Focus on Fitness > 8 Ways Exercise Improves Your Health

Focus on Fitness

8 Ways Exercise Improves Your Health

Compiled by Jodi Stolove of Chair Dancing Fitness

Besides burning calories, exercise provides additional benefits you may not know about. Here are eight of the most beneficial. Now, let’s get started! 

1. Exercise is an appetite suppressant, sometimes delaying the return of hunger for hours.
2. Exercise triggers the release in the brain of natural tranquilizing chemicals called endorphins, resulting in the relief of tension or depression that may prompt you to overeat.
3. Exercise builds up muscle tissue, which burns calories at a higher rate than body fat. This makes it possible to eat more without gaining or to lose more rapidly without changing caloric intake.
4. Because muscle tissue takes up less space than the same weight of fat, active people look thinner than their sedentary counterparts who weigh the same. So even if you do not lose any weight, exercise will make you trimmer.
5. For up to 14 hours after exercise, the body continues to burn calories at a higher rate than it would have without exercise. In other words, exercise raises the body’s idling speed for hours after exercise is over.
6. Fat is lost from the body almost exclusively by being burned in muscles. The only way you are ever going to lose fat is if your muscles burn it as fuel. In other words, you need to exercise!
7. Consistent exercise reduces body fat, lowers blood concentrations of cholesterol and triglycerides, increases levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and may reduce high blood pressure and lower blood sugar levels.
8. Remember the 2 A’s—accessible, available! Make sure the fitness program you choose is practical and convenient. Do things you enjoy. Variety is both physically and psychologically advantageous.

 “For the sake of your health, as well as your weight, exercise should become as routine a part of your life as brushing your teeth.” —Jodi Stolove

With a childhood passion for dance, Jodi Stolove has been devoted to teaching dance and fitness for more than 30 years. A cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan, her dance and exercise training skills have been enriched by her master’s degree education in counseling psychology. The Chair Dancing® Fitness concept was born when a fractured foot forced Jodi to conduct her dance and fitness classes from a chair. Creativity, born of necessity, resulted in her becoming a pioneer in the field of seated exercise.

The information presented is educational and may not suit an individual’s particular health situation. Always check with a licensed healthcare professional before beginning a new exercise program.

The appearance of any trade name in this material is not an endorsement or recommendation of that product.