Why exercise? Exercise although it gets a lot of attention and publicity does not seem to get incorporated into most peoples lives. Every year millions of individuals make the big New Years Resolution that this is the year they are goes to lose weight and get in shape but very few follow through. They focus for many is to drop the pounds for the sake of their appearance when in really the focus should be on health. If everyone made their own health a priority in their own lives weight would no longer be an issue because they both go hand in hand.

The benefits of exercise are vast and really endless and go far beyond be able to fit into your favorite outfit or being able to flex your impressive muscles. If is of course true that exercise in combination with a proper balanced diet will lead to weight loss which is a fantastic result however there is really so much more to be gained that most individuals are not even aware of or that is not at the forefront of our mind.

By regularly incorporating a few exercise activities into your life which both strengthen and stretch your muscles you are gaining extraordinary benefits to your health. I am sure most have heard that muscles burn fat, this is true in the sense that there is a direct correlation between the amount of muscle you have and the rate of your metabolism. The more muscle the higher your metabolism. Exercising also has the added bonus of decreasing your appetite.

In addition exercises that work the muscles; known as resistance training also help to strengthen your bones. By doing these types of exercise puts stress on your bones signaling your body to put effort into rebuilding your bones in those areas. This helps to prevent excess bone loss as we age because in reality with out intervention on our part we begin to loss muscle mass from the point we reach our maximum which is in our twenties.

Exercising will also help alleviate joint pain whether it is in your knees, back, hips, or neck in three ways. The first is the natural weight loss that will occur with exercise, as you lose the weight there is less and less stress being put on your joints. The second is the strengthening of the joints themselves. The third deals with the fact that those individuals who exercise tends to have better posture, for instance back pain in a lot of instances is caused by weak muscles of the back and the abdomen. You will notice shortly after you commit to an exercise routine you posture will improve drastically.

Exercise is also important for heart health as the heart is a muscle it is the same as any our tissue in your body, if you do not use it you will lose it. Anytime you workout and increase your heart rate you are strengthening it and your lungs. In addition exercise benefits cardiovascular system as a whole, as it keeps your blood vessels open and clog free which in turn helps to ward off high blood pressure, high cholesterol (the bad kind), heart attacks and strokes.

Another fabulous benefit of exercise is the fact that it stimulates the release of endorphins. Endorphins are essentially chemicals which stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain. They will make you feel energized and in control (great stress release). This release of endorphins is so strong that exercise is being successfully used to treat many individuals with depression. In addition with exercise, you will begin to feel stronger, more focused, more energetic, less stressed, and will have improved confidence.

The fact is; those individuals who engage in exercise for the sole purpose of weight loss more often then not give it up because at some point they will hit a wall or plateau and frustration sets in. Plateaus do eventually end but the bigger point is that although the scale is not dropping as quickly as you may like you are improving the strengthen and health of your body. Having a strong healthy body is not only beneficial in the present but it is very beneficial as we age and impacts greatly how we are going to age. Make health your focus and the rest will fall into line.

With new diet schemes being introduced to the market constantly, there is a new approach to eating and losing weight that is quietly gaining a following.

However, a new approach, called intuitive eating is gaining attention by countering the fads and encouraging people to "listen" to their bodies to learn about what is really needed on a daily basis for health and wellness.

Rather than setting up a "battlefield" of you against your body, which typically takes the form of hating how your body looks, raw food diets, counting calories, restricting food choices and basically punishing yourself day in and day out, the intuitive approach to eating encourages you to "leave the battlefield." This is accomplished by stopping, listening and paying attention to your inner voice.

raw food diets
Anyone who has battled with weight gain over the years has, no doubt, become frustrated and confused by the many fad diets, the constant new approaches, and the conflicting advice that they receive about which diet is best.

Intuitive eating essentially gives you permission to slam the doors on the myriad of external voices and factors and look within for the answers.

The main premise of eating intuitively is acknowledging and accepting that we are highly intelligent "machines" with an innate ability to perceive what out bodies need for health and vitality.

It follows then that we should know how to achieve proper weight, if we can learn to tap into this intuitive wisdom and knowledge. Since this approach is so fundamental, and so simple, some have even called it dieting for dummies.

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Through an intuitive approach to eating, you are allowed to eat when, what and how much you deem appropriate. Instead of manipulating your meal plans according to a lose weight diet and judging everything in terms of calories, fat grams, grams of carbs and other such measurements, the idea is to listen to the internal cues and recognize just what the body wants and needs.

As a result, daily raw food cooking choices are based on real hunger and real satiety, as determined by you rather than some external set of standards that may have no relation at all to the status and function of your body.

Stepping back and looking at this approach, it is easy to see that a typical raw vegan and even a diet detox can easily be working against the inherent, intelligent, natural programming of your body.

One of the foremost researchers in the field of intuitive eating is Steven Hawks of Brigham Young University. Hawks has concluded that the "normal" approach to dieting in America does not result in any significant weight loss in the long term.

In addition he states that the typical lose weight diet strategies contributes to unhealthy eating habits, food anxiety, and can even encourage the development of eating disorders.

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In a study that Hawks conducted, he found that people who learned intuitive eating methods had reduced triglyceride levels, lowered body mass index scores, improved levels of beneficial high density lipoproteins, and had a decreased risk of developing cardiovascular problems.

Hawks summed up his findings by saying that they clearly support the idea that eating intuitively can be a very positive and healthy way to manage weight.

If you eat correctly and keep moving, you have everything you need to know about how to prevent being overweight using a natural weight loss program; however, most ignore this recommendation. The great thing is that a pedometer can help you take advantage of times throughout the day when you could be burning a few extra calories.

Get our Free Pedometer Report to learn more about how to do that.

This is not as simple as it seems though even though the concept is easy to comprehend; although, currently over 35 percent of Americans continue to get larger, and they aren't the only ones around the world! The conflicting aspect is that a large percentage of overweight people are desperately trying to lose those pounds whether it is because they are tired of the looks they receive or for health reasons.

The hard thing for people to understand is it is easier to maintain your natural weight than loose extra pounds once you have put them on. Even though many people know this subconsciously very few actually plan to ensure that weight gain doesn't happen to them.

Apparently even if you have lost weight with a calorie controlled diet, it doesn't take long if you come off it to revert to your old ways and you can start watching the pounds go back on again. Natural weight loss is about losing weight for good and requires switching to healthy eating habits and implementing lifestyle changes to stay healthy.

There is a large number of health conditions associated with weight gain and the greater the increase in body weight the more that problems occur. The annoying part is that natural weight maintenance is not difficult to understand but overweight people choose to ignore this.

Maintaining a natural weight loss regime means sticking to low fat meals that are high in fiber and contain complex carbohydrates with a moderate amount of protein. A meal such as this would be something like a baked potato (complex carbohydrate), the fiber is vegetables and protein is a lean cut of meat.

Unfortunately, dietary fat contains higher amounts of calories than ordinary food which when consumed will just be converted to body fat more readily. Another problem is the obsession with fat free or low fat foods that food manufactures are stacking the shelves with which despite their popularity are not stopping the problem of obesity.

One of the greatest delusions of the 1990s was that no fat meant non-fattening but the truth is you are often getting just as many calories from these foods; the calories are just not coming from fat. If you really want to lose weight through a program you will need to dump the fat free products and eat small healthy snacks that are high in nutrition.

Some health care specialists believe that a good method is to eat smaller meals and healthy, nutritious snacks every 3 or 4 hours. Determination, will power and belief should be aspects of your natural weight loss program if you really want to look well and be healthy.