The Benefits Of Exercise Made Simple

Introduction

If you ask someone why they don't exercise, they will almost always have an excuse. "Exams are approaching", "the job has me occupied", "I'm mentally/emotionally stressed" and the most common and detrimental excuse "I don't have enough time".

One of the biggest lies we can ever tell ourselves is that we don't have enough time. This is an excuse for a more fundamental problem "I am inadequate at managing my time". But many of us don't want to admit core mistakes so we relieve ourselves of the problem and blame it on the stresses of life. 

I don't have enough time

Most of us think we don't have enough time to exercise. What a distorted paradigm! We don't have time not to. We're talking about 3-6 hours/week, this hardly seems like an inordinate amount of time considering the tremendous benefits in terms of the impact on the other 162-165 hours of the week.

Mathematically speaking, we only need to spend ~3% of our time to make the biggest invest in the most important asset we have, ourselves.

The obvious benefits

Exercising on a regular basis will not only preserve but also enhance our capacity to work, adapt and enjoy all aspects of life.

• Increased strength
  As you increase your body's ability to do more demanding things, you'll find your normal activities much more comfortable and pleasant. You'll have more afternoon energy, and the fatigue you've felt that made you "too tired" to exercise in the past will be replaced by an energy that will invigorate everything you do.
• Decreased resting pulse rate
  Little by little, your resting pulse rate will go down as your heart and oxygen processing system become more efficient.
• Flexibility to occasionally eat unhealthy
  We all know partying after an exam is a lot more fun than partying before an exam. A big reason is because we feel guilty that we should be studying prior to the exam.
  Similarly, the occasional unhealthy meal will feel a lot more satisfying and enjoyable once your mind processes the food as an occasional break as opposed to something that's contributing to an obesity problem.

The not-so-obvious benefits

If you haven't been exercising, your body will undoubtedly protest this change in its comfortable downhill direction. These are where the not-so-obvious benefits come into play.

• Increased proactive nature
  Probably the greatest benefit you will experience from exercise will be the development of your muscles of proactivity. You will be less concerned with the environment and outside forces of life, and more concerned with staying true to a value and goal you set for yourself.
  This will motivate you to set other long-term goals to regularly tackle. These other long term goals will seem less daunting and easier to face now that we have experienced positive results from decisions made within as opposed to from the outside.
• Increased intrinsic security
  As you act on the value of physical well-being instead of reacting to all the forces that keep you from exercising, your paradigm of yourself, your self-esteem, your self-confidence, and your integrity will be profoundly affected.
  For many people, exercise is the first time they are truly honest with themselves. Honesty with self is very difficult as there is no accountability. No one to hold you responsible. Exercise gives you a daily decision to make that only involves you. Over a period of time, this honesty and integrity with self expands to other areas of life.

Over a long enough period of time, our proactive nature will be strong enough that we will be able to set goals for ourselves and due to our increased intrinsic security, we can hold ourselves accountable to them which will unleash layers of potential within us.

Where do I start?

This schedule is a simple starting schedule and is geared towards enhancing aesthetics for both men and women.

Begin each day with cardio (treadmill) for 20 mins.
All the exercises mentioned below should be done in 3 sets of 12/10/8 repetitions with a 30 second-1 minute break between sets.
I highly recommend searching Google for the correct form to do each exercise. Even as an experienced fitness enthusiast, I still find myself learning minor improvements in my form from Google.

• Day 1:
  Squats
  Lunges
• Day 2:
  Dead-lifts
  Pull-down
• Day 3:
  Bench Press
  Plank (3 sets of 1 min/45 seconds/30 seconds or as long as you can)

If you manage to do this without a day off, then take a day break after the 3 days of exercise.

Food is important!

Eating healthy is a very simple concept that people unnecessarily complicate to avoid worrying about the problem. However we must understand that what we eat is MORE important than the time we spend at the gym.

We do NOT eat for enjoyment!! Despite what the media and western culture may convey, eating, per se is not for enjoyment. We eat to provide the necessary nutrients to our body to continue functioning. Lacking nutrients in any category will cause problems; problems that may only surface when its too late.

Again, the majority of knowledge can be accessed through Google; however a basic suggestion is to reduce/monitor your intake of (in priority order):

1. Saturated fats
2. Sugars
3. Carbohydrates

These 3 sources of energy tend to be what the western world consumes in excess. Excess in any sort of energy will be stored as fat; generally in the stomach for men and butt & thighs for women.

Conclusion

Just like waking up, starting an essay, entering university; the beginning is always the hardest. You won't like exercising at first. You may even hate it. But be proactive, do it anyway. Even if it's raining, do it anyways. "Oh it's raining! I get to develop my proactive nature as well as my body" should be the outlook.

I will finish with a powerful questions to ask you.

Have you ever met someone who regretted exercising for years?

Start exercising, you will not regret it.