More than 60% of adults don't get the recommended amount of regular physical
activity. Worse yet, 25% of all adults are not active at all! Nearly 50% of
young people aged 12-21 are not vigorously active on a regular basis. Only 19
% of all high school students are physically active for 20 minutes or more in
physical education classes every day during the school week.
When was the last time you took a moment and celebrated your body? Not because
it's well built or attractive by society's standards, but because it's an impressive
piece of functional art. Here are some interesting facts that will help you
appreciate your body and keep you motivated to take care of it.
Boost your burning power. Did you know that for every 1 lb. Of muscle you gain,
your body burns an extra 50 calories/day? If your burn off 5 lbs. of fat and
5 lbs. of muscle instead, you'd burn an extra 250 calories/day.
A mini-Charles Atlas. Muscles are comprised of muscle fibres. Each fibre is
thinner than a human hair and can support up to 1,000 times its weight.
Use it or lose it. By age 65, people who haven't' engaged in regular exercise
may incur a decrease in their muscular strength level by as much as 80%
Make your move. A muscle moves by contracting and by its motion, you move.
As a machine for moving, a muscle is pretty efficient, using about 35-50% of
its potential energy.
More than a few. The human body has more than 650 muscles.
Watch your step. Forward locomotion such as walking or running is actually
the process of losing and
d catching one's balance.
The cellulite myth. There is no such thing as cellulite. The skin sometimes
appears lumpy in fatty areas of the body because strands on connective tissue
attach the skin to underlying structures. These points of attachment may pull
tight where the fat is thick, making lumps appear between them. The fat itself
is not different from excess fat anywhere else in the body; so, if you reduce
body fat, you will begin to lose the lumpy appearance.
Spot reducing de-bunked. Spot reducing will not reduce the fat itself in a
specific area of the body. Strength training specific areas of the body will
strengthen the underlying muscle, but fat reduction is only accomplished by
burning more calories than you take in.
The cardiovascular chain. Your body has approximately 60,000 miles of blood
vessels that not only oxygenate the tissues of the body and unburden them of
waste, but also exact as stringent regulators of the body's environment.
Stressful miles. If you are 25 lbs. overweight, you have nearly 5,000 extra
miles of blood vessels through which your heart must pump blood.
Taking a break. Your heart rests between each beat. Over a normal lifespan,
your heart stands still for about 20 years.
Now that's pressure. Your blood rushes through your arteries with enough pressure
to lift a column of blood 5 feet into the air.
Safety valves. When you stand up, if you didn't have valves in your veins,
all the blood in your body would literally fall downward, filling up your feet
and legs.
