Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (172 page)

Another benefit of physical exercise is that it increases insulin sensitivity and can therefore prevent glycemic stress, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes.
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Remember from chapter 17 that insulin resistance begins in skeletal muscles. Regular exercise is an essen tial part of controlling blood sugar and weight. It is also energizing. If you’re always tired, it may be because you don’t move enough. (But sometimes it’s because you need to rest. You’ll have to check this out for yourself.) For women with PMS, exercise often alleviates symptoms.
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And pregnant women who exercise moderately have decreased constipation, hemorrhoids, varicose vein complications, and morning sickness.
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As mentioned in chapter 12, regular exercise during pregnancy also reduces the chances of giving birth to overweight newborns.
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Exercise also helps the brain stay young, vibrant, and resilient, in part because it can boost the formation of new brain cells, says John Ratey, M.D., associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the author of
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
(Little, Brown, 2008). Dr. Ratey notes that exercise facilitates this process more than any other type of activity or drug that we know of. His book explores the connection between exercise and the brain’s performance and shows how even moderate exercise supercharges mental circuits by reducing anxiety, stress, and depression; increasing memory and the capacity for learning new things; and improving motor function and auditory attention in healthy older adults. He claims that even those who are overweight can see improvements in mood and cognition after following an exercise program for just twelve weeks. One study he discusses found that exercise improved depression symptoms as well as prescription medication did. (For more information, see
www.johnratey.com
.)

Exercise and Intuition

The mind pervades the body. Moving your body rhythmically and repetitively helps you tap in to your intuition, and more of your mind becomes available to you—the mind in your legs, your heart, and in your biceps. Exercising is a necessary process for fully digesting thoughts. Raising your heartbeat brings into play more of yourself. Your body wakes up—and so does your mind. During your workouts insights arise spontaneously. When you don’t do it, you eventually find that your body craves it!

Studies have shown that repetitive movement increases alpha waves in the brain—and the alpha state is associated with enhanced intuition. Exercising hard is the perfect balance for the mental activity so often required in modern life.

People have very different approaches to exercise and physical activity. Each of us has an innate sense of what feels right for our bodies. As a scholar in a family of “jocks,” I had to find my own truth about what works best for me. You will need to find yours, too. Your truth will not necessarily be what any outside authority tells you is “the right way to do it.” And different approaches to exercise work best at different times in people’s lives. For some, a twenty-minute walk three times a week is all that is necessary. For others, aerobics, weight training, or dancing feels the best. Above all, exercise and body movement should be joyful and fun.

Ways to Move the Body

Aerobic Exercise and Target Heart Rate

Most experts agree that twenty minutes of aerobic-type exercise three times a week is adequate for cardiovascular fitness. Exercising aerobically keeps the heart, lungs, and entire cardiovascular system in good shape. It also burns off excess fat. Aerobic activity is defined as exercise in which the heart rate is elevated for fifteen to twenty minutes into what is called “the target zone.”

To calculate your target rate according to the conventional recommendations:

1.
Subtract your age from 220.

2.
Subtract your resting heart rate (beats per minute) from this figure.

3.
Multiply the remainder by your “exercise quotient.” This is 0.6 for a beginner or 0.8 for an advanced exerciser.

4.
Add your resting heart rate to the figure from step 3. This num ber is your target heart rate in beats per minute. You can divide by 6 to find out your heart rate for a ten-second interval.

Example: Your age is thirty-two. Your resting heart rate is 60, and you are a beginner. Hence: 220 - 32 = 188. 188-60 = 128. 128 x 0.6 = 76.8. 76.8 + 60 = 136.8. Your target heart rate is 137 beats per minute or 23 beats for a ten-second interval.

Nose Breathing: Rethinking the Target Heart Rate and
Everything Else

John Douillard, D.C., Ph.D., director of the Invincible Athlete program in Boulder, Colorado, has found that the target heart rate and most other “fitness truths” don’t necessarily apply to individuals who breathe fully through their noses while exercising and consciously tune in to what their bodies are comfortable with. When you learn how to do this, you can easily go through a workout with a heart rate and breathing rate that are much slower and more comfortable than expected. Dr. Douillard’s insights have revolutionized the way I approach all sports and exercise and have enhanced my enjoyment of physical activity immeasurably. (For more information, see Dr. Douillard’s website at
www.lifespa.com
.)

Take a moment right now and take three slow, deep breaths through your mouth. When you are finished, stop for a moment and take three full, deep breaths through your nose, allowing the air to go all the way down to the lower lobes of your lungs. Notice which type of breathing gives you the fullest amount of air in your lungs. The nose breathing wins by a mile, even though it may seem harder at first. Infants normally breathe through their noses, and so do all animals. (Have you even seen a racehorse breathing through its mouth?) In fact, mouth breathing is a sign of stress. Nose breathing is associated with both parasympathetic and sympathethic balance in the body and feels very meditative; it enhances the balance between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. When you train yourself to breathe through your nose during exercise, your lungs become much more efficient and you can achieve higher levels of fitness than ever before with much less effort.

Consider also the larger implications for our lives. We breathe twenty-eight thousand times a day. If our breaths are shallow, taken in through our mouth, and confined mostly to the upper lobes of our lungs, our body gets the message that we’re facing an emergency. Heart rate increases; the body chemicals associated with stress increase. The majority of illnesses are stress-related, and we can choose to decrease or increase stress every time we breathe. When we learn how to breathe fully through our nose, aerating our lower lungs and allowing our rib cage a full expansion, our body relaxes and we experience a sense of peace. Paradoxically, our body also operates much more efficiently. Just breathing properly has the potential to cure sinusitis, chronic colds, and even asthma. I’ve had more than one woman tell me that when she adopted nose breathing, she was able to get rid of her asthma attacks! I’m convinced that everyone should adopt this method of breathing not only for exercise, but for daily living.

In traditional sports and fitness training, however, we are taught that the kind of stress-free exercise that nose breathing promotes is counter to our “no pain, no gain” ethos. When my daughter was running track in high school, her coach told her that she wasn’t working hard enough if she finished a run feeling good and energized! There is evidence of this philosophy in every gym I’ve ever been in. Because exercise done this way is so unpleasant, people use loud music or TV programs to distract themselves from the way their bodies feel.

But once you start breathing properly and enjoying the meditative state that results, you’ll find yourself tuning in to and respecting your body’s ability rather than trying not to notice how it’s feeling. You’ll realize clearly that the “no pain, no gain” adage is physiologically incorrect. And you’ll also discover that exercise, sports, or any workout becomes a very personal time of tuning in and getting strong. What was once a chore becomes a joy. That’s certainly what has happened for me. Now, instead of a forced march to the standards of someone else, my exercise is just between me and myself. That doesn’t mean that I don’t strive for improvement. I do.

Aerobics and Weight Training

Aerobic exercise plus weight training is more effective than aerobics alone because the weight training increases the amount of muscle in the body relative to fat and does so much more effectively than aerobics alone.
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Studies show that as we age, we create an average of one and a half pounds of fat per year. We also lose a half pound of muscle each year if we don’t exercise regularly. Muscle loss results in fat gain. Weight training prevents the muscle loss that too often accompanies aging. Aerobic weight training produces more muscle gain on an average than aerobics alone. It also shapes muscles, resulting in a healthier appearance. The increase in muscle strength that comes with weight training is very beneficial to women, who are often weak in their upper bodies. (Older women break their hips not only because of osteoporosis but because of muscle weakness and decreased strength, which makes them more susceptible to falling. A 2008 study in Vancouver showed that a group of people age seventy and up who followed a home-based regimen combining walking twice a week with strength training and balance exercises had 36 percent fewer repeat falls after one year.)
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Aerobic exercise combined with weight training results in more fat loss and more muscle gain compared with aerobics alone. The reason this is so important is that one pound of muscle requires thirty to fifty calories a day just to stay alive. One pound of fat requires fewer calories for maintenance. Remember, fat is covered with insulin receptors that tend to “lock” it into place, while muscle helps burn fat. People with more muscle have higher metabolic rates. This is one rea son that overweight women with lots of body fat often maintain their weight even when eating relatively little. To change their metabolic rate, they need to increase their physical activity and also reduce or eliminate high-glycemic-index carbs. This results in the body resetting its metabolism and releasing fat more easily.

It is well known that bone mineral content increases with physical activity.
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Putting vertical vectors of force on bones through weight-bearing exercise such as walking, jogging, biking, weight training, or stair climbing sets up a mini electrical current in the bone, known as a piezoelectric effect. Yoga and Pilates also do this. This current actually draws in calcium, magnesium, and other minerals we need for bone density and strength. Miriam Nelson, Ph.D., director of the Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Tufts University, has been able to demonstrate significant gains in bone density in postmenopausal women who did two forty-minute sessions of weight training twice a week. None of the women were on estrogen replacement. A wonderful side effect of this training was that as the women in the program increased their self-confidence and strength, they also felt more empowered in the world and tended to go out more and get involved in life.
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My daughter recently introduced me to a marvelous reinvention of the old 1980s-style aerobics that allows you to become powerfully fit in a joyful, exhilarating way. The workout is called IntenSati and was developed by fitness professional Patricia Moreno. IntenSati uses music and affirmations for a wonderfully high-energy workout in which the moves and the affirmations reinforce each other in very effective ways that allow participants to break through old patterns of limitations in their minds and bodies while becoming fit. Patricia calls it “transformational fitness” and “affirmations in action.” IntenSati is mindful aerobics. It’s meditative and conscious and fun—all at the same time. It also develops will, strength, and discipline. IntenSati changes the way you think and feel. I found this workout totally different from any other exercise class I’d ever done. (For more information, see Patricia’s new book,
The IntenSati Method: The Seven Principles to Thinner
Peace
(Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2010), or visit her website at
www.intensati.com
.)

Another program I’ve recently discovered, Moving On Aerobics, is a specialized dance regimen that was designed by exercise physiologist Martha Eddy, CMA, Ed.D., to help women get back into regular physical activity following breast cancer treatment. It’s based on the fact that regular aerobic activity contributes to longer survival and better health. (For more information, visit
www.movingonaerobics.org
).

Gentle Approaches to the Body

Fitness involves more than strength, endurance, and proper breathing. It also must include flexibility and proper alignment. The effects of gravity over time and buckling under to life’s stresses quite literally wear us down. Our muscles, flexibility, and alignment deteriorate over time unless we be come aware of this and do something to counteract it. Yoga, the Feldenkrais Method, Pilates, and the Alexander Technique, for example, are all wonderful ways to relax, stretch, and gently stimulate the muscles and internal organs. They all also help maintain the body in proper alignment to gravity and keep the spine and joints supple.

There’s now even scientific research that shows why these practices are vital to our total body health. Helene Langevin, M.D., of the Department of Neurology at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, has been doing some very exciting studies on a group of cells known as integrins that provide a physical link between the cell and the tissues that surround it.
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She’s found that cells interact with their physical support and the stresses on them in ways that produce either health or disease. In other words, when you sit slumped over a computer all day, you’re putting abnormal forces on your fascia (the sheath of connective tissue that encases every muscle, nerve, and organ—almost as if they were wearing a tight sweater). Over time, this will lead to impairment throughout your entire body because the fascia is loaded with receptor membranes that communicate with all your body’s other receptor membranes. But if you instead engage in practices that keep your fascia moving freely and normally, such as improving your alignment, getting regular massage, having acupuncture, or even massaging the bottoms of your feet with a tennis ball on a regular basis, you’re actually rewiring the signals that go through the fascia to the rest of your body, thus correcting the impairment and improving the health of your entire body.