The Lose Your Belly Diet Book by Travis Lane Stork, Review
The Lose Your Belly Diet: Change Your Gut, Change Your Life, Book by Travis Lane Stork
The Lose Your Belly Diet reviews
About The Book:
The Lose Your Belly Diet Book by Travis Lane Stork, We want to be healthy. We want to be lean. And we want to lose that annoying fat around our bellies! We can achieve ALL of these goals with the Super-G Life. Based on exciting new research about the dramatic benefits of vibrant gut health and a diverse gut microbiome, the Super-G Life nurtures your gut while burning off excess weight and harmful belly fat.
The Super-G Life is built around a very clear, research-based concept: Eating food that increases, feeds, and protects the microbes in your gut paves the way for weight loss, a slimmer middle, and better overall health. It’s not just about weight loss. Having great gut health is linked to good health throughout your body.
Scientists in this rapidly growing field are finding connections between the gut microbiome and a healthy immune system and gastrointestinal system, as well as autoimmune diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease), allergies and asthma, and even cancer.
With every study that s published, scientists become more convinced that a healthy gut leads to a healthy body. We re accustomed to thinking of bacteria as bad and some are but most of the bacteria and microbes in our guts do amazing things, like working with our immune system to fight disease and helping our bodies digest food.
Not only cant we live without them, but as their numbers and diversity increase, so too does our health. I like to think of the microbes in my gut as my little buddies who are helping me stay healthy every minute of the day. And I love the idea of feeding them the foods they need to flourish foods that you’ll find in abundance in the Super-G Life. Research is uncovering ways to boost gut health and nurture the gut microbiome. In this book, well look at all of the ways you can improve your own gut health. We’ll start with diet.
The Super-G daily eating plan, which picks up where The Doctor s Diet left off, provides gut-enhancing foods, meal plans, and recipes based on the latest research into gut health. Foods in the Super-G diet help increase, feed, and protect the microbes in the gut. But diet is just one factor in gut health. We’ll also look at the many other steps you can take to support your gut microbiome, from avoiding unnecessary antibiotics to worrying a little less about dirt and germs.
Even the choices you make about how you bring your children into the world can have an impact on your family s microbiomes. And here s another reason to take good care of your gut health: Every part of your body benefits, including your skin. That s right: When your gut is happy, your skin glows with health and you look and feel younger. In the Super-G Life, we will cover all the bases, giving readers everything they need to make dramatic changes in their GI health, their weight, their belly fat, and their overall health.
About The Author:
Dr. Travis Stork is an Emmy(R)-nominated co-host of the award-winning talk show “The Doctors” and a practicing board-certified emergency medicine physician. He graduated magna cum laude from Duke University and earned his M.D. with honors from the University of Virginia, where he was elected into the prestigious honor society of Alpha Omega Alpha for outstanding academic achievement.
Born and raised in the Midwest, Dr. Stork is a fervent believer in helping patients feel empowered when it comes to their health. Dr. Stork practices what he preaches and likes to teach by example, biking to work every day, rain or shine. While he doesn’t expect individuals to give up their cars, he is passionate about enlightening individuals on simple ways to attain and maintain good health based on their own life and circumstances. He believes that oftentimes when people come to the E.R., it’s already too late.
That’s why he takes such pride in teaching people how to avoid preventable illness before it happens. Most people don’t realize that they make over 200 health-related decisions every day that dictates how well and how long they live. Dr. Stork believes health is not about the gym or a deprivation diet; health is achieved by focusing on those seemingly inconsequential 200-plus decisions people make throughout the day.
Review:
Appearance:
I liked the hardcover design and printing but low quality of papers.
Content: The Lose Your Belly Diet is an amazing book that I recommend to read.
Actually, it was my first health book, I’ve ordered it through Walmart, and I learned that we have bad and good bacteria in our body. these bad bacteria cause bad feeling, tiredness, fatigue, and we are feeding them with junk and fast foods. But it also teaches us about Good Bacteria or GUT FLORA, these are the ones that we need to know more about and feed them, they’ll help us with a better mood, better concentration, and losing belly fat, etc.
This book specifically tells you what to eat and what you need to avoid, it warns about taking antibiotics and how it kills good and bad bacterias at the same time. I’ve learned to take Probiotics and Prebiotics to stay in shape and make sure that our little friends (Gut Flora) being feed and multiplied. Also, Dr.Stork tells us about Fiber and why it’s important to add it in our diet.
If you really would like to get to know your body, and who are living in your digestive system, that’s a must-read. Please don’t forget to share your review down below if you’ve read this book.
Summary:
Your Gut Health/Weight Loss Opportunity Let me start by saying that I love food. Let me also say that the most important health lesson I’ve ever learned is to let food be my medicine and not my poison. This has been my guiding principle for quite some time now. But here’s the truth: our knowledge of how food affects our health and weight is always changing and evolving.
The Lose Your Belly Diet is a book I was inspired to write because of our rapidly changing knowledge of the human gut microbiome and its effect on our health and weight. If you don’t know what “human gut microbiome” means, don’t worry, because you soon will! It’s exciting stuff, and my goal is to be there with you every step of the way as you learn how to optimize gut health and maximize weight loss—especially the loss of harmful belly fat.
This plan focuses on food choices and portion control strategies that help you eat more of the high-quality foods that nourish you and make you feel full and satisfied, and fewer of the low-quality foods that lead to excess weight gain and fat accumulation. It checks all of the healthy-eating boxes while filling you up with delicious, enjoyable foods.
The Lose Your Belly Diet is an evolution of The Doctor’s Diet, a book I wrote a couple of years ago. I loved that book because it’s such an effective, easy-to-follow plan and was the way I used to eat. But since that book came out, we’ve learned so much important new information about gut health and the impact of beneficial bacteria on our overall health and weight.
It’s changed the way I eat and it shouldchange the way you eat, too.This plan tells you the how and why of enjoying life-supporting foods, and itdoes so without deprivation. In fact, it gives you more freedom and flexibility thanpretty much any diet out there. Not only does it encourage you to eat an abundanceof gut-supporting foods, but it makes room for bread, pasta, and other wholegrains that so many diets cut out these days.
And even more fantastic: this diet makes room for things like chocolate, wine,and coffee, which not only make life worth living (in my humble opinion) but appear to be beneficial for your gut bacteria, too!
Buddies in Your Belly
In a nutshell, here’s what we know about the human microbiome: When scientists analyze individual people’s microbe communities, they find that healthy people have many more beneficial microbes overall and a much greater variety of microbe species in their bodies than less-healthy people.
We don’t know all the details yet—hundreds of microbiome studies are still underway—but one thing is clear: having a vibrant, balanced, diverse microbe community is the way to go. So it makes really solid sense for us all to be protecting and supporting the population of our personal microbiome.
Gut microbes play such a crucial role in our health that it’s kind of amazing that it’s taken so long for us to start giving them the attention they deserve—butbetter late than never. Now that we are learning about how to take care of our gut microbes, it’s time to start figuring out how to incorporate that research into our everyday life choices. That’s exactly what we’ll do in the Lose Your Belly Diet.
The Lose Your Belly Diet is built around a simple concept that comes up over and over in human microbiome research: making choices that protect and support the microbes in our guts paves the way for better health—not just for our guts, but for our whole self. These choices do more than just help sustain our gut microbes.
They lower our odds of developing various diseases. And they raise our chances of reaching and maintaining a healthy weight, and of burning off dangerous belly fat. In the pages that follow, I’ll tell you how to do all that and explain the many ways—most of which are fairly simple—that you can immediately start to protect and supportthemicrobesinyourgut.I like to think of the microbes in my belly as my Little Buddies who are helping me stay healthy every day. I owe my Little Buddies a lot, and I want to do everything possible to take care of them.
Your Personal Gut Guide
Despite my enthusiasm for the subject of gut health, I understand that not everyone wants to delve into the down-and-dirty details of it the way I do. I get it:
most peopledon’trelishtheideaofreadingthelatestJAMAstudyonfecalmicrobiota as they drink their morning coffee. (Yes, I admit, I’ve done this.) But living a long, healthy, vibrant life is a major goal for just about everyone I know. So, even if you don’t like thinking about stool samples, you probably do like the idea of finding out simple ways that you can apply the cutting-edge discoveries about microbiome health to your everyday life.
That’s where the Lose Your Belly Diet comes in. I’m not a gut researcher, but I am intensely interested in microbiome research. The patients I work with and the people I talk to every day want to know what they can do to improve their health, boost the quality of their life, feel better, and live longer. So think of me as your own personal gut guide. I’ve digested the major microbiome studies (I know, bad pun) with one goal in mind: to figure out how you and I can apply this new information to our daily lives and diets.
Fueling Your Little Buddies
Many of my microbiome-enhancing recommendations in the Lose Your Belly Diet involve food because the foods we choose to eat and avoid have a major impact on the health of our Little Buddies. Because diet plays such a huge role in micro-biome health as well as overall health, I’ve created a diet plan that supports your gut and your entire body—a plan that does a super job of feeding your gut and enhancing your overall health while helping you slim down (if that’s your goal). Butthisbookiswaymorethanjustadiet.
TheLoseYourBellyDietwill provide you with all kinds of recommendations that reflect the growing knowledge we have about a healthy gut microbiome. I’ll walk you through all the changes you canmake—from the foods you buy and the medicines you take to the way you think about dirt and germs. I’ll also cover some of the choices you make as a parent that will positively benefit your family’s microbes.
Most of these changes are easy to make. For example, the Little Buddies in your gut benefit when you eat raw or less well-cooked foods, so I’ll share some delicious ideas for including more raw produce in your diet, including a new kind of veggie dish that is an innovative twist on an old American favorite.
Keeping Our Little Buddies Healthy
As we make our way through life, various things—good and bad—can impact thehealth of our Little Buddies. I’ll tell you more about all of these things throughoutthe book, but here’s a quick rundown.Based on what we know so far, the microbes in your gut community benefitfrom a healthy diet; exposure to people, animals, and plants that carry a diversemix of microbes; being born via vaginal delivery, and being fed with breast milkduring infancy. There’s even evidence that exercise helps our Little Buddies, too.Eating a healthy diet is one of the best ways that we can support our gut bacteria.
That means choosing more of the foods that help our Little Buddiesthrive—especially the dietary fiber found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts,seeds, and legumes—and choosing fewer refined foods, sugars, processed meats,and other foods that we know are not very good for our health and that seems to bedetrimental to our gut microbes, too. In particular, when we don’t feed our gut bacteria the high-fiber food they need, they can starve, die off, or be overtaken by lessbeneficial bacteria.
Or they may feed on the mucous membranes that line our intestines (a bit of an unpleasant thought, if you ask me), which can lead to inflammation and other health problems.Some of the other things that can harm our gut microbes include chemicalcleaning products, certain health conditions, antibiotic medications, antibioticsused in our food supply, delivery via Cesarean section, formula feeding, and alcohol abuse. We’ll look at all of these more closely in upcoming chapters.Those are some of the things we know so far, but I’m sure there are many more discoveries on the horizon.
For example, studies in mice have found that cigarette smoke damages their gut microbes—no surprise there, since cigarette smoke has been found to cause harm to so many other parts of the body. These results come from mice studies, but I’ll bet you 100 to 1 that the same will be found with people.
I’m also guessing that as this type of research progresses, we’ll discover that many of the other types of environmental toxins that damage cells and organs—air pollution, pesticides, heavy metals, you name it—may hurt our gut bacteria. And I think we may also find that many of the factors that boost our health in other ways— good sleep and stress relief, for example—may turn out to benefit our Little Buddies as well. In this respect, I think we have a lot in common with our little friends.
The Choices We Make
Before we go any further, I want to stop for a minute and talk about something important. A few of the things I mentioned that can harm the microbiome might upset you. Maybe you gave birth by C-section, ate a poor diet for many years, were prescribed a lot of antibiotics, or smoked cigarettes. If so, I hope you’ll think about it this way: What’s done is done. When it comes to your health, it’s not helpful to spend a lot of time looking back and regretting past decisions. Instead, focus on now.
For instance, I was formula fed. But I don’t spend a second of my life worrying about that, and I certainly don’t blame my mom. You can’t change the past—but the future is wide open. What matters is what you do now, beginning this very moment. Let go of any regret you may have and use that energy to start making choices todaythatwillbenefityourhealthandstartrebuildingyourgut microbiome from this day forward.
Your Very Busy Buddies
The Little Buddies in our guts perform so many important jobs that many scientists think of the human microbiome as a “forgotten human organ” that is asimportant to our health as our heart, lungs, or liver. I like to picture all those trillions of microbes as busy workers in a teeming factory, where everyone is busydoing work that benefits our health.We’ve known for a long time that gut bacteria exist in our bodies, but it’s reallyonly recently that we have figured out how many jobs they do.
Take digestion, forexample. We always assumed that the major players in our digestive system—thestomach, intestines, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas—did the lion’s share of thejob of breaking down our food to release and absorb nutrients and energy that canbe used by the body. But now, on further study, we realize that our gut microbesalso play a huge role in digesting food.
It’s kind of amazing—like thinking that instead of having five or six guys painting your house, there are actually 100 trillion.When I first started immersing myself in my own education about the humanmicrobiome, I discovered that the more I learned about how crucial gut microbesare to our health, the more I wanted to take care of my own Little Buddies.
I thinkyou’ll feel the same way, so let’s spend a little time doing a rundown of some of theways they help us stay alive. Again, we won’t go deep into the science, but a quicklook should go a long way toward inspiring you to take the health of your gut microbes pretty darn seriously. I know I do.
It was just 2 nights ago 6/17/2018 that I purchased the domain 3ee.info and I was looking for an affordable web hosting that of course google ads took me to GoDaddy advertisement for just $1 per month web hosting.
I usually don’t like cheap offers but as I was chatting with their customer service rep, and I explained how tight my hand was to pay for a good deal, He turned me down for free trial or different payment options that I could do.
Finally I started with their economy plan which I paid $12 for 12 month, untill this Friday I get paid and I can buy a better deal.
but is it really worth it or it’s just a pain? as you can imagine it’s not worth it and lets review my last night experiences about Email, Backup, Security etc.
Seems Godaddy has a good Email Marketing plugin that works nice, but not in this deal!
as you can tell I was really disappointed , by seeing one the greatest tools wo’nt work for me and I have to pay extra to take advantage of.
but how about Email itself? this company offers Office 360 Email in most of their deal for free for a year or so.(up to their offer)
Well, it looks like I did make a bad decision, LOL.
as you can tell if I want to take advantage of the Office 360 Email, I need to pay extra. $6.99 per month, and then after my contract is up I have to pay $14.99. and you cannot change your mind.
But it’s not the end… scroll down
The security of your website and hijacking and hacking the information, especially if you’re running an online market is really important. just imagine your customers are using their credit card or banking information to purchase your service or products, and suddenly something happen to your website and all those information being hacked.
as you can see below, these screenshots are telling us how unsafe is this deal, except you don’t have anything to lose which I doubt.
Well, what comes after security for you?
The most important service to me is Back up, if you have a personal web site and nothing to be worry , you need to make sure that your server is backing you and your website up.
Obviously I don’t have automated back up service until I pay extra for it.
Like as I said, It was not bad deal to start for about a week, at least I built my website up and runnig.
But I really don’t suggest it, especially that you cannot get other deals with discount as soon as you choose this economy ones.
in this Friday, I’ll get paid (Yayy) and I will get a good webhost then you guys can take advantage of my offers for web desining and web hosting as well.
Great Price, High Security, Best customer experience
The first definition of Fashion in the Oxford dictionary is A popular or the latest style of clothing, hair, decoration, or behavior.
I don’t believe that we have to spend thousands of dollars each season to buy the newest clothes and business attire, but we should pay attention to what we wear and what hairstyle do we have. but why the latest style of clothing, hairstyle or even decoration of our office could be considered as an important factor?
here what we found from riskology:
The clothes you wear and the way you groom yourself will change the way other people hear what you say. It will subconsciously tell them if you’re like them or if you’re different. It will determine whether they listen or ignore. Trust or distrust.
How you dress yourself changes who you are. It changes the value of what you have to say. At least to the people who are looking and listening.
From Quora:
Your clothes not only add to your presentation but also contribute to your behavior therefore defining your body language. When you look confident and approachable, you become more confident and approachable. Various studies including one by Joy V. Peluchette and Katherine Karl on ‘The impact of workplace attire on employee self-perceptions’ show that “Respondents felt most authoritative, trustworthy, and competent when wearing formal business attire.”
From Forbes:
First Impressions Count: The Business Value Of Dressing For Success
To be clear, people who succeed in business come in every shape, size and personality type. We do our best to represent and include them all within our company’s ranks. Smart and successful people bring their own inherent beauty in every case.
Furthermore, not every day requires time and attention (or the budget) for formal business attire. We place a high priority on health and fitness, and informal clothing allows us to program better, sell better, and be available for planned or impromptu fitness activities.
However, every one of us could benefit from learning a little bit more about how to present ourselves to the world for success. I’ve invited fashion stylist Lindsey Shores (my daughter) to weigh in with some expert thoughts on the ways we could increase our career and business success by considering the visual impressions we make.
“Whoever said, ‘It’s what’s on the inside that counts,’ couldn’t have been more optimistic about humankind,” says Lindsey. “But let’s face it, what’s on the outside can be just as important. Fashion nowadays is moving in every direction. It’s been proven that dressing well can increase your income, she notes. But aside from an increase in income, Lindsey maintains that dressing well is important to a person’s self-respect and composure as well.
The popular columnist ‘Mr. Mafioso’ says there are seven ways to get instant respect,” says Lindsey. I do adore his sharing of ‘dress the part’ as his Number One. Mafioso says, ‘Regardless of what you’ve done in the past, how much money you have in your bank account, how famous you are, or how fat you’ve become, a man in a well-tailored suit will always get treated better than some salame off the street.’”
And his point applies to every business professional, musician, computer guru, receptionist, and golfer. Dressing your part, whatever that part may be, is vital to communicating the impression of who you are and who you want to become, and ideally, it should be the first thing on your mind each morning. David K. Williams,CONTRIBUTOR
…We have all been taught from an early age “First impressions count.” One of the more robust phenomena in psychology is that people use general impressions to evaluate other people. Some of this makes sense. After all, some traits are correlated with each other…
The flat-earthers we referred to in Chapter 1 still believe customers always make rational choices. They don’t. Human beings do not always make sensible, logical choices. The belief that customer decision-making has a basis in rational processes keeps organizations from improving their Customer Experience. For example, if you wanted to buy a watch you could buy one from the gas station for two dollars. The watch will likely work just fine. If it doesn’t? You can replace it for another two dollars.
Most of us don’t sport gas station watches, though, do we? Instead, we buy a watch that suits our view of ourselves and our perceived or aspirational position in life. If you are lucky, you might wear a Rolex valued at thousands of dollars. But why spend so much on the Rolex if all you want to do is tell the time? You spend money on the Rolex because owning a Rolex is prestigious.
You like what it says about you as a person. It’s not about telling the time but about being associated with a group of people. Likewise, most people don’t buy the cheapest car they can find – or even the cheapest one they consider sufficiently reliable. You also don’t buy the cheapest clothes that are the most functional. Human beings are complex animals; we make emotional decisions and then justify with logic.
Knowledge: Facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education.
But why should I learn about Facts, get recent information in my field of business or educate and read more books?
here the answer from Quora: Knowledge is understood as the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association. Knowledge is something that we come to know by seeing, hearing, touching, feeling and tasting. It is the fact or condition of being aware of something and can be referred to as the information that we receive or acquire through any medium. It gives us the power to explore things and to take decisions accordingly that can also be considered as the knowledge about a domain that can be used to solve problems in that domain.
In order to solve many problems, it requires much knowledge.
Sufficient amount of knowledge preludes to intelligence. If we have enough knowledge then we can achieve intelligence. That is to exhibit intelligence knowledge is the must. Knowledge plays a major role in building intelligent systems. Not only that, knowledge is very important even in our daily lives. It makes us superior and gives us wisdom.
It is said that “Knowledge is Power”. This quote has a variety of shades of application and holds good in several contexts.
Knowledge has enabled us to make all the advancements in the science and technology spheres that we have been able to achieve. It has made us far more capable, superior and sophisticated beings on this earth.
Knowledge is the primary factor that clearly distinguishes the human race from the animals.
Human has the power to judge situations, decide between what is good and what is bad and make decisions voluntarily. It is important that we make the best use of the gift of knowledge so that we achieve great feats and heights in every domain of our life.
Since knowledge is the fuel that drives human life, gaining knowledge is deemed the most primary activity that prepares man for long and successful life.
Schooling is the very first phase of a child’s life. During this stage, the society gives a variety of inputs to make the child knowledgeable learning many things under every known topic.
While the education during the initial years of schooling is general, special streams of courses are pursued by children as they grow up so that they attain proficiency and skill in the field in which they want to excel and build their career.
Without knowledge, one cannot be successful in life.
To grow in one’s career, gaining as much knowledge as possible is important. Knowledge does not pertain to science and technology and the fields we study in books. Knowledge is also very important to shape our personality and perfect our behavior and dealings with people.
We need to understand ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses. We need to learn the art of life.
We must master the techniques of adjusting and accommodating with the changes in our surroundings and life situations.
We must move well with the people and persuade them effectively to get things done in our favor.
We must make the best judgments and decide on the right course that will let us move successfully.
We must save ourselves from dangers and stay balanced and strong during difficulties and adversities.
We must know how to assert our views and also give room to accept the good views of others.
We must learn how to successfully manage relationships and people both at homes and professional spheres.
For all this, knowledge is important.
Knowledge accounts for the success of people. The more knowledgeable you are, the more advantage you have over the other people. The better you are equipped to manage yourself and others, the easier your journey of life. More than anything, knowledge must be put to good use.
There is no use of such knowledge that paves way for one’s own destruction, Knowledge should let you take the right course in life in a way useful to yourself and the society at large.
Great men and women have put their knowledge to good use and have reached exalted heights being remembered for long on this earth.
Knowing the importance of knowledge, people must look to the potential avenues to gain knowledge and make use of it positively.
The importance of health, fitness, and wellness In Today's Society
The importance of health, fitness, and wellness
Health: The state of being free from illness or injury.
But why I should pay attention to my health and stay up to date with the recent HEALTH RESEARCH?
Here the answer:
Want to be sharper at work? Feel less tired at home? Spend some quality time with your spouse? How about enjoying a cookie without guilt?
If you answered “yes” to all of these questions read this article from WebMD.
Being physically active offers benefits far beyond the obvious. (Of course, an improved physique and a clean bill of health aren’t too shabby, either.)
If you’ve been looking for the motivation to begin an exercise program or get back into working out regularly, here are 10 fitness facts that may help inspire you to get off the couch...
1. Exercise Boosts Brainpower
Not only does exercise improve your body, but it also helps your mental function, says certified trainer David Atkinson.
“Exercise increases energy levels and increases serotonin in the brain, which leads to improved mental clarity,” says Atkinson, director of program development for Cooper Ventures, a division of the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas.
All that makes for a more productive day.
“It is clear that those who are active and who exercise are much more productive at work,” says Todd A. Astorino, assistant professor of kinesiology at California State University-San Marcos.
Improved productivity not only makes you a better worker, it makes things better for everyone in the workplace. Companies with less wasted work hours and less sick time end up with lower health care costs — and an improved bottom line, Astorino says.
2. Movement Melts Away Stress
As much as it may stress you out just to think about exercising, once you actually start working out, you’ll experience less stress in every part of your life.
“Exercise produces a relaxation response that serves as a positive distraction,” says Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise. He says it also helps elevate your mood and keep depression at bay.
You’re not the only person who will benefit from more happiness and less stress in your life. When you’re less stressed, you’re less irritable, Atkinson says — and that could improve relationships with your partner, kids, and co-workers.
3. Exercise Gives You Energy
You might be surprised at how, say, popping in a workout tape for 30 minutes in the morning can change your whole day. When endorphins are released into your bloodstream during exercise, says Astorino, “you feel much more energized the rest of the day.”
And when you improve your strength and stamina, it’s easier to accomplish everyday tasks like carrying groceries and climbing stairs. This also helps you feel more energetic over the course of the day.
A common excuse among Atkinson’s clients is that they’re too tired to exercise, he says. While exercise may make you feel more tired at first, he says, that won’t last long.
The physical tiredness you feel after working out isn’t the same as everyday fatigue, he says. Besides, once your body adjusts to exercise, you’ll have more energy than ever.
4. It’s Not That Hard to Find Time for Fitness
The key, says Atkinson, is to use your time more wisely. Think about killing two birds with one stone.
Take your kids to the park or ride bikes together, and you’re getting physical activity while enjoying family time, he says. Beyond that, go for a hike, take the kids swimming, or play hide-and-seek, tag, softball, or horseshoes in the backyard.
At work, he says, schedule a meeting on the jogging track or on the golf course.
Also, forget the idea that you have to trudge to the gym and spend an hour or more doing a formal workout. Instead, you can work short spurts of physical activity into your day.
“Everyone has 20 minutes,” Atkinson says. “Everyone has 10 minutes to jump rope, and sometimes that’s better than 20 minutes of walking or running.”
Indeed, squeezing in two or three bouts of 15 or 20 minutes of activity is just as effective as doing it all at once, says Astorino. Vacuuming the house in the morning, riding bikes in the park with the kids in the afternoon, then taking a brisk walk in the evening can add up to an active day.
Recent U.S. government guidelines say that to lose weight and keep it weight off, you should accumulate at least 60 minutes of exercise a day, says Astorino. But half an hour a day is all you need to reap the health and disease-fighting benefits of exercise.
5. Fitness Can Help Build Relationships
Think of what exercising with a partner can do for a relationship, whether it’s with a spouse, a sibling, or a friend you used to go to lunch with once a week.
Not only that, says Astorino, but exercise is always more fun when there’s someone to do it with. So plan to walk with your spouse after dinner every night. Meet your sister or that friend for tennis or an aerobics class instead of lunch.
Besides, Astorino says, people who have exercise partners stay with their programs and reach their goals more often than those who try to go it alone.
“For long-term weight loss, you need to have social support,” Astorino says.
6. Exercise Helps Ward Off Disease
Research has shown that exercise can slow or help prevent heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis (bone loss), and loss of muscle mass, says Astorino.
It also helps ease some aspects of the aging process.
“Because exercise strengthens the muscles and joints, it is going to reduce your odds of having some of those aches and pains and problems most adults have, mostly because of the inactive lives they lead,” Bryant says.
Provided you don’t overdo it, he says, exercise can even boost immune function — so you spend less time down with a cold or flu.
“There isn’t a major health problem where exercise cannot have a positive effect,” says Byrant.
7. Fitness Pumps Up Your Heart
Not only does exercise help fight disease, says Bryant, it creates a stronger heart — the most important muscle in the body. That helps makes exercise — and the activities of daily life — feel easier.
“Your heart and cardiovascular system will function more effectively,” says Bryant. “The heart will build up less plaque. It will become a more efficient pump.”
And “when the heart becomes stronger, it pumps more blood per beat, so at rest, the heart rate is lower,” says Astorino. “It’s not going to have to beat as fast” to expend the same amount of effort.
Within only a couple days after you start exercising, Astorino says, “the body readily adapts to the stimulus it’s getting and it becomes easier. You will feel less fatigue. It will not take as much effort when it comes to breathing. You shouldn’t have as much pain or soreness.”
8. Exercise Lets You Eat More
Pound for pound, muscle burns more calories at rest than body fat. So the more muscle you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate. And, of course, you also burn calories while you’re actually exercising.
All this means that “cheating” with a cookie once in a while isn’t going to take you back 10 steps. “Can you eat anything? No,” says Atkinson. “But you can afford to enjoy some of the things you really like when you exercise regularly. You can better get away with those things in moderation than you can when you’re not working out.”
9. Exercise Boosts Performance
After a few weeks of consistent exercise, you may feel your clothes fitting differently and see that your muscle tone has improved, Atkinson says.
You may also notice your newly pumped-up muscles in other ways, especially if you’re a recreational golfer or tennis player, or like a friendly game of pick-up basketball, says Atkinson. Exercising consistently will strengthen your muscles, increase flexibility, and improve your overall performance.
“Your muscles will work much more efficiently and you’ll gain a greater sense of endurance,” says Bryant. In addition, he says, your reaction time and the balance will improve.
10. Weight Loss Is Not the Most Important Goal
Weight loss is the reason many people exercise in the first place. But it’s certainly not the sole benefit of an exercise program.
Bryant says the long-term goal of weight loss is sold too heavily to people starting fitness programs, and that can be discouraging. People have trouble sticking with something if they don’t see results quickly.
“Really, they should think about the level of functioning in the activities of daily living,” says Bryant. “That can serve as the motivation to keep them coming back for more.”
So whatever weight loss goal you have when starting a fitness program, don’t make it your only goal. Strive to feel better, to have more energy, to be less stressed. Notice the small things that exercise does for you quickly, rather than getting hung up on the narrow goal of the number on a scale.
“With a goal of losing weight and enhancing health, exercise has to become a part of a person’s life, not an afterthought,” Astorino says. WebMD Weight Loss Clinic-FeatureReviewed by Kathleen M. Zelman, MPH, RD, LD
