If you’re thinking about starting your journey to better health please take a moment to read what we consider the 3 most important prerequisites to exercise.
1) Hydration
I want you to think of your body as a giant electrical circuit. Our nerves are continuously communicating with our muscles to allow us to move, talk, breathe – survive. Water is the greatest conductor of electricity, and it is present in every one of our cells. When our tissues are dehydrated, they can’t conduct electricity as well as when they are hydrated. And that’s not all…
Here’s a quick biology lesson. Our cells work through a lock and key mechanism. The structure of each cell is designed so that things like vitamins and minerals can easily bind to them. Take a look at the picture below to get a better idea.
When we’re dehydrated, the actual structure of our cells change and the vitamins and minerals we get from our foods can no longer attach. If the nutrients from our foods aren’t binding that means we can’t get the benefits from them.
That’s right, being dehydrated doesn’t just make your pee really yellow.
2) Rest
In order for everyone to understand how important rest is, I want to explain the circadian rhythm. In the morning, we are meant to have a rise in energy hormones which starts to deplete around 3-5pm (this is why school, work, etc ends around this time). At this time, our recovery hormones start to come into play. The cross that happens between energy and rest hormones is what allows us to sleep. Think of this criss cross like a teeter-totter. In order for recovery to occur, our energy hormones need to dip low enough to allow for our recovery hormones to come into play.
If you can drink a coffee and go to bed, its probably an indication that your circadian rhythms are flipped. That means that your balance between your recovery and energy hormones are unbalanced. If you’re body is unable to recover for too long of a period then you probably have adrenal fatigue.
Here are my top three recovery tips:
- Fuelling with the proper nutrition (no processed foods!)
- Turning off all electronics around half hour before you plan to go to bed
- Sleeping in the pitch black
- Proper Hydration
Low recovery equals high inflammation. High inflammation causes poor digestion, food sensitivities, pain – the list goes on. This brings me to the third pre-requisite for exercise.
3) Lowering Inflammation Levels
This is where the phrase “diet makes up 80% of your weight loss” comes from. Our progress in the weight room is based on two things; our internal environment and external stimulus. If you’re eating foods that are causing inflammation then your internal environment isn’t primed for progress. That means that even though your diet is perfect and you’re exercising regularly, (external stimulus) you may not see significant results.
Another thing to consider when discussing progress is cortisol. We’ve discussed how cortisol effects our internal environments in many of our blogs. They call excess around the abdomen a “cortisol belt” for a reason.
In order to keep inflammation levels low in the body, you need to eat a diet that excludes refined sugars and processed foods.
Although diet and exercise are very important, we want people to understand our whole body approach, and why we think the equation for health and wellness is more complex than diet and exercise alone.
If you’d like to dive deeper and see what practical solutions our professional personal trainers could put together for you then your timing couldn’t be better! From now till’ January 15th, we’re selling Holiday Tune-Up packages for 50% off, plus we guarantee your satisfaction! Learn more here!
