Healthy Living: Finding Your Inner Fish

Sometimes it's not enough to just eat as healthily as you can to enjoy healthy living.  In order to stimulate your body to burn fat and and work your heart you need to get moving to help get your muscles working, your heart, pumping, and your circulation circulating.  All good things.  Problem is, as we age, we develop limitations that inhibit our ability to play some sports or engage in some activities; our joints complain, our spinal discs enflame or bulge, or our muscles tear and strain.  And sometimes that happens when we're not that old - it just happens.

The key is to find an activity that will aid our pursuit of healthy living without pushing our bodies over the edge, and still provide the exercise we need to keep in shape and eating the foods we want to enjoy without worrying about weight gain.  I have an exercise that works for me and I suggest that you try -swimming.  

The arguments for swimming are many; it's a great workout for your heart and lungs, it exercises almost all of your muscles - at once - and the weightlessness of water puts little, if any, strain on your joints.  No wonder many cardiologists and orthopaedic surgeons laud the benefits of swimming for exercise.  In my case, after open heart surgery, back surgery, and a knee replacement, my doctors were all in agreement that if you could only pursue one sport, swimming would be the best.  

I know, you're probably saying:  

1. I've tried swimming and I just don't like it.
2. I sink like a stone.
3. I tend to eat the water.
4. I can't swim more than one lap without feeling like throwing up.  
5. It's boring, just going back and forth.

When I started swimming 15 years ago after back surgery, I swam up and back once and felt like throwing up.  No kidding- it was awful.  Because I knew that it was good for my back and my overall health, I persevered.  Next day I swam three laps and felt like throwing up.  Improvement?  Eventually I was able to swim 10 laps, then 20, and today I regularly swim 40 to 55 lengths a day without breathing hard.  It took time, but the payoff has been worth it.  I encourage you to try swimming and persevere as I did.  Not sure I can solve the boring complaint (as in #5 above) but I can say that I do some of my most productive thinking and problem solving in the quiet and serenity of the pool.   

At the end of the day swimming may not be for everyone, but it sure merits a real college try.  See if you can't push through the difficult early stage.  Once you are able to swim freely and effortlessly for a half hour or more, you will experience the great healthy feelings that swimming imparts.  Hang in there, the pay-off is worth it!

Make swimming a part of your weekly workout.  You will find that it's benefits will help you attain the best of healthy living.  Stay wet my friends.