Three Reasons to Exercise Today
Hosting Readers’ Workouts has turned me into fly paper for news about fitness. Here are three things that have stuck to me lately and will motivate my workout today.
1) Exercise feels good. LifeHacker posted an article yesterday about the effectiveness of using emotional and mental health as a motivator for exercise, Focus on the Mental and Emotional Benefits of Exercise to Help Stick to Your Workouts. You’ll see the results more quickly if you’re looking for a boosted mood rather than lost inches — quick rewards do wonders for developing new habits.
2) Exercise to maintain a weight loss. The New York Times has an exercise article from last year, but I saw it somewhere today, my Twitter feed, I think. Weighing the Evidence on Exercise covers the tricky question about whether exercise helps or hinders weight loss. Exercise burns calories but, at least for some people and in some situations, it also elevates appetite. Less tricky is the role of exercise in maintaining a weight loss — for most people, it’s the key to success. Keep in mind that if you’ve started losing weight, you are already maintaining what you lost so far — exercise will help.
3) Exercise to be Drop Dead Healthy. Okay, so this one’s a little different, but A.J. Jacobs, author of the new book Drop Dead Healthy, gave a fun interview on Weekend Edition earlier this month, Self-Improver A.J. Jacobs Takes On Getting ‘Healthy’. The interview re-motivated me to sit less.
Join us at Readers’ Workouts for see how other readers are motivated to exercise. There are still a few days left to participate this week: Readers’ Workouts April 10. Or watch for next week’s link list to appear on Tuesday.