Going to see the Texans play Peyton Manning and the Colts tomorrow. Strangely, some of the experts have picked the Texans to win and I am going along with them and have chosen them to win in my Fantasy Football Picks. I do have Peyton Manning as my Quarterback, so I don’t know how that is going to play out. Hope it is a good game.
Here is our fact about our bodies today:
The human body has less muscles in it than a caterpillar.
According to Wikipedia “ Caterpillars have 4,000 muscles (compare humans, with 629). They move through contraction of the muscles in the rear segments pushing the blood forward into the front segments elongating the torso. The average caterpillar has 248 muscles in the head segment alone.”
Actually there is little else that correlates between the caterpillar and the human body. I guess all that matters is that our body will have the tools it requires to meet the daily challenges and it apparently does not need 4,000 muscles to function – thank goodness – just think about the amount of exercise a human would have to do in order to keep all those muscles toned.
We all know that a good exercise program is beneficial to a healthy body, just as a good eating program – but so many of us, and I include myself in this category, just can’t seem to get out there and do whatever exercise it takes to have a really healthy body. I started an exercise program the early part of this year, and at the beginning, I did a good job of getting up and going to the “Y” – five days a week. I found it fun to use the computerized machines for muscle strengthening because it sounded “cool” to tell everyone that I lifted so many hundred or thousands of pounds each day. But lately, it has been a chore to get up and go and I have to actually make myself get out of the house. Once I am there, I am fine, but my good attitude about exercise is diminishing.
Anyone can tell you that exercise is good for you – but we don’t always do what is good for us, do we? We can read about how much better our hearts and lungs would be if we exercised, how much we could count on a lower blood pressure, less tension and stress, more energy – if only we would exercise. Why is it that we won’t or don’t? Not enough time, you say – well, that is a very well used excuse, but it’s only an excuse – not a reason. Even though living in today’s society can sometimes be a trial when it comes to finding time to do the things we want to do, let alone things that we should do for our health, it is possible to squeeze a ‘keep fit’ regime into our life. Even a little bit of exercise and workout is better than none, and that as such, even 20 minutes a day can help change your life.
Everyone can find 20 minutes a day either going to or coming from work, after work, before work, or even parking the car farther away from the office and walking to the building. I can remember when I was working in a seven story office building I decided to take the stairs to my office, which was on the seventh floor. Now, I didn’t do all seven floors in the beginning – I started out by getting off the elevator at the sixth floor and walking up to the seventh, and slowly graduated down to the first level and walking up the entire seven stories, without getting tired or out of breath. I don’t remember how long it took me to get to this point, but it wasn’t a real long time – say about a month or so, and I felt good about it, and I noticed how much better I felt, how much more energy and stamina I had. And the best part was that I gathered a crowd that started doing it with me, so we all benefited.
Exercise, of course, is also a good weight maintenance builder. If you start some sort of exercise regime when you are on your weight reducing eating plan, by the time you have reached your “perfect body weight” you will have also engaged in the habit of doing some sort of exercise, which will help you maintain that new body weight and it won’t seem like a chore.
While I have somewhat of a hard time getting my mind around going to the “Y” every day, I have finally come to grips with it and have changed up my routine so that I am not as negative about it – I have reduced the time I walk on the treadmill to 30 minutes instead of 45 minutes, but increased the speed – it was the time that was bothering me. And I have also upped the amount of weights I lift as well as the repetitions on the weight machines, which give my a emotional lift when I see that I have lifted almost 13,000 pounds Monday, Wednesday and Friday and almost 8,000 pounds on Tuesdays and Thursdays (different machines – different weights). I always feel better after I get though with my routine and wonder why I thought I might skip it at any time.
I am just happy that I don’t have 4,000 muscles to tone up, like that small little caterpillar.
Think Thin Thoughts!
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Tags: blood pressure, body weight, caterpillars, Colts, computerized machines, eating plan, excuse, exercise, habit, hearts and lungs, muscle, muscle strengthening, Peyton Manning, quarterback, stairs, stress, tension, Texans, treadmill, weight machines, weight maintenance, weight reducing, workout
