10 Facts About Exercising That Should Get You Moving

According to a 2017 report on "Tackling Obesity in ASEAN" by The Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by Asia Roundtable on Food Innovation for Improved Nutrition, Malaysia has the highest obesity and overweight prevalence in South-East Asia, at 13.3 per cent and 38.5 per cent respectively.

The study also reported that only one-third of the adult population had ever exercised and only 14 per cent performed adequate levels of exercise.

Come on, Malaysians! We are better than this! It is never too late to start.

Here are 10 facts about exercises that you should know to get you started:

1. Exercising decreases fat around the waist and total body fat. 
2. Exercising reduces depression and anxiety. 
3. The equivalent of an hour a day of moderate-to-vigorous exercise helps to maintain a steady weight.
4. Only eight per cent of people who exercise vigorously say they typically have trouble falling asleep.
5. Bicycling and brisk walking helped women avoid weight gain.
6. Weight lifting, push-ups, and other muscle-strengthening activities build muscle mass, increasing the energy that the body burns throughout the day-even when it’s at rest-and making it easier to control weight.
7. Focus on moves that work multiple muscles at once, rather than ones that work just one muscle group at a time. Biceps curls, for example, are a simple exercise whereas a squat with an overhead press is compound.
8. Not being able to do a pull-up doesn’t mean you shouldn’t step up to the bar. Simply hanging on for as long as possible can improve your upper-body strength, Marta Montenegro, a Miami-based exercise physiologist says.
9. Yoga can shift your ratio of muscle to fat, even when your overall weight stays the same, according to a 2013 University of Arizona review of yoga research.
10. The best training tool you're not using: a jump rope. Not only is it inexpensive, portable, and easy to use almost anywhere, you’ll burn about 200 calories in 20 minutes and boost your cardiovascular health while toning, he adds.

Source: hsph.harvard.edu and Shape.com