Every time I go for a run, I think about how much I would love to help other people also enjoy exercise. So, I decided to write a blog about it. This may be one of my most boring posts, but I thought maybe I could inspire others to just get out there and move. First off, exercise has NEVER helped me with weight loss. Like, even when I was biking 30 miles a day, I still could NOT lose weight. It has definitely helped to increase my tone and joint health, but the best thing about exercise for me is the psychological benefits.
The theory behind exercise in weight loss, as I understand it, is not that you burn the calories and then have a calorie deficit, allowing you to lose weight. If anything, when I exercise, I become ravenous and definitely eat the calories I had just burned under the idea that “Hey, I exercised, now I can eat whatever I want” because, remember, an hour on the treadmill (like, a frickin’ lifetime) is only a candy bar’s worth of calories. No, the theory is that you change the metabolism of your body. You are starting to change your body, waking it up and making it work. Did you know that your skeleton is constantly breaking itself down and rebuilding? This also happens to your muscles and joints. When you go out and stress your body physically, you are doing minor but all over “damage”, stressing the bones and muscles. The body immediately begins to rebuild the damage done and your bones can even reshape themselves to better be able to deal the the type of stress you are putting on them. This kicks your body into a catabolic (burning calories) reconstruction phase. Like remodeling your bathroom starts with small changes like picking the dirty towels off the floor. You can’t expect to start with the sledge hammers.
Exercise will help your joints in the long run as well. I tell this to some of my orthopedic patients as well. Joints are responsible for allowing motion in your limbs, but they don’t have to do all of the work. My joints are very weak and the connective tissue is stretchy and easily fails me. This works out for rolling my ankle on the trail as I can just continue on my run with just a sore outer calf muscle for a couple of days, but it can also be detrimental. My joints are not tight, when I make motions, they don’t move just as they are supposed to; they wobble a little and over a long period, this can cause inflammation and pain. I had a doctor tell me to work on the muscles around the weak joints to help with pain. So, building up a thick muscular support system around your joints allows your body to obtain the stability without relying on the joints alone.
For me, anyway, just knowing how the exercise is affecting my body and the mechanics and theory behind it all helps me to design a workout regimen that suits my particular body. Doing a once weekly weight routine (though gut wrenching because I HATE it) actually improves my running and other activities more than I would have thought.
When you decide to start an exercise program, don’t expect to move mountains in your first week. Get your body into a state where you won’t injure yourself. Start with a brisk walk or light jog. Best if you are slightly sore that night, but not right after you’re done. Do this for a couple of weeks before you really start with exercise. If you start off fast and injure yourself, you have not only NOT helped yourself, but you have hurt your long term mobility. This is especially true as you get older. When you’re 18, sure, go out and cold turkey a 3 mile run, no problem, but when you’re mid 30s or older, your body is going to need an introduction first.
The biggest thing about keeping up with an exercise routine, as my dad told me once, is just to find what you can do, what you enjoy, and just do it. If you like running, run, if you like dancing, dance. If you don’t have time for a set aside exercise time, blast some party music and work up a sweat doing the chores that need to be done. Don’t judge yourself against others who choose to do other forms of workouts. I like to trail run by myself so that I can run when I want, and then walk or sprint when I want and don’t have to worry about if I’m keeping someone else back or pushing them too hard. I don’t like training for races. I like just keeping to myself and going at my pace. Others, however, can only get motivated with friends or by competing and that’s fine.
But the very best benefit I’ve found with exercise is the mental health benefits. Believe me, almost nothing the world has to offer will bother you so bad when you’re struggling to catch your breath. But even after you’ve attempted to kill yourself with bursts of wind busting sprints (or whatever) and you’re cooling down, you will (at least most people report) get a euphoric feeling. Yes, you will be dog tired if you did it right, but you will feel accomplished. Somehow that ragged, soaking in sweat, tremoring in exhaustion will feel amazing because you did it! And some experts report endorphin release upon completion of exercise. Personally, I know that I can much better manage my depression and anxiety if I stay on top of my exercise regimen. When I’m really struggling with life my doctor will ask if I have been keeping up with exercise because he knows that I need it to stay within the realm of sanity.
In case anyone is interested, my exercise schedule on my BEST weeks is to run Monday, Thursday, Friday/Saturday, weights on Tuesday. Spring and summer may vary as gardening is a huge physical workout (think “Buns of Steel – Mulching in the Mountains”). My runs consist of a 1 mile jog (10min/mile), then off and on sprint/walk – sprint/fast run until I can’t breathe, walk until breathing is controlled, but not completely recovered, then sprint/walk for another 1-2 miles, then back to a slow or extended jog for the last mile, walking when about to die. My weight routine is just this video repeated three times and then jump rope 100x front, 100x backwards, 75x front, 75x back, 50x front, 50x back, 25x front, 25x back, walking between sets until I catch my breath.
For me, music is super important, but for people like my dad, it’s just distracting. I have Pandora streaming with fast paced, dance and rock genres. And another plug for Jukebox the Ghost – about 95% of their songs are good for exercising.
Now enjoy my embarrassing basement public display of attention =)