My Second Favourite Form of Exercise

My Second Favourite Form of Exercise

I’m not a gym person.  I’ve been twice, when I was about 16, with a friend.  I was all enthusiastic about it until she couldn’t go with me the third time so I didn’t go either, and I never went back.   The thought of going to a gym to exercise just does not get me excited at all, and I think this is a common stumbling block for a lot of people.   You know you need to exercise more, but finding the time and inclination is difficult, if not near impossible.  

Let me tell you about a one (or two) of my favourite forms of exercise and why I enjoy them, in the hopes that it will inspire you to find something you love to do too.  My second favourite form of exercise is dancing, of which I do two types.  The first is Ceroc, a type of modern jive that gets your heart pumping and your feet thumping, yet forces your mind to relax.   It’s sociable, energetic and easy (ish) to learn.   For the first couple of years of my Ceroc career (once I’d learnt the basic steps which only takes a few classes), it was the only two hours in a week when I wasn’t in charge.  It’s a male led dance so as a female, all you have to do is follow the man’s lead and giggle when you get it wrong (which happens frequently, even after four or more years).  The more I concentrate on what I’m doing, the more my body tenses and the more mistakes I make.  So I just have to relax and go with the flow, feel the rhythm and keep spinning.

The second type of dancing I do is pole dancing, which could be construed as controversial, as I pride myself on my professionalism as (amongst other things) an aromatherapy massage practitioner, and the in the wrong context, the two vocations together makes for an interesting career choice!  However, the pole dancing lessons take place in a freezing cold studio on an industrial park and couldn’t be any further from a sleazy strip joint if you tried, and I have no intention of trying.  Being just a beginner in this pole dancing lark, and being rather nervous before my first class, I have found it very enjoyable, again sociable (though thankfully no men this time!) and after just three weeks my arms are already more toned and my strength has improved noticeably.  It works pretty much all areas of your body, as I found when I couldn’t change into second gear for about three days after the first class, and I can still feel it in my lower abdominals now.   It’s also a very skilled form of dance (verging on acrobatics), and I have much respect for the others in the class who can hang upside down holding on with just their thighs, whilst somehow appearing graceful. I hope that one day soon I will have the strength, flexibility and fearlessness to enable me to do the same too.

Another form of exercise I enjoy is walking.  I love having a good stomp up a hill to get the blood flowing and the heart beating, then turning round to pause and enjoy the view before carrying on.  I also love the fresh air, seeing the seasons change and exploring my locality on foot. 

There’s bound to be an activity out there that you love to do, it’s a case of experimenting and finding it.  It could be golf, martial arts, abseiling or trampolining.   There’s nothing that beats the feeling of being in the moment, with the wind in your hair and the world spinning around you.   You don’t need to make an effort as it becomes a joy to do, you don’t need to make time as it becomes part of your routine and you don’t need to worry about exercising more as you can’t get enough of it. 

Weight Loss Myth No 2

Weight loss myth number 2
If you eat a diet low in fat, you’ll lose fat and won’t be overweight.  It’s an assumption we all make, and with the supermarket shelves piled high with ‘Low fat’, ‘light’ and ‘0%’, it’s easy to get drawn into the hype.
So what fuelled this paradigm?  It seems to make perfect sense until you realise that obesity and heart disease are on the increase, and this low fat diet we’ve been following for decades appears to be having the opposite effect.

It was in the seventies when the research was carried out claiming a high fat diet leads to coronary heart disease, hence the birth of the low-fat craze in the early eighties that has been with us ever since.  But this research was flawed, not analysed properly, and has led us all astray. 

The research was based on LDL (low density lipoproteins, aka ‘bad cholesterol’) levels in the body.   Here’s what it concludes:
In the mid seventies they discovered that dietary fat (A) raises LDL (B):
   A → B
In the late seventies it was found that LDL (B) levels correlated with cardiovascular disease (C):
   B → C
So therefore, dietary fat leads to heart disease:
   A → C
Right?  

Wrong.  Here’s why:
There are two types of LDL that can currently only be tested as one:

1. Pattern A, large, buoyant LDL that floats through the bloodstream and doesn’t stick to your arteries (neutral)
2. Pattern B, small, dense LDL, which starts the plaque formation that causes heart disease (bad).

You have to look at the ratio of HDL (high density lipoproteins) to triglycerides (other fatty substances) to determine if the LDL you have is bad or neutral – low triglycerides to high HDL is considered good, high triglycerides to low HDL is considered bad. 

So what causes these different types of LDL to rise?   Pattern A is affected dietary fat, pattern B is affected by carbohydrates. 

And then what happened?   The American government started a campaign to reduce the amount of fat in the diet from 40% to 30%, and in true British style, we followed.  And achieved it.   But by reducing the fat in food, you also reduce the flavour, and it becomes unpalatable.  So to make it taste nice (and therefore sellable), food manufacturers added sugar, and sweeteners.   And what’s sugar?  A carbohydrate. And what do carbohydrates do?  Increase the bad form of LDL.   So we were doubly duped!
Click here for my previous article on sugar.  Sweeteners are just as, if not more evil than sugar – don’t get me started on them!   

Now I’m not proposing you give up all carbohydrates and eat bacon for the rest of your days, it’s all about finding out what’s right for your body.  Listen to it, it will tell you.  Feel bloated after bread?   Don’t eat it.  Get heartburn after fatty food?  Stay off it.   These are just a couple of examples of your body telling you it doesn’t like what you’re giving it.  And then of course there are my general guidelines such as avoiding sugar, exercising, eating whole, unprocessed foods, lots of fruit and veg and being happy.   Simples.

Weight Loss Myth No 1.

Weight loss myth number 1

You’ve all heard it – to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you take in.   Sounds like simple maths to me.  But have you ever actually worked out what that means in real terms?

An average woman may eat 2000 calories (give or take) per day and weigh 10 stone.   If she were to run a mile in 10 minutes, she’d burn 106 calories (nearly 2 Oreo cookies’ worth).   At that rate, she’d have to run 20 miles per day to burn just 120 calories more than her daily intake (2120 calories in total).  That’s 3 hours and 20 minutes of running.  Who’s up for a marathon today then?!!!

So if that’s the case, what’s the point in exercising at all?   It does help you lose weight, just not in the way you may have thought.  As you exercise, your metabolism is increased (by improving your insulin sensitivity in your liver & skeletal muscles), and it’s this that helps you burn more energy, more efficiently.   An increase in insulin sensitivity also reduces the rate of diabetes, along with high blood pressure, heart disease and bone loss.

The best reason though, I think, for exercising is because it makes you feel good.    Those wonderful happy hormones, endorphins, are stimulated when you exercise, leading to a feeling of exhilaration and wellbeing.
It’s also a great stress buster.   I remember as a child watching people playing squash, and wondering why they hit the ball so hard and made such a noise!  Now I realise they were probably imagining the ball was their boss’ head…   Ever wondered why people pace the room or tap their fingers when they’re tense?   Movement helps to relieve the primitive ‘freeze’ response to stress, and not forgetting those happy hormones giving you an extra anti-stress boost.

Even a professional marathon runner wouldn’t run 20 miles every day, and look how skinny they are!  So how does it become achievable and sustainable in everyday life?   The current NHS “Recommended activity levels:

• Adults: 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity at least five days a week.
• Children: 60 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each day.
• Targets can be achieved with 10-minute bursts of activity spread throughout the day.”

‘Moderate-intensity’ exercise means getting a bit out of breath, so you feel that warm glow as the blood (and endorphins) pump through your body.   It’s the ten minute bursts that entice me, as it means I can do a spurt of vigorous vacuuming before work (the sooner it’s over and done with the better if you ask me), go for a quick power walk at lunch, and when I get home, I can dance to a few tracks via the Xbox Kinect.   Bob’s your uncle, 30 minutes of ‘moderate-intensity physical activity’ done.   It really helps your motivation to find something you enjoy doing, so you keep wanting to go back for more.  My favourites include dancing, walking and horse riding.  What are yours?