Exercise four times a week
Regular exercise holds the key to a long and healthy life.
Make sure you exercise four times a week
It seems like you just cannot get yourself out of bed on some mornings, especially if you have to head to the gym! But there are more disadvantages to missing your exercise routine than you can imagine, and all of them lead to ill health. A healthy body is your health insurance for the future – if your body and mind are sound, your quality of life improve.
With constant pressure at work, deadlines hammering on your head and very little sleep during the weekdays, your stress levels are at an unprecedented high. Besides, there is often less time to cook healthy meals, resulting in you ordering a pizza or a sandwich at work. Plus, your busy schedule leaves you no time to fit in an exercise routine you can follow daily.
This cycle of overwork-stress-exhaustion-no exercise have bad effects on your body. Apart from gaining weight, you find that you are unable to concentrate at work. Your sleep is affected and you do not feel energised to perform even simple tasks. You are always tired, out of breath climbing just two flights of stairs and looking with increasing dismay at your weighing scale.
You can remedy all of these problems by just exercising four times a week.
Four times a week is important. Any doctor will tell you that the body responds to any healthy activity if it is repeated often enough. You can get the best results out of your fitness regime if you practice it at least four times a week. However, not everybody can show the same results in the same time frame, so be patient and careful when you step up your intensity to achieve the desired results.
Make the time. At first, eking out time for a daily workout can get challenging. Most people have only a window of a couple of hours in the early morning to exercise. This means that you must wake up earlier than usual, and hence compromise on total sleeping time. Instead, hit the sack earlier than usual so you can wake up fresher. You can also find a gym that is open till late hours so you can exercise after work.
Pick an activity you like. Not every person enjoys exercising in the gym. Some people are more tuned in to yoga in an open space, while others respond better to dance lessons. The trick is to choose an activity that makes you burn calories and stick with it. Do it at least four times a week to see the results.
Understand your body. Just like a heart attack is the body’s way of telling you to slow down, a muscle spasm can indicate that you are pushing your body too hard. You can misjudge your body’s capacity for exertion. Your muscles, tendons and joints get fatigued and injured if you pull excess weight or stretch the body beyond its endurance. If you experience pain at any time during your workout, that is a cue to stop at once.
Eat well. It is rightly said that ‘A healthy body is not made in the gym, it is made in the kitchen’. Your diet must complement your exercise regime. It does not benefit the body to push it hard during a workout only to replace all the lost calories to junk food. Eat healthy, home cooked meals in moderation, and take your last meal of the day at least two hours before sleeping.
Get health insurance. You may have the fittest body, but it will all come to nought if you or a family member is diagnosed with a disease. It is also possible that you might need hospitalisation for an injury or accident. Instead of dipping into your savings, you should entrust a good health insurance plan to see you through. Family health insurance policies keep you and your loved ones protected from the high costs of medical treatment. Besides, they also pay for a free health check-up every year – so you will know if your exercise regime is working!