Why I Exercise Every Day
Being physically inactive increases a lot of health risk factors such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes. Yet, more than 247 million adults are physically inactive in the U.S. and 1 in 5 adults are physically inactive worldwide.
But shifting to an active lifestyle can improve overall health. That’s why having an active lifestyle is so important to me, and why I exercise every day.
When my exercise routine only focused on weights and cardio, I didn’t see a difference in my body. I used to gym a couple of days a week to lift some weights and run for about 20 to 30 minutes. I did that for years, and saw minimal results.
I realized I needed to change.
When I started high intensity interval training (HIIT), I saw real results.
HIIT is an exercise routine that alternates short bursts of vigorous exercise with short active recovery periods. It pushes your heart rate more than you can with a steady-state exercise, thus burning more calories. It’ll also boost your overall aerobic capacity (using oxygen to fuel exercise activity). Since it’s a high intensity workout, it provides a lot of benefits in a short amount of time.
This type of exercise focuses on pushing your homeostatic capacity. That means, it pushes your body’s ability to push itself to the edge, and then return to a stable state. HIIT exercise focuses on reaching a target heart rate so you get the maximum benefits.
My HIIT exercises consist of low and high impact exercises including swimming, cycling, running, and weights (deadlifting and squatting).
Swimming and cycling are great low impact exercise that’s focuses on cardio.
Running is one the high impact exercises that I do, and I believe it’s one of the core workouts that we as humans should do. There are so many benefits to running, including stress reduction and weight loss. Scientific research shows that regular exercise (running in particular) for just 30 minutes a day, 5 times per week, has more health benefits than any medication can provide.
Exercise also increases your serotonin levels but running and biking in particular are most helpful. Serotonin is also known as the happiness chemical, which contributes to your overall wellbeing. Low levels of serotonin can lead to depression and mood imbalance.
You already know that exercise burn calories while you’re working out, but did you know that it also burns after you stop?
It’s called EPOC (post-exercise oxygen consumption), or the “afterburn”. The afterburn is the number of calories you burn after exercise.
On average, I only spend an 2 hours a day working out, and that’s about 10–15% of my week. On weekends, I might go for a 3-hour bike ride. Although it’s a small part of my week, it’s so important to my overall health which allows me to do so many other things.
