A 36-year-old, 150-centimeter, 39-kilogram professional woman with high cholesterol and a vascular age of 70, aging at a rate of two years per decade, started an alternative medicine diet. She continued to follow the diet, which eliminated all meat, flour, dairy, and nuts, but when she stopped having periods, she became concerned about the effectiveness of her nutrition and exercise regimen.
The patient, a professional, reported that she had difficulty using her body to accomplish her tasks, had difficulty concentrating and was easily irritated, and was experiencing head and neck pain, stiffness, and lack of energy and interest in everything.
Why would a woman in her 30s have the blood vessels of a woman in her 70s?
Our bodies have periods of tension and work, and periods of rest and relaxation, and we need a balance between the sympathetic nervous system, which works when we are tense, and the parasympathetic nervous system, which works when we are relaxed, to be healthy.
Generally, as we age, there are changes (increased sympathetic nervous system activity) that make it more difficult to maintain daily activities. These changes lead to a decrease in the elasticity of the blood vessel walls and the ability of the blood vessels to dilate, which results in faster blood flow and stiffer blood vessels. As blood flow speeds up and blood vessels stiffen, the exchange of nutrients and gases required by each organ becomes more difficult, leading to a vicious cycle of accelerated organ aging.
If you’re consuming about two-thirds of your caloric needs (1,100 calories) and you’re constantly trying to do cerebral tasks while your body is barely moving, as in the example above, your sympathetic nervous system is overactive and you’re constantly maintaining the same vascular tone as an older person. This is why 30-year-olds temporarily have the same vascular condition as 70-year-olds.
What causes accelerated aging in a young body?
Compared to the past when rice and side dishes from nature were the staple food, young people nowadays have less time and more artificial food, so they have fewer opportunities to eat rice, fish, vegetables, and other staple foods in a timely manner.
The human body is designed to move and expend energy to keep the blood vessels clean, but young people today are less likely to have had the opportunity to play as children and are exposed to a sedentary lifestyle at school and work. This decrease in physical activity naturally leads to faster aging.
As a result of rapid physical aging, more and more young people are going to the doctor with a variety of symptoms, including decreased attention span, decreased work efficiency, headaches, severe fatigue, anxiety, depression, and feelings of not being able to do everything they need to do.
Why should you love your body from a young age?
Everyone should understand their body and take care of it properly, as health and fitness are the foundation for achieving what you want, but there’s another reason to start loving your body, especially at a young age.
Our bodies can “react” or “signal” to what we do to them, but they can also “change”. When we do something unhealthy, like smoking, our blood vessels and bronchial tubes immediately constrict to keep bad stuff out, and if we continue to smoke, it can cause genetic mutations that lead to cancer.
Repeatedly engaging in behaviors that your body doesn’t like can lead to reactions that cause disease, mostly in middle age and later, but in young people who are likely to have two children, it can also increase the likelihood of passing on genetic mutations to the next generation, meaning that your behavior can determine the health of your two and three year olds. This is the first reason to love your body from a young age.
Compared to the past, when life expectancy was 60 years old, more and more of our lives are spent in middle age and beyond. Although life expectancy is increasing due to the great advances in medicine and science, we can’t completely stop the aging process as we grow older. Therefore, it’s important to remember that if you don’t take good care of your body and maintain it, you’re more likely to face a lethargic and depressed old age.
After the age of 50, it”s difficult to gain muscle mass like you did when you were younger, even if you do strength training and eat a balanced diet. Taking good care of your body and building up your reserves of strength from a young age will help you live a healthy and fulfilling middle age and beyond. This is another reason to love your body from a young age.
What does loving your body look like?
When we say “love your body”, it’s surprising how many people don’t know what to do. This is because in order to live in a society where we live together, we are required to be educated to learn and acquire caring, leadership, and good management of human and material resources, but we are not taught how to understand and manage our own bodies, so we do not know how to love and care for our bodies according to our own needs.
The things we need to do for our bodies are simple and few in number. However, most people are so busy pursuing things they think are more important that they miss the basics. As with everything else in life, stick to the basics and you’ll get what you want.
Top FAQs
Q. Should I do strength training or cardio first?
When combining cardio and strength training, the order of the exercises should be based on your goals. If your goal is to lose body fat, you should perform carbohydrate-fueled strength training first, followed by cardio. The order of mobilization of the energy system is such that the body burns carbohydrates first, followed by fat. If your goal is to build muscle, it is effective to perform cardio during the warm-up and cool-down.
Q. Doesn’t strength training help me lose fat?
Weight loss and body fat loss are two different things. Any exercise can lead to weight loss, but in terms of pure fat loss, strength training doesn’t directly help you lose body fat. In other words, you won’t see much of a difference in weight when you only do strength training. This is because strength training is anaerobic and primarily uses carbohydrates for energy rather than fat. This doesn”t mean that strength training isn”t necessary to lose weight. When combined with cardio, strength training can increase your basal metabolic rate, preventing you from yo-yoing.
Q. Are sit-ups the best exercise to lose belly fat?
Sit-ups are a strength training exercise that builds abdominal muscles, not a belly fat loss exercise. Sit-ups will tone your abdominal muscles, but if you have a lot of subcutaneous fat covering your stomach, it won”t be visible. The best way to lose belly fat is to do aerobic exercise, such as walking or running, to reduce fat in your body as a whole, and combine it with exercises like sit-ups, crunches, hanging leg raises, and bicycle crunches.
Q. Can women get bigger breasts with strength training?
Strength training is about strengthening your muscles. Women’s breasts are mostly composed of fat, so strength training won’t make them bigger. However, by developing the muscles and surrounding tissues that support the breasts, it can help to define and tone them.
Q. Should I just put up with my sore, aching muscles after a workout?
Delayed onset muscle soreness, or muscle stiffness or swelling, occurs after a workout and can last from one to three days afterward. It has been reported that localized muscle fiber breakdown and damage compresses the surrounding blood vessels and nerves, causing pain. Therefore, it”s important to stretch after each workout to reduce muscle tension. Eating carbohydrates before and after your workout can also prevent symptoms such as muscle cramps and help you recover from fatigue. However, if the pain is severe, it is advisable to visit a doctor.
Q. Is it better to work out on a machine or with free weights?
Strength training can be done with a variety of machines, including weight machines, Smith machines, and cable machines. Machine exercises are great for beginners and are safer and more convenient than free weights. However, they”re not as effective as free weights when it comes to providing a variety of loads or strengthening weak muscle groups. Therefore, if you want to increase muscle mass and improve your overall strength, free weights are more effective. However, if you’re a beginner, you may be at risk of injury when using free weights, so be sure to choose the right weight.
Q. Will my muscle turn to fat if I stop exercising?
When you exercise, you lose body fat and build muscle. Conversely, if you stop exercising, your body fat will increase and your muscle mass will decrease, but muscle will not turn into fat.
Q. When strength training, is it more effective to perform fast movements?
The principle of weight training is to cause microscopic injuries to the muscles and then, during the recovery process, build muscle fibers that are stronger than they were before the exercise. Therefore, slow movements are more effective for this process. Ideally, the lifts should be performed for one second and the lowering for two to three seconds.
Q. How many times a week should I do strength training?
Strength training, as well as cardio, requires physical rest between 24 and 48 hours after a workout in order to safely and effectively impact the body. Strength training, in particular, can be performed daily or every other day, depending on the training methodology, to achieve different strength gains, so it is recommended to start with 3 times a week and gradually increase to 5 or more times a week, taking into account your current performance and other variables (age, gender, strength level, etc.).
Q. Do I need to take supplements to build strength?
A: No. Supplements are concentrated versions of the nutrients found in whole foods that help build muscle. If you’re eating a normal, well-balanced diet, you shouldn’t need to take supplements unless you’re trying to build extremely large muscles.