What is the Best Type of Exercise for My Body?

Best Type of Exercise for My Body

There is so much conflicting information about the best way to exercise. How do you know what is best for you?

Our bodies were designed to withstand the need to make surges of speed, but not to withstand long distance running. Our ancestors would run short distances to get out of harm’s way, to chase down dinner or to help a friend in need. We were not designed to run for great distances over long periods of time.

There are many forms of exercise that bring this principle into effect, such as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), where you work out as hard as you can for a short duration of time, potentially even for only 45 or 60 seconds (which seems like a lifetime when you’re doing as many push ups as you can!!) and then resting for the same timeframe or a little less. This kicks your metabolism into high gear, adds a significant surge of adrenaline into your body to keep up with this form of exercise and pushes your body to grow and develop muscle and improves your fitness.

The opposite form of exercise would be traditional cardio. You jump on a treadmill or hit the road for 30-60 minutes of fast walking or jogging until the time is up. Sustained movement for a long period of time, generally at the same pace and difficulty level to make your body move and cooperate. Cardio can help to lower your resting heart rate, increase your good HDL cholesterol and lower blood pressure, as well as improving circulation, blood flow and lymphatic drainage.

But cardio can also cause your body to produce higher levels of cortisol which can stimulate your appetite, increase fat storage and inhibit recovery.

How is this possible when exercising is supposed to be helping you lose weight and/or get fit? It has to do with the hormones that are released with each type of exercise. Cardio can decrease testosterone production and HIIT can improve your growth hormone levels while lowering your insulin resistance to help regulate blood sugar and reduce fat storage.

What is the best form of exercise for me? How do I know?

The best form of exercise for you is the one that you will actually do!! The risks of a sedentary lifestyle are much worse than the risks involved with either HIIT or cardio. Additionally, there are many other forms of exercise that offer corresponding benefits and risks, such as yoga, pilates, rebounding, kickboxing, hiking, crossfit and many others!

So talk with your natural health practitioner about what he/she would recommend as the best form of exercise for your personal situation and do that! Fall in love with joyful movement – find something you love to do and do it often. Or mix it up and take on different forms of exercise to keep your body guessing and working toward your optimal fitness levels. Have fun!

With Sources from:

http://drhardick.com/say-no-to-traditional-cardio

How to Detoxify without Retoxifying Your Body

How to Detoxify without Retoxifying Your Body

Everywhere you turn, you hear about detoxifying your body. But what are you not being told?

What do you need to know to detoxify safely without re-toxifying your body?

You can think about it like you would a traffic jam. There are potentially hundreds of cars trying to make their way down the highway but there are only three lanes and when you have so many more vehicles than there is room for on the road, you end up in chaos.

So what happens is that when you are adding in intense detoxification methods, it can sometimes wreak more havoc on your body than if you had just left things alone. So the answer to not re-toxifying your body starts with a very gentle process of a gentle detox.

The main forms of detoxification for your body are through your intestines, kidneys, lungs and skin.

Intestines:

Your intestines rid you of food toxins that you are finished pulling out the nutrients from. This is also a place that bodily toxins are dumped for removal. But often, your digestion can be sluggish from eating too much meat, grains and dairy products. (You should be pooping at least twice per day… if you’re not, you can be sure that you have serious toxic build up in your digestive tract). So the first thing we need to do to start a gentle detoxification is to start moving out those old toxins that are stuck there before we start delivering a whole bunch more toxins for it to process and be overloaded.

Start by increasing your water intake – and add lemon to it to add a bit of a added clean-up assistance. (I love to peel a whole lemon and throw it in my high speed blender with a litre of fresh water, and then strain it to remove the tiny pit pieces that break apart). This will help to start gently encourage movement of toxins out of your intestines.

Then start adding in more fibre to keep your intestines moving. The fibre acts like a broom and sweeps up the toxins and helps to move them out. The best forms of fibre are fruit and vegetables! Eat more than you ever have before!

Kidneys

Your kidneys filter your blood continually, all day long, and never rest. They pull toxins from your blood supply and deliver them to your bladder to be removed from your body in your urine. So yes, you guessed it! More water! 3-4 litres per day and more if you are super active.

Lungs

Your lungs are always delivering fresh oxygen to your body, but they also help to expel toxins on the exhalation. So take a few moments several times through the day to do some deep breathing exercises. AND move that body!! Breathe hard, make it work and make it sweat! We were built to move.

Skin

We chatted about moving that body! Your sweat will help to move toxins out of your body, so try to get some joyful movement into your schedule every day.

Additionally, dry skin brushing is an excellent way to encourage the release of toxins from your skin by using a natural hair bristled brush and very gently brushing your skin from the bottom of your body toward your heart. And from your hands and arms to your heart as well. Use gentle strokes or circles. The keyword is GENTLE – your lymph drainage system is extremely fragile and can only respond and pump the lymph when its movement is gently encouraged.