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Exercise: It’s Good for You

Contributed by: Robert Rosenbaum, Pharm.D. Candidate

KU School of Pharmacy

Text Box: One of the hardest things for most people to do is to get up out of bed every morning. There might be a simple trick to combat that icky, yucky feeling that you might have in the morning - exercise! It is well known that with exercise and a proper diet a person can improve their energy, decrease weight, and help manage a variety of disease states including high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. It’s very easy to say all of those things but very hard to practice. The problems a lot of people have with exercise is they want to begin their exercise program at a level they are not probably ready for. It is very difficult for a person to just start running miles at a time when they haven’t run since high school. That person will not continue with their new exercise program if they start out on that level. If a person is ready to change their lifestyle and start exercising they should start low and go slow. Everyone at some point has to go to the store for groceries or other items. When you go shopping, park a good distance away from the building so that you can get some much needed walking. Another chance to get your heart rate up a little bit is to take stairs instead of an elevator. These seem like simple solutions that we hear about all of the time, but if the choices we made challenged us more physically we would benefit a great deal. These are great ways to prepare your body for a more active lifestyle. In a perfect world we would exercise as much as possible every day, but we don’t live in a perfect world. A goal of 30

Text Box: minutes of exercise 4 to 6 times a week is a great goal and one that most people struggle to get to. If you have trouble getting 30 minutes at a time, or if your body isn’t ready, you can steal minutes throughout the day. Take five minutes every couple of hours and do something strenuous, like go for a brisk walk around your workplace for example. This is also where our convenience choices we make come into play, like where we park or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It’s also easy to get exercise when we can find an active hobby or a more strenuous activity to do. Recreation sports such as tennis or racquetball are great cardiovascular workouts. If you get really ambitious and when your body is ready weight resistance workouts are great ways to exercise as well. These types of exercise help build your muscle, which in turn helps your bone structure. It is very important to remember to start low and go slow in any type of workout program you venture into. When starting to exercise it is also important to remember not to starve your body of proper nutrients. When we exercise we are feeding it the necessary activity to help it stay healthy. We also need to feed our body the proper nutrition so that it can maintain the lifestyle we have chosen. One way to support your body is to take a multi-vitamin to enhance your diet. As there is not one all perfect multi-vitamin available, it is important to pick the one that’s right for you. Ask your pharmacist to help you make the decision as to what’s right for

Text Box: you. There are also other supplements that you might consider taking. A calcium supplement can help prevent osteoporosis for aging men and women. A fish oil capsule may help to decrease high cholesterol. And don’t forget to drink plenty of water. Whatever supplements you may be taking, it is important to communicate that with your healthcare providers such as your physician and pharmacist. One of the best things we can do for ourselves is to exercise as we age. It is the simplest of decisions that can have a major impact on our health, when we choose to walk further or up stairs instead of using an elevator consistently, we make that decision with our health in mind. It’s important to start low and go slow with whatever we decide to do, and to do something we like to do so that we will do it again and again. We need to keep our healthcare providers informed as well as use them as sources that help us make decisions that are best for us. By exercising you will make it easier to get out of bed in the morning. Websites that might be helpful: familydoctor.org www.webmd.com sln.fi.edu