The Importance of Physical Activity in Weight Management and Overall Health

An increase in physical activity is a critical component of an effective weight management program. While most weight loss primarily results from a decreased caloric intake, sustained physical activity plays a crucial role in preventing weight regain. Regular exercise not only supports weight maintenance but also significantly reduces the risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, providing health benefits beyond those achieved through weight reduction alone.

Starting an exercise regimen should be approached gradually. Beginning with low-intensity activities helps prevent injury and allows the body to adapt to increased physical demands. Initial exercises can include walking or swimming at a slow pace. For example, starting with walking for 30 minutes, three days a week, and progressively increasing to 45 minutes of more intense walking at least five days a week can be effective. This routine can help burn an additional 100 to 200 calories daily.

The goal for all adults should be to accumulate at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most, preferably all, days of the week. This can be adapted to various forms of physical activity, but walking remains particularly attractive due to its safety and accessibility. Integrating more "everyday" activities, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, also contributes to increased physical activity levels.

Reducing sedentary time is another effective strategy for increasing overall activity. Engaging in frequent, less strenuous activities throughout the day can help. Over time, as fitness levels improve, individuals may progress to more strenuous activities. Competitive sports like tennis and volleyball offer enjoyable exercise options, but care must be taken to avoid injuries.

Activity progression is essential for beginners. Initially, very light activities might include increasing standing activities, performing special chores such as painting a room, pushing a wheelchair, yard work, ironing, cooking, and playing a musical instrument. The next level includes light activities such as slow walking (24 minutes per mile), garage work, carpentry, house cleaning, child care, golf, sailing, and recreational table tennis.

Moderate activities, which are the next progression, include walking at a 15-minute per mile pace, weeding and hoeing a garden, carrying a load, cycling, skiing, tennis, and dancing. High-intensity activities encompass walking at a 10-minute per mile pace or walking uphill with a load, tree felling, heavy manual digging, basketball, climbing, and soccer or kickball.

In addition to aerobic activities, incorporating flexibility exercises to attain a full range of joint motion and strength or resistance exercises can enhance overall fitness. Flexibility exercises help maintain joint health, while strength training supports muscle maintenance and growth, crucial for long-term health and mobility.

Adopting a varied exercise regimen that includes aerobic conditioning, strength training, and flexibility exercises ensures a well-rounded approach to fitness. As individuals progress, they can adjust their routines to incorporate more intense activities, ensuring continued improvement and engagement.

Overall, a structured and gradually progressive exercise program not only aids in weight management but also enhances overall health, reduces disease risk, and promotes a more active and fulfilling lifestyle.
The Importance of Physical Activity in Weight Management and Overall Health

Stretching exercise

Every physical performance is made up of one or more of the basic constitutional factors of strength, endurance, mobility, speed and coordination. Simple daily stretching exercise can keep the body loose and flexible. It normalizes neurotransmitter function through the motion generated by inner ear stimulation.

There are several types of stretches:
*Static exercise:  The static stretch consists of taking a joint close to the limit of its mobility and maintaining that posture for a few seconds.
*Dynamic stretching: One takes a body part in controlling movement until reaching its minimum point.
*Explosive or ballistic stretching: This is a dynamic stretch uses the inertia of the movement to take the joint farther than normal range of motion.
*Guided stretching
*Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation

In order to be effective, stretching exercise need to be of the correct type, which usually means gentle loosening exercises and prolonged static stretching rather than vigorous ballistic movements.

Loosening exercise involve slow, controlled movements that mobilize a joint and enhance its range of movement.

Among physical benefits of stretching include:
*Flexibility: stretching keeps the muscle fibers and joints flexible
*Prevention of injuries: Muscle stretching increase blood and lymph circulation and brings more oxygen and nutrients to the body part. It also reduced post-exercise muscle soreness.
*Improved general metabolism
*Improvement of movement and enhanced physical performance
Stretching exercise

Benefits of cycling

Cycling is an easy and low-impact activity which can significantly improve individual fitness. It is a great form of physical activity because of its versatility in intensity and type (e.g., competitive, commuting/transportation, recreational, indoor upright stationary, indoor recumbent stationary, etc.), each of which have associated and varied benefits to health and well-being.

The studies on active commuting combine walking and cycling have shown that active commuting reduces the risk of cardiovascular events, type-2 diabetes, hypertension and adiposity, and improves fitness.

Cycling can help to reduce the risk of a range of health problems, notably heart disease and cancer, the leading preventable causes of premature death.

Among adults, research has shown that increases in bike-related energy expenditure is significantly associated with weight reduction and overweightness/obesity prevention.

In older age, regular cycling can help reduce falls, improve bone density, and offset physical declines by improving functional capacity, making it easier to carry out activities of daily living and live independently.

Cycling can help lose belly fat, but it will take time. A recent study showed regular cycling may enhance overall fat loss and promote a healthy weight. To reduce overall belly girth, moderate-intensity aerobic exercises, such as cycling (either indoor or outdoor), are effective to lower belly fat.

Regular cycling also can help in term of:
*Decreased stress levels
*Improved posture and coordination
*Prevention or management of disease
*Reduced anxiety and depression.
Benefits of cycling

Can stress be reduced by exercise?

Feeling stress is a common experience and is part of “defense mechanism” to better combat unusual situations or “adaptive behavior. Stress is an exceedingly complex concept. Both highly positive and negative events require adjustment, detract from the quality of life, and affect one's stress levels. Negative life events (e.g., losing one's job, the death of a child, a serious illness) are obvious stressors.

It is probably impossible to eliminate stress and anxiety, but one can learn to manage them. While there are variety of treatments for stress and anxiety reduction such as medication, cognitive behavior therapy, relaxation techniques, coping skills, recreational activities and family support, physical exercises may be the one most recommended by health care professionals and very successful to deal and to relieve stress and anxiety symptoms.

Exercise has been linked to numerous physical health benefits such as improving weight, blood pressure, lowering the risks of cardiovascular disease and other illnesses, and even increasing longevity. Anxiety, depression, and hostility (or negative affect) are typical stress symptoms. Since exercise is associated with short-term mood benefits, it is an effective approach to stress reduction for members of both normal and highly stressed populations.

One biological explanation asserts that exercise increases body temperature, adrenal and steroid activity, as well as the release of certain neurotransmitters such as endorphins.

According to the study by Southern Illinois University, all of the participants responded that they experienced positive emotion elicited after engaging in physical exercise. The positive emotion seems to bring them a feeling of happiness and comfort about who they are more than before they engaged in physical exercise. People with high levels of stress before engaging in physical exercise seemed to alleviate perceived stress after finishing exercise due to positive emotion. (Jong-Ho Kim, Larry A. McKenzie, The Impacts of Physical Exercise on Stress Coping and Well-Being in University Students in the Context of Leisure, Health, 2014, 6, 2570-2580)
Can stress be reduced by exercise?

Aerobic exercise

Aerobic exercise is any exercise done while the body uses oxygen to sustain activities for a long period of time.

The exercise promotes fitness through enjoyable exercise, and that is exactly wheat irritates its critics, who content that is more fun than fitness.

Almost any activity can be aerobic and can fall into categories such as running, water aerobics, dance aerobic, low-impact aerobic and sport aerobics.

Aerobic exercise will generally cause considerable sweating, especially on a warm day. At the same time, the body consumes a certain amount of the energy obtained from food or previously stored as fat.

A number of studies support proponents’ claims that aerobic movement builds cardiovascular fitness and develops leg muscles, and contributes to muscular endurance and flexibility.

Like all forms of cardiovascular training, aerobic movement must be performed three to five times per week to develop cardiovascular fitness.

An aerobic program or routine usually begins with aware-up session to get the body ready to engage in significant activity.

Once engaged in aerobic activity, the goal is to progressively move into a rigors level of intensity that raises the heart rate and that typically lasts from 15 to 25 minutes.

Research has also shown that it takes at least three months for training benefits for aerobic movement to become significant.
Aerobic exercise

Physical Activity and Exercise

Physical Activity and Exercise
Good physical fitness, health and wellness are all states of being that a person possesses.

On of the principle ways to achieve these states of being is by performing regular physical activity.

Physical activity is a general term that includes sports, dance and activities done at home or work, such as walking climbing stairs or moving the lawn.

Physical activity can be done to complete a specific job, to enjoy recreation or to improve your physical fitness.

Sometimes you do physical activity with a specific purpose in mind; other times you just do it with no real purpose other than enjoyment.

When people do physical activity especially for the purpose of getting fit, we say they are doing exercise.

Even though the terms physical activity and exercise have slightly different meanings, they are sometimes used interchangeably.

You should remember is that physical activity and exercise are important to your fitness, health and wellness.
Physical Activity and Exercise