50 Reasons to Get Fit in 2023
Article Summary
Today's article is 50 reasons to get fit after 50 (or any age for that matter). I have been a certified personal trainer for 20+ years now. Not only have I been a Certified Fitness Trainer for 20+ years but I have worked with older adults for many, many years. And today I am considered an older adult myself. I have found fitness to be the very best way to improve your life.
Let's not forget that regular exercise is key. It's ideal to set a workout routine that includes both strength training and aerobic exercise. And a great way to get that regular exercise is to create a habit. I have good news. I created a download that will give you 10 steps to creating a healthy habit and a healthy lifestyle in no time. Download Yours Now!
Ideally, we all need to strive for an active lifestyle and find an exercise program that works for us in the long run. No one wants to encounter health issues. I have found that regular exercise benefits all of us and our overall health.
While these 50 tips are somewhat general I will provide context as to why a solid exercise routine will help each reason.
If you know someone who can benefit from this article please feel free to share it with them using the share buttons to the side.
1- Lifts your mood
How does exercise lift one's mood? One possible explanation could be that aerobic exercise produces endorphins, or “feel good” chemicals. It also increases your heart rate, which triggers norepinephrine, a chemical that may help the brain deal with stress more effectively. Plus, exercise is an effective way to increase blood flow to the brain.
2 - Improves your learning abilities
When you do any type of intense physical activity, it causes blood to flow to the brain. This in turn fires up your neurons and promotes cell growth, particularly in the hippocampus. This means that just 20 minutes of exercise before studying can improve your concentration and help you focus your learning.
3 - Builds self-esteem
Sometimes self-esteem issues are tied to body perception. Regular exercise helps build confidence by improving our body image. While exercising you're likely to strengthen and tone your body, and seeing these results can greatly improve your self-esteem and help you feel better about the way you look.
4 - Keeps your brain fit
Exercise increases heart rate, which pumps more oxygen to the brain. It aids the release of hormones which provide an excellent environment for the growth of brain cells. Exercise also promotes brain plasticity by stimulating the growth of new connections between cells in many important cortical areas of the brain. This is a necessary factor we must consider in our golden years.
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5 - Keeps your body fit and able
Without regular activity, your body slowly loses its strength, stamina and ability to function properly. It's like the old saying: you don't stop moving from growing old, you grow old from stopping moving. Exercise increases muscle strength, which in turn increases your ability to do other physical activities.
6 - Boosts mental health
Regular exercise may help ease depression and anxiety by: Releasing feel-good endorphins, natural cannabis-like brain chemicals (endogenous cannabinoids), and other natural brain chemicals that can enhance your sense of well-being.
7 - Boosts your immune system
Exercise causes changes in antibodies and white blood cells (WBC). WBCs are the body's immune system cells that fight disease. These antibodies or WBCs circulate more rapidly, so they could detect illnesses earlier than they might have before.
8 - Reduces stress
Exercise also has some direct stress-busting benefits. It pumps up your endorphins. Physical activity may help bump up the production of your brain's feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins.
9 - Makes you feel happier
How does exercise lift one's mood? One possible explanation could be that aerobic exercise produces endorphins, or “feel good” chemicals. It also increases your heart rate, which triggers norepinephrine, a chemical that may help the brain deal with stress more effectively. Plus, exercise is an effective way to increase blood flow to the brain.
10 - Has anti-aging effects
Numerous studies have found that lifelong exercise may keep people healthier for longer; delay the onset of 40 chronic conditions or diseases; stave off cognitive decline; reduce the risk of falls; alleviate depression, stress, and anxiety; and may even help people live longer and helps prevent life-threatening health conditions.
11 - Improves skin tone and color
Exercise supports the production of collagen, a protein that is the support structure of our skin. When you exercise, you strengthen and tone the muscles beneath the skin, making the skin look healthier.
12 - Improves sleeping patterns
Exercise tires you out ... The more active you are, the more your body pushes you to sleep at night. “Activity increases your sleep drive,” Trust me I know about sleep!
13 -Helps prevent strokes
Exercise helps lower high blood pressure, which is an important risk factor for stroke. Exercise can help you control other things that put you at risks, such as obesity, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
14 - Improves joint function
Joint pain can become a factor in our later years or even our younger years for that matter. Exercise strengthens the muscles, ligaments, and tendons surrounding the joints, When these tissues are strong, they act like a brace to protect the joint, and lessen pressure on weakened joints.
15 - Improves muscle strength
Examples of the best exercise to develop muscular strength and power include resistance training, such as weightlifting, and bodyweight exercises. One can use free weights, machine weights, and even low-impact workouts using body weight. Don't forget to include upper body, lower body, and core exercises for a total body
16 - Alleviates anxiety
How does exercise lift one's mood? One possible explanation could be that aerobic exercise produces endorphins, or “feel good” chemicals. It also increases your heart rate, which triggers norepinephrine, a chemical that may help the brain deal with stress more effectively. Plus, exercise is an effective way to increase blood flow to the brain.
17 - Sharpens memory
Exercise improves memory by increasing molecular targets like the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). This molecular factor increases synaptogenesis, forming new synapses that mediate learning and memory, making it easier to absorb information and form long-term memories.
18 - Helps to control addictions
Experts think regular exercise can act as a healthy stand-in for addictive substances. That’s because exercise and drugs of misuse work on similar parts of your brain. They both activate your reward pathway, which triggers the release of feel-good chemicals like serotonin and dopamine.
19 - Boosts productivity
Physical exercise stimulates the development of new mitochondria within your cells, meaning that your body will be able to produce more ATP over time. That gives you more energy to exert yourself physically, but it also means more energy for your brain, boosting your mental output.
20 - Boosts creative thinking
One theory proposes that the endorphins, increased blood flow and other physical attributes of regular exercise produce a happiness boost, which helps fuel original or abstract thoughts.
21 - Improves body image
It appears the feelings of strength and empowerment women achieve post-exercise, stimulate an improved internal dialogue. This, in turn, should generate positive thoughts and feelings about their bodies which may replace the all too common negative ones.
22 - Gives you confidence
Exercise has been shown to enhance our mood and influence our minds toward adopting more positive thoughts. In the long-term, physical exercise can improve our confidence by making us feel good about our physique and abilities.
23 - Helps keep you focused in life
Physical activity immediately boosts the brain's dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels—all of which affect focus and attention.
24 - Improves eating habits
Exercising can lead to making healthier dietary choices meaning you might be less likely to snack or follow a typical Western diet high in fat and carbohydrates, and more likely to choose fruits, vegetables, and low-fat alternatives.
25 - Increases longevity
Physical activity reduces many major mortality risk factors including arterial hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer. All-cause mortality is decreased by about 30% to 35% in physically active as compared to inactive subjects.
26 - Strengthens your bones and improves bone density
Another reason to incorporate weight training into your exercise routine is to strengthen your bones. Because bone is a living tissue, it changes over time in response to the forces placed upon it. When you exercise regularly, your bone adapts by building more bone and becoming denser. This improvement in bone requires good nutrition, including adequate calcium and Vitamin D.
27 - Strengthens your heart
The most important thing to remember about exercise is the benefits of strengthening your heart. To do so it is important to do interval training according to your fitness level. This means exercising fast and slow at different intervals. When you strengthen your heart this way you have major health benefits including an improved cardiovascular system, improved energy levels, and a healthy heart.
28 - Improves posture
The best way to improve your posture is to focus on exercises that strengthen your core -- the abdominal and low back muscles that connect to your spine and pelvis. Some of these muscles move your torso by flexing, extending, or rotating your spine. Others stabilize your pelvis and spine in a natural, neutral position. When you strengthen your core you also improve your balance. It is imperative that you continue to do balance exercises to prevent balance loss which happens as we age.
29 - Prevents colds
Physical activity may help flush bacteria out of the lungs and airways. This may reduce your chance of getting a cold, flu, or other illness. Exercise causes changes in antibodies and white blood cells (WBC). WBCs are the body's immune system cells that fight disease.
30 Improves appetite
Studies have now shown that aerobic exercise — such as running, cycling, and swimming — actually decreases appetite by changing the levels of hormones that drive our state of hunger.
31 Improves cholesterol level - exercise stimulates enzymes that help move LDL from the blood (and blood-vessel walls) to the liver. From there, the cholesterol is converted into bile (for digestion) or excreted. So the more you exercise, the more LDL your body expels.
32 - Lowers risk of (certain) cancers
You may even know that exercise is important when it comes to cancer: It may lower cancer risk by helping control weight, reduce sex hormones or insulin, and strengthen the immune system; and it can boost the quality of life during cancer treatment.
33 - Lowers high blood pressure
Regular physical activity makes your heart stronger. A stronger heart can pump more blood with less effort. As a result, the force on your arteries decreases, lowering your blood pressure.
34 - Lowers risk of diabetes
Weight loss resulting from healthy eating and increased physical activity enables muscle cells to use insulin and glucose more efficiently, thus lowering diabetes risk.
35 - Fights dementia
Physical activity seems to help your brain not only by keeping the blood flowing but also by increasing the chemicals that protect the brain. Physical activity also tends to counter some of the natural reduction in brain connections that occurs with aging.
36 - Eases back pain
Aerobic exercise increases the blood flow and nutrients to the soft tissues in the back, improving the healing process and reducing the stiffness that can result in back pain.
37 - Decreases osteoporosis risk
Weight-bearing or load-bearing exercise helps keep bones strong by causing the muscles and tendons to pull on the bones, which in turn stimulates bone cells to produce more bone
38 - Reduces feelings of depression
Regular exercise may help ease depression and anxiety by: Releasing feel-good endorphins, natural cannabis-like brain chemicals (endogenous cannabinoids) and other natural brain chemicals that can enhance your sense of well-being.
39 - Prevents muscle loss
It is also well established that exercise training can promote the synthesis of muscle protein and activate signaling pathways that regulate the metabolism and function of muscle fibers.
40 - Increases energy and endurance
Regular physical activity can improve your muscle strength and boost your endurance. Exercise delivers oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and helps your cardiovascular system work more efficiently. And when your heart and lung health improve, you have more energy to tackle daily chores.
41 - Increases sports performance
In terms of physical effects of training, regular exercise increases muscle tone, facilitates good circulation, improves strength, agility and flexibility and improves the rate of waste product disposal.
42 - Increases pain resistance
During exercise, the body typically releases natural opiates, such as endorphins, and other substances that can slightly dampen the discomfort.
43 - Improves balance and coordination
By building strength in your legs, shoulders and back, you build a stronger base to control your body and improve your awareness and physical capabilities. If you perform core exercises, you can further strengthen your balance by improving your trunk muscles to hold up the upper half of your body more effectively.
44 - Improves oxygen supply to cells
Just like regular exercise makes your muscles stronger, it also makes your lungs and heart stronger. As your physical fitness improves, your body becomes more efficient at getting oxygen into the bloodstream and transporting it to the working muscles.
45 - Improves concentration
Physical activity immediately boosts the brain's dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels—all of which affect focus and attention.
46 - Helps with self-control
Regular exercise alters the workings of portions of the brain involved in higher-level thinking and decision-making, which, in turn, play important roles in impulse control.
47 - Lessens fatigue
When you work out, the body releases epinephrine and norepinephrine. These are stress hormones, but in these small amounts triggered by exercise, they mostly act to energize you. This is why, even when you feel too tired to do it, a quick walk around the block can actually perk you right up.
48 - Increases sex drive and satisfaction
Chronic exercise likely enhances sexual satisfaction indirectly by preserving autonomic flexibility, which benefits cardiovascular health and mood. Positive body image due to chronic exercise also increases sexual well-being.
49 - Makes life more exciting
When you exercise, it increases endorphins, dopamine, adrenaline and endocannabinoid -- these are all brain chemicals associated with feeling happy, feeling confident, feeling capable, feeling less anxiety and stress and even less physical pain
50 - Improves overall quality of life
Exercise not only helps you live longer — it helps you live better. In addition to making your heart and muscles stronger and fending off a host of diseases, it can also improve your mental and emotional functioning and even bolster your productivity and close relationships.
Read more fitness posts from Kathie Here!
