I was watching Good Morning America the other day and they had a segment in which they quoted a new Harvard study of 34,000 women showing that in order to maintain your current body weight you need 1 hour a day of moderate exercise. This new study revises older data such as the American Heart Association's recommendation of 30 minutes a day for people 18 to 65.
"An hour a day?!" you say and I say "Yes, of course." For someone like me, I don't see this as an issue. I find that not only does my body look better from exercise, but I feel better & I seem to be healthier than most women my age. Also, the emotional stability I received from the seratonin release and the stress relief I get is so much worth that time, as well as the fact that they have proven in studies that exercise boosts your brain power!!! How could I not devote an hour a day, and how can you not?
As I mention this new study to my friend who is complaining about her husband having to take pills for his cholesterol and their admitted lack of energy, she responds with "Who has an hour a day to exercise." As I state this to another friend and client who also has too many health issues for someone in her forties, I hear that she feels guilty carving out just an hour a week to exercise. This is crazy talk I say. (easy for me to say, the trainer who works out for her job.) Would you rather be dead 24hours a day or work out 1 hour a day I ask. They fumble for feeble excuses. The bottom line is that you must if you want to live a fruitful older life or even if you want to live a little longer. I don't see how an hour a day for ouselves is too much.
We all have heard that on an airplane they ask us to place our mask on first before placing the mask over our children. This is because we need to be alive to assist our children. The same goes for our health. We must be alive & healthy so that we are here for our children and also so that we are not a burden to them as sickly parents they must take care of. So, if we know that as parents or even partners to loved ones we must take care of our emtional tanks first & our physical health first so that we can give to others , then it is absolutely necessary to carve out some time EACH day for our mental, physical & emotional health. Otherwise we are operating on fumes and have nothing to give except snappy answers and disconnected chatter to those we love.
