You’ve got kids, work deadlines, work stress, dinner that needs to be made, baby butts to wipe, errands to run, a business to look after… yada, yada, yada, who’s got time for exercise anyway?
What Happens When You Don’t Exercise?
- Your muscles atrophy and become weaker. (Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body.) It’s like you’ve voted that part of your body off the island, except it stays with you, turning into some flapping appendage because of under-use.
- Your bones weaken and osteoporosis kicks in. Try not to slip and fall here, it will cost you big time.
- Cardiovascular functioning diminishes, so your heart and lungs become less and less effective. Remember, the heart is a muscle that can become stronger with regular exercise, thus circulating blood throughout your body more efficiently. (But who needs that, right?)
- More toxins remain in your body since they are not being flushed out through sweat. Imagine then your body as a total wasteland; no wonder you don’t feel good, you’re drowning in waste and toxins.
- Premature death can and most likely will occur. Let’s say you’re turning 50 this year, which is a huge milestone, but without exercise your body may have just turned 80.
- Joints deteriorate so aches and pains can be felt, even when doing the smallest of moves. Muscles attach to your bones at the joint and since they’re atrophying, your muscles are not helping to keep your joints strong.
- Your metabolism slows, so you put on weight. Plain and simple.
- Your immune system weakens, making you more susceptible to debilitating and deadly diseases like obesity, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and a plethora of other deadly diseases.
- There is less and less of the feel-good hormones swimming around in your brain and body, which can result in an increase in stress hormones and can lead to depression.
- Being sedentary weakens back muscles which can, and will, ruin your posture and spine health. Just think, the spine is the body’s super-highway that carries all sorts of signals from your body to your brain. If there is a roadblock, your body will suffer tremendously; it would be like a 35 car pile up.
I hope I’m not coming across as a party-pooper here. I really am concerned about the health of women and I’ve just seen too many times how the body reacts to years and years of sedentary living; it’s difficult to climb out of that pit. Proper diet and exercise are the foundations of a healthy body and immune system. They really do make up the fountain of youth and no one should be making silly excuses to further avoid it. Exercise, it does a body good… real good!