people lifestyle themselves into Type 2 Diabetes. Both; however, can be controlled with a healthy and fit lifestyle that includes nutrition plan to manage the condition. Unlike Type 1, Type 2 can be 100% cured with nutrition and exercise. That’s right! We can eat ourselves right into Type 2 and cure ourselves with proper nutrition and exercise!
I question why create the need for the cure?
Especially when there is plenty of evidence to show that blood sugar and insulin dysfunction leads to cancer, cognitive problems, heart disease, and accelerated aging.
2. Joint Health: One of the main excuses I hear for not weight training is joint pain. Ironically, the reason most people have joint pain is that they won’t weight train.
I am not saying ignore pain!
I am saying figure out how you can weight train in a way that doesn’t make the joint pain worse. Eventually, the weight training will alleviate the joint pain by strengthening the muscles around the joint this giving the joint space to heal and then strengthen to eliminate future pain.
That’s not to say that someone with osteoarthritis in the knee, where there is no cartilage between the bones, will feel good doing squats. They might have to find an alternative movement.
At the same time, bad knees are never an excuse to avoid exercise altogether. You still have plenty of other body parts you can work on. After all, increasing lean body mass has been shown to improve some forms of arthritis.
Think of weight training as physical therapy… because it is!
It’s also preventative therapy!! Muscle protects our joints from the effects of stepping off a curb the wrong way or slipping on some unseen ice. If we have the strength and coordination, we will catch ourself rather than crashing and getting hurt. Also, the hormonal effects of building muscle can help repair other tissues and alleviate some of the pain we feel.
3. Building Muscle Builds and Strengthens Bone! Physical tension or resistance stimulates the growth of muscle mass and bone density. After stimulation, our bodies use amino acids along with other micronutrients to build and repair muscle and uses protein, calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and vitamin K to build bone.
Oh, and if you think you’ll avoid osteoporosis by drinking milk, learn the facts! The prevalence of osteoporosis in those who consume dairy isn’t any better than those who don’t.
Although calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and Vitamin K are necessary for bone health, our bodies won’t build bone unless we give them a reason to. We have to stress our bones with more resistance than simply lifting a spoon or cell phone.
We will all naturally lose bone density and muscle with age… and we all have the ability to prevent it!
Strong muscles almost always translate to healthy bones.
4. Muscle Controls Body Fat: Yes, we covered metabolism and because our fat percentages are so so important to our overall health it warranted another mention!
After all, Muscle burns about three times as many calories per pound as body fat does. So, as you drop body fat and add muscle, the number on your scale weight might not change, but you’ll create a significant shift in how you look (leaner look, tighter body, toned), while also increasing your resting metabolic rate.
Like muscle and bone loss, metabolic rate drops as we age. And, once again, we have the ability to prevent and/ or correct this from happening!
Living a truly healthy and fit lifestyle doesn’t cost more and it’s not harder!
It just requires decision and then change!
We can have reason or results, not both!
What’s holding you back? I am here to help!
One BadAss BITCH 