Exercise, your weight and your health

”Lack of Exercise ‘twice as deadly’ as Obesity”   The papers have been full of comments like this recently, due to a large University of Cambridge research project looking at the impact of exercise on our health.

The Europe-wide research project found that while 337,000 deaths each year were due to Obesity, nearly double that were due to physical inactivity. This was still the case whether individuals were average weight, overweight or obese. The greatest risk was to people who had desk-based sedentary jobs and who additionally did no physical exercise in their leisure time.

It can be seen from the numbers above that both carrying too much weight and doing too little exercise can be detrimental to our health and actually contribute to us dying earlier than we otherwise would.

Further details of the study can be found in this BBC news article

 

What can we do?

Many people find the idea of exercise very off-putting. But getting enough exercise doesn’t have to mean joining a gym or comparing yourself to others in a public place. In fact  a good starting point is just looking to build up to 20 minutes of activity into your routine every day. This could be going for a walk or doing some exercises at home.

If you feel confident to start this yourself, then the NHS choices website offers a great deal of advice and help:  http://www.nhs.uk/LiveWell/Fitness/Pages/Fitnesshome.aspx

If you would like more support, then a physiotherapist can help by assessing your current situation, finding out about your personal goals and devising an appropriate physical exercise programme for you.  Changing patterns of behaviour is not easy at the best of times and it often helps to have non-judgmental support and guidance. Both physiotherapists working from The Treatment Space, (Carolyn and Carwyn) have considerable experience in prescribing appropriate levels of exercise.

Adopting a healthy diet alongside increased physical activity offers even greater benefits for managing your weight and improving your health.  Penny Dembo, Nutritional Therapist is able to advise. For Penny’s easy and healthy recipe for lunchtime salad  click here.

Good luck with moving more and get in touch if you think we can help.

Carolyn  (Physiotherapist)