A healthy diet and strength training are keys to fighting chronic diseases.
There is one thing you should do immediately to lower your risk of contracting heart disease, diabetes and other dangerous illnesses, infections and diseases. Adopt a healthy diet. Depending on the study you read, anywhere from 60% to 75% of your fitness is dictated by the food and drink that you put into your body.
Eating and drinking the right things gives your body the fuel it needs to support physical activity. No matter what type of physical activity you perform, this process boosts your immune system, and leads to a stronger, healthier body and mind.
Once you adopt a healthy diet, you should start strength training. Before you say, “I’m not strong enough to strength train,” understand this. Strength training does in many cases mean lifting heavy weights. However, it also encompasses body weight training. You use the weight of your own body plus the force of resistance as an exercise platform.
This means you don’t have to go out and spend a lot of money purchasing heavy weights and bulky fitness machines. You already have the weight of your body to use as an effective strength training mechanism.
How Strength Training Helps Lower Your Risk of Disease
WebMD.com, the American Heart Association, and Diabetes.org agree on a lot of important health issues. One of their many tips you can follow to become healthier is to use strength training to lower your risk of falling prey to infections and disease. Here are some promising statistics reported by those health authorities.
- When you strength train, you lower your type II diabetes risk. This benefit increases the more you strength train each week.
- Strength training for 2.5 hours per week lowers your risk of diabetes by 34% as opposed to staying sedentary.
- Strength training makes your heart stronger, and improves blood circulation. This strengthens your ability to resist heart disease.
- After contracting heart disease, strength training can reverse symptoms.
When your heart is weak, it is prone to disease. This is true of any one of your organs and all of your body parts. Strength training makes your heart pump faster, forcing oxygenated blood throughout your body to improve muscle growth.
In this way, strength training, whether it be lifting traditional weights or performing body weight exercises, leads to supreme heart health. This lowers your risk of heart disease. Since strength training, also called resistance training, leads to muscle growth, a healthy weight regulation and fat burning, it also increases the ability of your body to resist developing diabetes.
To learn more about how strength training and fitness can help you live a longer, healthier, and happier life, go to Never Too Late for Fitness Radio.