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YOU'VE GOT TO KEEP MOVING
By Murrayel Miller
If you want glowing health you have to keep moving. You must work all of your muscles, not just the ones you need to walk around. What kind of shape are you in? How is your balance? Can you stand up and put your pants or panty hose on, or must you sit to do this task? How easily can you get up from a chair, or off the floor? Most people are able to walk and get around once they are upright - but many people can't get out of a chair without using their arms to assist, because of weak muscles. These few things can show you what sort of shape you are in.
I have been sporadic about a formal exercise program for many years. When we had roots, before we started traveling, I had stairs to climb and our house was on the side of the mountain and I had lots of house and yard work to do. I thought I was in good shape. Wrong!!!! Sometimes an article in a magazine will come along at just the right time, with the right information to help you to attain what you are seeking. I found an article in the August 2002 Better Nutrition magazine that was titled, "Get Fit With Jorge Cruise - America's newest weight-loss guru tells you how to shed two pounds a week."
From the magazine article I learned that 80% of Americans are overweight. More than 300,000 Americans die each year from obesity-related illnesses. Second only to tobacco, obesity is becoming an epidemic. I learned that you have to build lean muscle tissue, because muscle mass controls metabolism. (Larry has been telling me this for as long as I have known him.) The more active your lean muscle is, the more fat you will burn throughout the day. Moreover, you burn this fat whether you are exercising or not.
Jorge Cruise says, in his book Eight Minutes in the Morning, that you can exercise for less than 10 minutes a day, in the privacy of your own home and lose weight and become firmer and stronger. His website, www.jorgecruise.com, gives sample exercises and more information about his Program, which uses weights to help build muscle.
I learned many years ago that when you exercise for 3 days in a row, that the body will make more mitochondria, little energy factories, so you will burn more fat and calories. However, if you don't exercise for 3 days, the body will get rid of these mitochondria because they are not being used. So, if you are only going to exercise 3 days a week, do it every other day so you can keep the mitochondria working. When you stop using muscles on a regular basis, two things happen.
First, your body loses muscle at the rate of approximately ½ pound a year. This means you have a significant loss in fat burning ability and this is the reason you can eat the same way you always have and still put on weight. Second, your non-exercising muscles no longer need extra sugar, so the insulin escorts that sugar into fat cells instead of muscle cells. With a combination of a wrong diet, too little exercise and too much insulin, you are setting yourself up to be a fat-storing machine.
Now you can begin to change your body from a fat-storing machine to an efficient, healthy, fat-burning machine.
Jorge Cruise has you do two exercises each day, six days a week. The exercises are easy and fun - all you need are some dumbbells and ankle weights. You can buy Jorge's book and your weights for about the cost of two months at a fitness center. Then you can do your exercises any time or place, without having to dress up and drive someplace. This really works for me. I have been doing Jorge's program for ten weeks now and I am feeling great. I can see some of the extra fat melting off my body and I love it.
Here is a hint for starting. I tried doing these exercises at the four sets of twelve each of the two daily exercises. The next day I realized that I wasn't in good enough shape to do four sets, etc., so I started off the first week with one set of twelve each of the two daily exercises, and the second week, two sets, etc. I slowly built up my strength and stamina without punishing my body.
I found dumbbells at K-Mart and got a set; all packaged together in an easy to carry box. It contains two 2-pound, two 4-pound and two 6-pound weights. I also got a set of 10-pound weights. These weights are plastic coated and colorful - the 2-pounders are blue, 4-pounders are purple (my favorite color) and the 6-pounders are teal (my next most favorite color.) The 10-pounders are black. With this set of weights I can adjust the weight for any exercise, increasing the weight as I get stronger.
Jorge teaches you to breathe correctly as you are exercising. Just the breathing does good. Every day you do not exercise your body, you are losing muscle. Remember, you must USE IT OR LOSE IT!!!!! When you get on this program, you will realize that it has been a long, long time since your body has moved in this way. You will feel better and live a longer, healthier life.
If you want more information about this exercise program, contact us by telephone at 541-944-5785, email us at: happytravels@earthlink.net or write us at 221 N Central #D51, Medford, Oregon 97501.