THE IMPORTANCE OF EXERCISE
Taken from Dr.Robert C. Atkins' book
"Age Defying Diet"
With a few additional comments by Keith Hunt
EXERCISE!
Here's one piece of advice I give to virtually every one of
my patients, no matter how old: Exercise.
There's not a one of them who can't benefit from exercising
regularly to the maximum possible for that individual. That
doesn't necessarily mean that all my patients turn into marathon
runners and weekend warriors, or that you will, or even that you
should. What it does mean is that you'll look better, feel
better, and stay healthier when you exercise. Mentally and
physically, exercise makes you stronger and more resilient.
EXERCISE FOR A HEALTHY HEART
Just consider the results of a recent review of dozens of
studies on the impact of physical activity on cardiovascular
health. Without question, the researchers concluded, regular
physical activity provides a wide range of heart-healthy
benefits, including lower blood pressure, a drop in cholesterol
levels, and a lower risk of dangerous blood dots. The activity
doesn't have to be particularly strenuous or prolonged to be
effective. Just walking once around the block each day is enough
to provide some benefit. Walking more would be better, of course.
How much better? According to a recent study of older men in
Hawaii, your risk of coronary heart disease decreases 15 percent
for every half mile of walking per day.
Earlier studies have shown that of all the factors most
likely to lead to heart disease, inactivity is at the top of the
list, far above all the usual indicators like high cholesterol.
Need I say more? Yes, because exercise does far more for you than
just protecting your heart. It actually acts as a catalyst for
all the health-enhancing, age-defying advice in this book. Put it
this way: Without exercise, you'll still benefit from the advice
in this book, but with exercise, you'll benefit even more.
THE BENEFITS OF EXERCISE
Age defiance, disease prevention, weight loss, and a sense
of well-being are among the many benefits of regular exercise. To
defy age, it is of course crucial to keep your blood sugar levels
steady and under control. Exercise is just as important as diet
for accomplishing this goal. At the Atkins Center, thousands of
patients with impaired glucose tolerance have successfully
reversed the process and prolonged their lives through the
combination of exercise and diet. That success is confirmed by
studies so numerous that I won't go into them all here; suffice
it to say that the studies prove that exercise can prevent, slow,
or reverse reduced glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity as
you age, and even reverse diabetes if you already have it.
And the converse is equally true, as numerous other studies
confirm: Not exercising means you're more likely to develop
impaired glucose tolerance or diabetes, even if you're not
overweight, although being overweight is certainly a contributing
factor. A recent study proves this point very powerfully. It
tracked more than 8,600 men over age thirty through a six-year
period during which 149 men in the study developed diabetes. It
didn't surprise me that the diabetes diagnoses were almost
entirely among the men who were the least active. Inactive men
had nearly four times the risk of developing diabetes as did the
physically active men!
My theory is that a vicious cycle helps explain this.
Inactivity leads to weight gain, which in turn leads to diabetes,
which further contributes to weight gain, which makes you feel
sluggish and less interested in being physically active, and so
on.
For those of you who need to lose weight, regular exercise
will help speed the process along. I particularly recommend it
for people who have a high metabolic resistance to weight loss.
Even though walking a mile burns only a hundred calories, a
prolonged exercise program often proves to be the essential that
tips the balance in hard-core unable-to-lose-on-a-strict-diet
people. Those of you whose weight loss is simply plateauing will
find that exercise will also get you over the logjam more
quickly. Best of all, the experience of seeing your fat turn into
muscle, and of knowing that you are capable of many more physical
achievements, is such a mood-lifter that your all-around
well-being will reach new heights.
ONE MORE DECEASE FIGHTING BENEFIT
An active lifestyle is also linked with a reduced risk of
cancer, as has been demonstrated in regard to colon cancer in
men and breast cancer in women.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Exercise is the key factor in preventing disability as you
age. It is also a key factor in overall longevity. Let's look at
some statistics to prove my point.
Overall, a sixty-five-year-old man with no disabilities in
the United States today has only a 26 percent chance of living to
age eighty and remaining disability-free. For a woman, the
probability of living to age eighty-five and remaining
disability- free is only 18 percent. What does that
disability-free minority do to get and stay that way? They
exercise.
People who exercise regularly have a lower risk of becoming
disabled later in life than those who don't exercise. And the
people with the highest level of physical activity are nearly
twice as likely to be disability-free as the most sedentary.
What the numbers show most starkly is that disability is not
an inevitable part of aging. It can easily be defied by moderate
physical activity, starting now.
Physical activity can also extend your life expectancy.
Among nonsmokers at age sixty-five, moderate physical activity is
associated with 14.4 years of continuing life expectancy, in men
and 16.2 years in women. In other words, a man who exercises
moderately and doesn't smoke is likely to live to be just over
seventy-nine years old. That's a gain of seven years over the
average life expectancy of seventy-two years for a man.
The benefits of physical activity hold true even for
smokers. Male smokers who exercise moderately gain 10.5 years of
extra life expectancy; women gain 12.6 years. What better reason
could there be to start your age-defying exercise program today?
Despite the perfectly obvious benefits of exercising, some
30 percent of the American population doesn't exercise at all.
Whether they realize it or not, these couch potatoes have opted
for a shortened life span marred at the end by years of
expensive, painful disability.
What will you opt for? Will you choose to exercise and defy
age, or remain inactive and court disability and premature death?
It's a simple choice, really, and yet I find many of my patients
have trouble making the commitment to exercise. I've heard every
excuse in the book, and although I'm certainly guilty of some of
them myself, none of them are valid.
Patients tell me all the time that they just don't have time
to exercise. I don't buy that one at all. If the average American
can find time to watch six hours of mindless television a day, he
or she can find time for half an hour of exercise. If you can't
bear to miss a minute of TV time, ride an exercise bike or do
stretching exercises and calisthenics while you watch.
Another big excuse I hear is being too old to exercise. This
is just as nonsensical as the lack of time excuse. It's never too
late to start an exercise program. In one study, a group of
frail, nonagenarian men living in a nursing home did weight
training! In just eight weeks they showed remarkable increases in
muscle strength-up to 175 percent. More important, their walking
speed and coordination improved by nearly 50 percent, making them
much less likely to have a fall. Several other studies since then
have shown similar results, with elderly study participants
improving walking speed and overall strength and improving
measures of physical disability.
"Exercise is so boring," some of my patients say. "Maybe
so," is my reply, "but it's a lot less boring than living in a
nursing home." Find a form of exercise you enjoy and do it
regularly - golf, tennis, walking, hiking, biking, dancing,
swimming - all will roll back the clock. And even such
constructive activities as gardening, housework, and home repairs
can be done in such a way that they are meaningful sources of
exercise.
Of all the excuses I hear, the lest convincing of all is
that you are too out of shape to exercise. That's exactly what
were going to remedy!
AEROBICS AND WEIGHT TRAINING
Aerobics and weight training are the buzzwords of exercise
workouts, and indeed, both are important.
Aerobic exercises are any exercises that comfortably raise
your body's oxygen requirements and pulse rate and keep the rate
constant for a meaningful period of time. For many of you, half
an hour of brisk walking will do it; for others, it will take
more to get the benefit. Low-impact jogging, bicycling, and
aerobic workouts are all appropriate, providing they are not so
vigorous that they stress your immune reserves or lead to injury.
Weight training, also known as resistance training, is done
primarily to build up stronger muscles. It can also be moderately
aerobic, especially when done with lighter weights. As mentioned
earlier, research has shown that even frail, elderly people can
benefit from weight training. But to avoid injury when you're
first getting started with weights, I suggest working with a
trainer to learn the basics.
(And if you use Charles Atlas' "dynamic tension" method, which
pushes one set of muscles against another set, you need not even
have to weight-lift. Charles Atlas built his large strong
muscular body with "dynamic tension" exercises - Keith Hunt)
WALKING TO BETTER HEALTH
So which exercise is best for you? Whichever one you'll
enjoy enough to do regularly! If cornered, however, the form of
exercise I recommend most, especially if you're just starting an
exercise program, is walking. If a couch potato starts by simply
taking a short walk every day, or even every other day, he or she
will show dramatic improvements in a very short time.
It matters little how far or how fast you go or how old you
are. In a recent study from Japan, for example, middle-aged men
who walked just ten to twenty minutes a day, five days a week,
reduced their risk of hypertension by 12 percent and lost weight.
Another recent study, more to the point, followed nearly
3,000 American men age seventy-one to ninety-three for four
years. During that time, 109 of the men were diagnosed with
coronary artery disease. What's interesting is the breakdown. The
men who walked 1.5 miles a day or more had a 2.5 percent risk of
heart disease. The men who walked less than a quarter of a mile a
day had double the risk, or a 5 percent chance of heart disease.
In other words, by spending half an hour taking a relaxing walk,
these older men cut their risk of heart disease in half, to say
nothing of the other benefits they reaped.
The benefits of walking might be even more dramatic for
women. According to a recent study of participants in the on
going Nurses' Health Study, fully one-third of heart attacks in
women of any age could be prevented by three hours of brisk
walking spread across a week - brisk walking means twenty minutes
per mile. A woman who walks briskly for five or more hours a week
cuts her heart attack risk in half. The benefit applies to all
women, even sedentary ones who take up walking later in life.
There's no real reason to think that what works for women won't
also work for men.
What other benefits does walking give you? Well, aside from
the health advantages I've already discussed for any sort of
exercise, walking seems to improve your mental fitness. In
particular, a recent study shows that walking improves what are
known as the executive control functions: your ability to plan,
coordinate, and focus on information. The study compared two
groups of previously sedentary older adults. One group walked for
forty-five minutes three times a week. The other group did
stretching and toning exercises for an hour three times a week.
When the two groups were given a battery of psychological tests
after six months, the walkers did much better, What seems to have
made the difference is the increased flow of blood to the brain
that came with walking.
Walking has several other benefits to commend it. It is a
weight-bearing exercise, which means it can help prevent or slow
osteoporosis. It is also far gentler on your body than jogging or
running and is unlikely to injure you. Unlike more strenuous
forms of exercise, walking does not have a negative effect on
your immune system. Jogging for just half an hour every day can
significantly reduce the number of immune cells in your blood,
but walking half an hour a day will have no effect on your
immunity-except that it may well give it a boost!
(Yes, read that again - jogging, is NOT the best form of
exercise. Unless you are young, say up to age 35, jogging can be
actually harmful. But walking is for ANY age is of benefit -
Keith Hunt)
One of the best things about walking is that it requires no
special equipment beyond a comfortable pair of shoes. You also
don't need any special training - you've been walking all your
life. And it's free - no gym fees, no fancy equipment, no
instructors.
Your age-defying goal is to take a brisk, half-hour walk at
least three times a week, and preferably every day. The time you
spend walking is more important than the distance you cover. if
you haven't walked more than a couple of blocks in years, ease
into it by walking as quickly as is comfortable for just ten
minutes. Gradually work up to half an hour, keeping the pace at
whatever is comfortable for you. You'll be amazed at how quickly
you get up to half an hour and at how much better you feel, both
physically and mentally. In fact, you may feel so good that you
decide to walk longer or more frequently, which in turn will make
you feel even better. Talk about a win-win situation!
As you walk, be aware of your posture. We all have a natural
tendency as we get older to stoop forward a bit, a tendency that
can be quite pronounced in the elderly. You need to counteract
the tendency before it happens. The farther forward you stoop,
the more likely you are to have a fall that could break a bone.
Check your posture by standing naturally up against a wall and
seeing how much of you touches it. If the back of your head
doesn't touch the wall, you'll need to take some corrective
steps. Before leaving the wall, try to stand so that your head
does touch the wall. You'll find it works better if you pull your
abdomen in, thrust your hips forward and try to elevate your
chest away from your pelvis. This is the very posture you should
strive for when walking.
As you walk, hold your chin up. Once your head is balanced
more naturally over your shoulders, the rest of your posture will
straighten up as well. By constantly reminding yourself to keep
your head back, you'll overcome your forward stoop.
The recommendation to go walking holds true for those with
arthritis or some other condition that impairs your mobility; at
least, walk as much as you can. For these patients, I also
recommend water exercises under the supervision of a trained
physical or exercise therapist. Many local Ys and community pools
offer inexpensive water exercise classes.
(Charles Atlas - the health and strength man of the 40s and 50s -
added to walking, that you stretch and tense your leg muscles,
and of course you can stretch and tense your arm muscles as you
swing them in walking - Keith Hunt)
STRETCHING THE TRUTH
As great an age-defier as walking is, it is tied for first
place in my mind with another activity that is invaluable and not
at all strenuous - stretching. (Charles Atlas put much stress on
this part of fitness - Keith Hunt).
I don't think I have to remind you that stiffness and
progressive inflexibility of the spine and other joints are well
known accompaniments to aging. The technique of loosening up
these joints by putting the tight muscles around them "on the
stretch" is a dramatically effective correction for this problem.
There are probably over a hundred different stretching exercises
that can benefit your different muscle groups. It's not within
the scope of this book to provide the details - you can get them
from the many good books on the topic or from an exercise
instructor at your local Y or health dub. I merely want to point
out that stretches provide an invaluable protection against the
musculoskeletal problems associated with advancing years.
WHEN MORE IS LESS
If mild exercise is good and moderate exercise is better,
does that make heavy exercise the best? Precisely the opposite.
Aside from increasing the chances of an injury, heavy
exercise stimulates you to produce an overabundance of free
radicals, has a detrimental effect on your immune system, and
makes you release more of the damaging stress hormone cortisol.
That's why I don't recommend running or jogging as exercise.
(Yes, note that again please. Running or jogging is not the best
form of exercise! Sprint and Marathon races are for the young, if
you are into them on a regular basis, say up to age 35. Most
sprint runners retire from that way of life after 35, and jogging
long distances as a way of life after about 35, is really going
to do you harm, as shocking as that may seem to many who have got
the false idea that if walking is good for you, then jogging must
be even better - but it is not so - Keith Hunt)
Swimming, walking, yoga, and other slower, gentler
activities - even housework - when done regularly have just as
beneficial an effect on your body without all the extra wear and
tear.
And anyone who thinks he or she is achieving immortality the
Ornish way by running forty miles a week and eating a very
low-fat diet is in for a surprise. A recent study showed that
when high-mileage runners ate a diet in which only 17 percent of
the calories came from fat, their levels of infection-fighting
white blood cells and cytokines plummeted, while their levels of
cortisol and inflammation-producing prostaglandins increased.
When the runners went to a high-fat diet with 41 percent of
the calories from fat (remember Atkins is talking about natural
fats from meats, fish, eggs etc. - Keith Hunt) their levels
returned to normal, and their level of natural killer cells,
which attack viruses and tumor cells, doubled. Scientific studies
don't usually discuss how the subjects actually feel, but I'm
sure in this case that the subjects felt a lot better in general
when they were eating the high-fat diet. I'm also sure they were
a lot less likely to get sick with the sort of minor ailments,
like colds and infections, that dog many serious athletes who
follow restricted diets (Yes, a BALANCE in diet is the key, a
balance with natural foods God made and intended for us to eat to
be healthy. See the study "Charles Atlas' Way to Health with
Foods" - Keith Hunt)
If you're over age forty-five, before you undertake any
exercise program more strenuous than brisk walking, see your
doctor and get yourself examined for any cardiovascular problems.
To avoid injuries, always do some stretching and limbering
exercises before you get into the more active part of your
exercise routine. If you're just beginning an exercise program,
start slowly. Forget that old saying, "No pain, no gain." At
first, do a little bit less than you think you can, not a little
bit more. Gradually build up to a level that leaves you feeling
energized and refreshed, not exhausted and sore. Over the first
few weeks, you'll be amazed at how quickly you get into better
shape. After that, your progress may be a bit slower. Set
realistic goals for yourself and remember that you're not
training for the Olympics.
When you exercise, there should be a normal elevation of
your pulse rate. If you feel dizzy, have chest pains, or feel
very short of breath, STOP. Check things out with your physician
before you exercise to that level again. Avoid exercising
outdoors in extremely hot or cold weather. When the weather is
against you, try walking at your local shopping mall. You'll find
you're not alone: Squads of retirees and younger folk on their
way to work may be taking advantage of the climate-sheltered
empty walkways to stride briskly to better health and fitness.
THE 28 DAY EXERCISING PLAN
Prior to initiating any course of exercise, you should
consult with your physician. Always warm up before beginning
(five minutes of gentle stretching or other slow, focused
movement may do it), and cool down at the end of the exercise
(stretching/walking at a slow pace).
Week 1: Walk 10 to 15 minutes at a slow to moderate pace (2
and 1/2 to 3 miles per hour), one to two times a week.
Week 2: Increase rate to a steady moderate pace (3 miles per
hour) and the time to 15 to 20 minutes, two times a week.
Week 3: Add 5 to 10 minutes for a walk for 20 to 25 minutes
(3 to 3 and 1/2 miles per hour) two to three times a week. Pump
your arms while walking to increase cardiovascular benefit.
Week 4: Walk for 30 to 35 minutes three times a week, while
maintaining a brisk pace (3 and 1/2 to 4 miles per hour). Now
that you've started, keep it up, and aim for a daily dose of
exercise.
If walking is not an option for you, try swimming, biking,
low-impact aerobic exercise, or yoga. You will need to vary your
routine so that it does not become boring, so change course of
your walk and/or try the above exercise options.
If you experience pain or have trouble breathing, stop
exercising and consult your physician.
Whatever exercise you do should be done regularly. You'll
find that it soon becomes a very pleasant routine and an
essential part of your life. In fact, it can be habit-forming -
if not downright addictive. Nothing could be better for you than
this particular addiction. It will help ensure a sound body for
life - reason enough to look now at ways to keep a sound mind in
that sound body for life.
(The chapter on the sound mind is in Dr. Atkins' book: "Age
Defying Diet" from which this chapter on exercise came. I produce
no further chapters from that book, but I do recommend it for all
to read, it is packed with much good information if you are
wanting to hold on to youthfulness even in your old age - Keith
Hunt)
..................
Uploaded to this Website, March 2004
