Have you ever heard the expression "use it or lose it"? It's true! If you don't use your body, you will surely lose it. Your muscles will become flabby and weak. Your heart and lungs won't function efficiently. And your joints will be stiff and easily injured. Inactivity is as much of a health risk as smoking!

Helps Prevent Diseases
Our bodies were meant to move -- they actually crave exercise. Regular exercise is necessary for physical fitness and good health. It reduces the risk of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes and other diseases. It can improve your appearance and delay the aging process.

Improves Stamina
When you exercise, your body uses energy to keep going. Aerobic exercise involves continuous and rhythmic physical motion, such as walking and bicycling. It improves your stamina by training your body to become more efficient and use less energy for the same amount of work. As your conditioning level improves your heart rate and breathing rate return to resting levels much sooner from strenuous activity.

Strengthens and Tones
Exercising with weights and other forms of resistance training develops your muscles, bones and ligaments for increased strength and endurance. Your posture can be improved, and your muscles become more firm and toned. You not only feel better, but you look better, too!

Enhances Flexibility
Stretching exercises are also important for good posture. They keep your body limber so that you can bend, reach and twist. Improving your flexibility through exercise reduces the chance of injury and improves balance and coordination. If you have stiff, tense areas, such as the upper back or neck, performing specific stretches can help "loosen" those muscles, helping you feel more relaxed.

Controls Weight
Exercise is also a key to weight control because it burns calories. If you burn off more calories than you take in, you lose weight. It's as simple as that.

Improves Quality of Life
Once you begin to exercise regularly, you will discover many more reasons why exercise is so important to improving the quality of your life. Exercise reduces stress, lifts moods, and helps you sleep better. It can keep you looking and feeling younger throughout your entire life.

How Often Should I Exercise?
The benefits of any exercise program will diminish if it's disrupted too frequently. A "stop-start" routine is not only ineffective, but can cause injuries. Being consistent with exercise, therefore, is probably the most important factor in achieving desired results.
People often assume that more is better. Wrong! Doing too much too soon or performing intense exercises on a daily basis will have deleterious effects, such as muscle/tendon strains, loss of lean tissue, and fitness-level plateaus.
If you are a beginner, start off slower than you think you should. Three days per week is realistic, safe and effective. If you are experienced, do cardiovascular (aerobic) exercises such as walking, jogging and bicycling for no more than 200 minutes per week with no more than 60 minutes per session.

Weight training should be done no more than three times per week targeting the same muscle groups. Exercise the same muscle groups on non-consecutive days because muscles need adequate time to recover and cannot be effectively trained if they are tired or sore.
Many people forget to stretch or make the excuse that they don't have the time. Flexibility is important, so make the time! Stretching can be done every day, but stick to a minimum of three times per week in order to reap the benefits. When the body is warmed up, such as after a workout session, perform five to 10 stretches that target the major muscle groups. Hold each stretch for 10-30 seconds.
Even with small amounts of exercise your heart and lungs work better, and that means it is easier to carry your shopping, climb up stairs, play with your children or grandchildren, look after the garden, do the decorating.

Regular exercise will help you feel better about yourself, so it will even make it easier to smile. Keeping fit means you reduce your risk of heart disease and some cancers. If you have mild hypertension, it can help to control your blood pressure. If you have non-insulin dependent diabetes, regular exercise can be very beneficial.

If you are a woman worried about osteoporosis, incorporate exercise into your daily routine. Trying to lose weight? Exercise is an important part of what you need to do. Feeling stressed? Go for a long walk, get on your bike or sign up at the gym. You will almost certainly find you feel less tired, more cheerful and more relaxed. If you have difficulty sleeping, extra daily exercise may be just what you need.
If you are not used to taking any exercise, the easiest starting point is to modify your daily activity. Walk up stairs rather than taking a lift/elevator. When you go shopping, park as far away from the supermarket entrance as you can. Tackle that gardening or decorating job that you have been meaning to do. Take a walk at lunch time.

You are likely to see benefits from even these small measures, but get even more benefits by taking regular structured exercise. Sometimes people tell me they cannot find the time, but being fitter will allow you to accomplish normal tasks more easily, so giving you back some of the time you spend exercising. Authorities recommend 20 to 60 minutes, 3 to 5 times a week. Choose a type of exercise you think you might like, or, if you get bored easily, vary what exercise you do. Join a gym or team up with a friend to increase your motivation. Whatever you do, make a start - increase your pulse, breathe deeply and enjoy it.

The holidays are a time to celebrate, and boy, do we make the most of it. We eat, we drink, we indulge and then we end up feeling like bloated whales by the time it's all over. It's almost an unspoken rule that, with the holidays, comes unlimited eating and incomplete workouts, but this year, you have a choice.

You don't have to let every party become your own personal eating contest, and you don't have to let shopping take the place of your usual exercise routine. All it takes is flexibility, creativity and a new way of defining exercise.

Keep Moving
It's tempting to ditch your workouts as your days fill up with holiday preparations, parties and errands, but now more than ever, you need to stay active. Exercise will help you deal with added stress and give you energy for everything you need to accomplish. It will also help you manage your weight through the maze of parties and gatherings you'll be attending. If you have trouble sticking with your usual routine this time of year, come up with a new one. Forget the rules, lower your standards and do whatever you need to do to keep moving:
Shorten Your Cardio. Pare down your cardio routine to whatever time you have, even if it's only 5 or 10 minutes. Choose activities that are easy to do at a moment's notice: walking, running, jump roping or cycling. Get the most out of the time you have by working at a high intensity.

This sample 10-minute workout is a great place to start:
0:00 to 1:00 - Warm up with a brisk walk (outside or around the house)
1:00 to 2:00 - Jumping jacks
2:00 to 3:00 - Jump rope (pretend if you don't have a rope)
3:00 to 4:00 - Run as fast as you can for 1 minute (in place or outside)
4:00 to 5:00 - Ski hops: Stand with feet together, bend knees and jump a few feet to the right and then left, landing with bent knees.
5:00 to 6:00 - Jumping jacks
6:00 to 7:00 - Walk as fast as you can
7:00 to 8:00 - Jump rope
8:00 to 9:00 - Jumping jacks
9:00 to 10:00 - Cool down and catch your breath
Remember to work hard. Keep your perceived exertion at 8 or 9 for the entire workout.

Exercise wherever you can
You already know to take the stairs, park far away and so on to get more exercise. This holiday season, wear a pedometer as you're running around, and see how many steps you can accumulate. Use every opportunity to get in more movement, whether it's parking on the opposite side of where you need to be or chopping down your own Christmas tree.

Make it a family affair
As you gather together with your family, plan active things to do. Walk around the neighbourhood to look at holiday decorations. Play football before the big meal at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Plan contests with the kids to see who can run the farthest or who can do the most push-ups. Challenge everyone to a snow-shovelling contest, and then build a snow person out of the remains.

Don't forget strength training
Maintain your muscle mass by paring down your routine to the basics. Choose compound, multi-joint movements to make sure you're getting the most out of your time. This new strength-training workout is a great place to start. It involves a variety of compound moves that target the large muscles of the body with plenty of core work thrown in as well.
Control Your Eating
Eating yourself into a coma seems inevitable during the holidays, what with all the yummy delights available. Treating every party as if it's an invitation to indulge, however, is a sure way to add pounds. Below are a few reminders for keeping the calories in check:

Eat Before You Go
Rules to live by: never go grocery shopping while hungry, and similarly, never hit a holiday party on an empty stomach. You'll be less tempted to overindulge if your belly's full of something healthy.

Choose One Treat
Once at the party, choose one thing to indulge in and make it good. No chips -- you can have those any old time. Pick something you only get during the holidays.

Control Your Drinking
Alcohol is an easy way to consume more calories than you need, so avoid mixed or fruity drinks, and have a glass of water for every drink you consume. Also, definitely avoid the egg nog; it has up to 350 calories a cup.

Don't Skip Meals
It's tempting to skip meals to make up for whatever nightmare food you'll eat later, but just like the empty-stomach rule, if you're starving, your rational mind will be unavailable for healthy food choices. Eat small meals all day to avoid going nuts at the buffet table.
However you deal with the holidays, make this the year that you don't gain extra weight. Make a decision to do everything you can to stay active and eat healthy while not depriving yourself of all the fun. Like everything else in life, it's all about moderation. Happy Holidays! Your heart is racing feet against the sand. You are diving into the ocean, cool water pushing past your body as you power against the current.

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Exercise is not necessarily the best course or action to take; always consult your GP before undertaking an intensive course of exercise.

Compiled by Adele McGrath