So hard to get away from it. We just have to do it somehow!!!
As one instructor said so aptly "So What you don't like to exercise - DO IT ANYHOW!!"
I like alternating my endeavors. I own enough yoga, dance and exercise DVDs to start my own library. Whatever the mood of the day - I have something I can play with - unless I have no such mood!.......and then:
I use my Trampoline conveniently placed in my sitting room - so I cannot ignore it!!
and several times during the day I can get my heart rate UP!
I have my big exercise ball lolling around in my room around the table where my computer lives - so I have to make some effort to stay seated on it - and also so I keep my core toned.
There is also a skipping rope and stretch bands I can use.
Really I made it so I have no EXCUSE!
Phys Ed: DOES EXERCISE REDUCE YOUR CANCER RISK?
By Gretchen Reynolds NEW YORK TIMES
Aubrey Jonsson/Getty Images
Finnish researchers recently concluded that, if you wish to ward off lung or
gastrointestinal cancer, you might want to spend your leisure time jogging
instead of picking berries, mushroom gathering or fishing. In the study,
published in late July on the Web site of the British Journal of Sports
Medicine, scientists studied the health of a group of 2,560 middle-aged
Finns over the course of about 17 years. The subjects, all men living in
eastern Finland, kept diaries of their daily activities for a year and then
went about them.
At the start of the study, none had cancer. By the end, 181 had died of the
disease. Parsing the men's activity levels, the researchers determined that,
after controlling for cigarette smoking, fiber and fat intake, age, and
other variables, the most physically active men were the least likely to
develop cancer, particularly of the gastrointestinal tract or the lung. Even
more striking, the intensity of the exercise was key. The more arduous it
was, the more protective it proved. Jogging was the most strenuous activity
studied, fishing among the least. The men who jogged or otherwise exercised
fairly intensely for at least 30 minutes a day had "a 50 percent reduction
in the risk of dying prematurely from cancer," says Sudhir Kurl, medical
director of the School of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition at the
University of Kuopio in Finland and one of the study's authors.
It seems fair and just that conscientiously working out should confer
disease-fighting benefits, especially against cancer, and an accreting body
of research suggests that under certain conditions and against certain forms
of cancer, fitness may be remarkably protective. A major review article
published in February on the Web site of the British Journal of Cancer
synthesized the results of more than two decades' worth of studies and
concluded that the most active people are 24 percent less likely to develop
colon cancer than sedentary people are, regardless of their diets, smoking
habits or body weight. Another study, this one presented in May at the
annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine reported that
women over age 30 who defined themselves as "highly competitive" by
disposition and who exercised more than the average for the group had much
less risk of developing breast cancer than women who worked out for less
than 60 minutes per week.
Related
What these recent studies, including the one from Finland, share is the
suggestion that, in order to use exercise to reduce the risk of cancer, you
must make yourself sweat. In the Finnish study, the most beneficial exercise
was both frequent and demanding. The researchers used METs (an acronym for
metabolic equivalent of task, a numerical comparison of the oxygen or energy
used during an activity versus the amount used at rest) to characterize
their subjects' exercise habits. A MET of 1 is the equivalent of lolling
inertly on the couch. In his study, jogging steadily for 30 minutes or so
represented a MET of about 10. The men whose METs reached at least 5 almost
every day were the least likely to die of cancer, especially of the lung or
the gastrointestinal tract. Similarly, in one of the studies included in the
colon cancer review, women who walked briskly for five to six hours a week
were much less likely to develop colon cancer than those who strolled for 30
minutes per week. And in the bogglingly comprehensive 2008 national Physical
Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee report prepared for the secretary of
health and human services, which includes a chapter about exercise and
cancer, the authors concluded that when it comes to breast cancer, "one hour
per day of moderate or vigorous activity produces greater reduction in risk"
than the two and a half hours of moderate exercise per week that are
currently recommended by the surgeon general.
The Finnish researchers admit that, like other scientists studying activity
and cancer, they don't know just how or why brisk exercise affects risk or
why only some types of cancer are affected. Exercise long has been known to
speed the emptying of the colon, which may reduce the amount of time that
carcinogens linger in the organ, the Finnish scientists point out. Strenuous
exercise also affects the production of sex hormones in men and women, and -
particularly in the case of estrogen and breast cancer - may by that
mechanism reduce cancer formation. Other scientists have posited that the
panting involved in strenuous exercise might rapidly move carcinogens out of
the lungs. Still other researchers have written that alterations in how a
well-trained body handles insulin and some cellular growth factors could
lessen the chances of tumors developing.
But it remains difficult to tease out the specific molecular effects of
regular, brisk exercise from the generally healthy habits of exercisers.
Although the Finnish study controlled for diet, the scientists write that
other, unspecified "lifestyle factors" and the luck (good and bad) of
genetics may well have affected their results. Still, their findings offer a
prescription for potentially reducing your risk of certain cancers that has
few obvious, undesirable side effects, except among the intractably lazy.
"At least moderately intense physical activity is more beneficial than low
intensity physical activity in the prevention of cancer," the authors
conclude. The takeaway, in other words, is that jogging trumps berry
picking.
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