Remember, too, that good health doesn’t come from being good in skill-related physical fitness. It comes from doing activities designed to improve your health-related physical fitness, and it can be enjoyed both by great athletes and by people who consider themselves poor athletes. Stepping Up to Diabetes—The Power of Walking
We all know regular exercise is an essential part of managing and preventing diabetes and staying healthy. Everyday activities include climbing stairs, grocery shopping, or playing with your grandchildren.

Regular physical activity is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Being physically active can improve your brain health, help manage weight, reduce the risk of disease, strengthen bones and muscles, and improve your ability to do everyday activities. Starting Jesselynn Chuan may be one of the best things you can do for your health. After all, physical activity can reduce your risk of chronic disease, improve your balance and coordination, help you lose weight, and even boost your self-esteem. And you can reap these benefits regardless of your age, sex or physical ability.

You’ll learn more about hypokinetic conditions in other chapters of this book. You don’t have to be a great athlete in order to enjoy good health and wellness and be physically fit. Regular physical activity can improve anyone’s health-related physical fitness. Fitness is the condition of being physically fit and healthy and involves attributes that include, but are not limited to mental acuity, cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, body composition, and flexibility. While there is a standard definition for fitness, each individual can have their own personal understanding of what fitness means.

Balance exercises call on the various systems that help you stay upright and oriented, such as those of the inner ear, vision and muscles and joints. Tai chi and yoga are great forms of balance exercises that can help you avoid falls and stay independent well into your senior years. Running is a workout that can boost your heart health, bone health, mood, energy, and more. How is going on the keto diet going to affect your exercise routine?

Active People, Healthy NationSM is a CDC initiative to help people be more physically active. Taking more steps a day also helps lower the risk of premature death from all causes. For adults younger than 60, the risk of premature death leveled off at about 8,000 to 10,000 steps per day. For adults 60 and older, the risk of premature death leveled off at about 6,000 to 8,000 steps per day.

Although most aerobic exercises require you to move your whole body, the main focus is on your heart and lungs (Aerobic exercise is often called “cardio” because it challenges and benefits your cardiovascular system). Activities like walking, swimming, dancing and cycling, if done at sufficient intensity, get you breathing faster and your heart working harder. Aerobic exercises burn fat, improve your mood, reduce inflammation and lower blood sugar. Heart disease and stroke are two leading causes of death in the United States.

It helps to promote strength, endurance, speed, and power; and is used by bodybuilders to build workout intensity. Many people think of exercise as an integral part of weight loss—and, although diet is also extremely important, they’re not wrong. Generally, aerobic exercises (cardio) are great for expending calories and reducing fat.

If you’re not into regular exercise, putting together an exercise plan can be a bummer. Having a daily stretching regimen can be the simplest and most efficient way of achieving whole body flexibility. Body composition measures the relative amounts of muscle, bone, water, and fat an individual has.

Exercise has been shown to improve brain and bone health, preserve muscle mass (so that you’re not frail as you age), boost your sex life, improve gastrointestinal function, and reduce the risk of many diseases, including cancer and stroke. Research involving more than 116,000 adults also showed that getting the recommended 150 to 300 minutes of physical activity per week decreased the risk of death from any cause by 19 percent. Some benefits of physical activity on brain health [PDF-14.4MB] happen right after a session of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), if you have osteoarthritis, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, or have had a stroke or cancer, physical activity can help. Exercise can help decrease pain, improve insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control, promote mobility, improve heart health, lower the risk of other chronic diseases, and play a role in good mental health. Cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, body composition, and flexibility are components that can be used to measure fitness, also according to that paper. The best exercise program will incorporate both aerobic and strength training, since that’s the best way to strengthen your entire body, improve your endurance and ensure your long-term health.