Exercising is truly one of the best and most important actions you can do for your health. Being physically active causes a beneficial ripple effect that typically starts off with a reduction in weight. Your body is in fact designed to operate best when it’s at an ideal weight, which will vary slightly from person to person.

Carrying around extra pounds will inevitably increase your risk of developing just about every chronic degenerative disease there is, and exercising creates the opposite effect – helping you reduce your risk of disease and increase your chances of living longer.

This is because the underlying cause of excess weight is typically an unhealthy diet paired with insufficient exercise, which leads to surging insulin and leptin levels that eventually results in insulin resistance. And it is insulin resistance that is one of the primary causes of many of these chronic diseases.

So exercising sets into motion a beneficial feedback loop that leads to ever greater levels of health, while lack of exercise makes your health spiral downward and opens the door to disease and premature aging.

As this latest meta study shows, just meeting the minimum requirement of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity a day, five days a week, can reduce your risk of death from any cause by 19 percent.

This makes perfect sense, as exercise can lower your risk of several common killers, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and depression.

The More You Put Into it, the More You Get in Return

The meta analysis, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology last month, included a total of 22 studies evaluating the impact of exercise on mortality of nearly 1 million people.

It clearly shows that if you are currently living a very sedentary lifestyle, the mere act of incorporating some light- to moderate activity, five days a week, can significantly reduce your mortality rate. Those who engaged in moderate intensity activity a full seven days a week further reduced their risk of death, from 19 to 24 percent.

The smallest health effect, however, was seen in people who limited their exercise to just walking, so although it’s better than nothing, if you’re physically able, I strongly recommend you consider including a few other modes of activity to boost your benefits.

The problem with using walking as your primary form of activity is that for most people it simply is just not intense enough to induce a training response. In most cases, even if you’re out of shape to begin with, your body will quickly adapt to your walking routine and will require a greater challenge to reap the most benefits.

If you are seriously out of shape, very overweight, or recovering from illness then it certainly makes sense to use walking. However, even in these instances you’ll want to make sure you incorporate intervals of 30 seconds or so in which you are walking really fast. The goal is to get you out of breath with a higher level of intensity.

The Many Health Benefits of Exercise

Just as there are at least 20 diseases and conditions directly attributable to being overweight, there are a large number of health benefits that are directly attributable to exercise.

By improving your physical fitness, you can effectively:

• Lower your triglyceride levels
• Increase your levels of “good” cholesterol (HDL)
• Lower your blood glucose levels
• Normalize your insulin levels

All of these factors are indicators of “metabolic fitness,” which is a cornerstone of optimal health. Even older people who do endurance exercise training end up with metabolically younger hearts.

Additional health benefits, many of which are the direct result of normalizing your insulin levels, include:

In addition, exercise has been associated with preventing telomere shortening, making it a very powerful anti-aging strategy. (For more information on telomeres, please see this previous article.) And, if you exercise properly, which I’ll discuss in a moment, you can reap even greater anti-aging benefits.

Great News – You Can Cut Time Spent on Exercise and Get BETTER Results!

With all these benefits, you’d think people would be clamoring to get into the gym, or at least eager to hit the sidewalk for a long walk or run. But statistics, and personal experience, tells us differently. More than half of U.S. adults do not get the recommended amount of exercise, and 24 percent are completely sedentary, according to Forbes.

The most common excuse people give is: lack of time.

Well, this is where I have some great news, because the research tells us that the BEST way to maximize the benefits of exercise is NOT to jog or walk steadily for an hour. Instead, it’s to alternate short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods.

I began incorporating this type of exercise earlier this year, and the results speak for themselves. Since then, I’ve coined the term Peak Fitness, which is a complete fitness program built around these high intensity exercises, which I call Peak 8 exercises. These exercises can be done in a fraction of the time you’d normally spend walking or running.

Still, despite the fact that you will spend less time exercising, Peak 8 exercises can dramatically improve your cardiovascular fitness, your fat-burning capabilities, and, perhaps best of all, will boost your body’s natural production of human growth hormone (HGH), often referred to as the “fitness hormone.” HGH is also closely involved in the aging process itself, as your levels tend to around the age of 30.

Many athletes inject HGH illegally to achieve fitness, but it is expensive and fraught with side effects. Peak 8 exercises, on the other hand, can actually cause your growth hormone to increase naturally, without any of the expense or side effects.

Quick Summary of Peak 8 Exercises

As I mentioned, Peak Fitness is a complete fitness program that still includes some conventional aerobic and core strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching. But the major addition is the ‘Peak 8′ exercise, which you do twice a week.

During this ‘peak exercise,’ you raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90-second recovery period. You repeat this cycle for a total of eight repetitions.

These cycles are preceded by a three minute warm up and concluded with a two minute cool down, cutting your total time investment down to a mere 20 minutes.

For a more complete, in-depth explanation of my peak fitness regimen, please review this recent article. Implementing peak exercises may be one of the best lifestyle changes you could ever make!

Getting Back Into the Groove

If you’re just getting back into exercising, you’ll need to work your way up slowly. Trying to do too much at once can lead to burnout and make you less likely to continue your program.

To start, you might try jogging for a very short period and increasing it slowly over time. Or you might try walking interspersed with a period of fast walking to incorporate the Peak 8 ideology. Then, as your body grows more conditioned, you can increase to a higher intensity workout.

Also keep in mind that it’s best to vary your exercises to cover all the facets of the Peak Fitness program, which includes:

• Peak 8 exercises
• Conventional aerobics
• Strength training
• Core exercises
• Stretching

If you experience emotional resistance, you may want to try a few of the recommendations from the article Five Ways to Pick up the Exercise Habit Again.

Taking your fitness routine outdoors can also add some incentive, and spending time outdoors is typically an invigorating experience in and of itself. Google can help here, as it has launched a feature that makes finding local bicycling trails easy.

As you remove the emotional resistance that is keeping you from exercising, and plan regular workouts to fit into your schedule, you’ll have an easier time sticking to your exercise routine. And the more you exercise — and therefore the more benefits you experience — the more addictive it becomes.

You won’t need enormous levels of discipline as you will feel so good after regular exercise, you just won’t want to stop and lose that feeling.

Soon you’ll be looking forward to your workouts and the great feeling you’ll get afterward. So go ahead, take the plunge! You’ll thank yourself over and over in the years to come.

Today, Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, accounting for 50 percent to 70 percent of all dementia cases, and is on the rise. In many ways, the rise of Alzheimer’s in the aging population is very similar to the rise of autism in children.

The latest 2009 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures report estimates that by 2030 nearly 8 million Americans will have Alzheimer’s.

While increasing age is the greatest risk factor for this disease, there are also other risk factors that you have greater control over, such as diabetes. Diabetics have up to a 65 percent higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

However, it is important to understand that dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease) is not a “normal” part of aging. And you do not have to accept reduced mental acuity as being inevitable.

You CAN significantly reduce your risk by making positive lifestyle changes. In fact, many of the same lifestyle changes that will lower your risk of diabetes will also improve your chances of never developing Alzheimer’s.

Most of the healthy, bright and mentally astute 80 and 90-year olds out there have probably been leading a healthy lifestyle for most of their lives, and are reaping the benefits as a result.

It’s not about good fortune. It’s about personal choices.

Leading a healthy life is one of the best ways to keep your mind intact, no matter what your age. And not surprisingly, what’s good for your brain is also good for your heart, and vice versa.

How Does Exercise Protect Your Brain?

Although the mind-body research into the benefits of exercise against dementia may still be in its infancy, there is compelling evidence that regular exercise promotes essential cell and tissue repair mechanisms, including growth of new brain cells.

Physical exercise may also protect against mild cognitive impairment by:

• Promoting production of nerve-protecting compounds
• Increasing blood flow to your brain
• Improving development and survival of neurons
• Decreasing your risk of heart and blood vessel diseases that can impact brain function

In essence, exercise encourages your brain to work at optimum capacity by causing your nerve cells to multiply, strengthening their interconnections and protecting them from damage.

Previous research has also shown that a regular exercise program can slow the development of Alzheimer’s disease by altering the way damaging proteins reside in your brain.

According to John J. Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, you can easily “push back cognitive decline by anywhere from 10 to 15 years” by incorporating an exercise regimen three to four times a week – even if you begin during middle age, and exercise at a moderate rate.

The Washington Post writes:

“In his book, Ratey notes research that MRI scans of the brains of sedentary people who suddenly improve their fitness show increased volume in the hippocampus and frontal and temporal lobes, regions of the brain associated with cognitive functioning. The hippocampus in particular is associated with memory and learning.

“The major implication is that exercise not only keeps the brain from rotting, but it also reverses the cell deterioration associated with aging,” Ratey wrote.”

So forget about getting forgetful with age. It doesn’t have to happen to you.

In addition to exercise — which I encourage everyone to engage in, no matter what your age is, or what future health concerns or worries you may have — there are also other simple lifestyle strategies that can have a profound impact on your quality of life.

But before I go into those, here’s a quick review of the four principles you’ll want to keep in mind when devising your exercise routine.

Four Principles of Exercise

Your body is an efficient machine, and if you do the same type of exercise day after day, you’ll become quite good at it. However, when exercise becomes easy to complete, it’s a sign you need to work a little harder and give your body a new challenge.

So when you’re planning your exercise routine, make sure to incorporate the following types of exercise:

1. Aerobic: Jogging, using an elliptical machine, and walking fast are all examples of aerobic exercise. As you get your heart pumping, the amount of oxygen in your blood improves, and endorphins, which act as natural painkillers, increase.Meanwhile, aerobic exercise activates your immune system, helps your heart pump blood more efficiently, and increases your stamina over time.
2. Interval (Anaerobic) Training: This is also known as sprint cardio. Research shows that the BEST way to condition your heart and burn fat is NOT to jog or walk steadily for an hour. Instead, it’s to alternate short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods.I have been doing these exercises for the past several months and actually stopped doing all regular cardio training two months ago. Amazingly, my body fat went down 5 percent and I look and feel much better, with 1/3 of the time investment.This type of exercise, also known as interval training, or burst type training, can dramatically improve your cardiovascular fitness and fat-burning capabilities.Another major benefit of this approach is that it radically decreases the amount of time you spend exercising, while giving you even more benefits. For example, intermittent sprinting produces high levels of chemical compounds called catecholamines, which allow more fat to be burned from under your skin within the exercising muscles.The resulting increase in fat oxidation increases weight loss. So, short bursts of activity done at a very high intensity can help you reach your optimal weight and level of fitness, in a shorter amount of time
3. Strength Training: Rounding out your exercise program with a 1-set strength training routine will ensure that you’re really optimizing the possible health benefits of a regular exercise program.You need enough repetitions to exhaust your muscles. The weight should be heavy enough that this can be done in fewer than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do a minimum of four repetitions. It is also important NOT to exercise the same muscle groups every day. They need at least two days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild.
4. Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury and help you gain greater balance and stability.Exercise programs like pilates and yoga are great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you can learn from a personal trainer.Focusing on your breath and mindfulness along with increasing your flexibility is an important element of total fitness.
5. Stretching: My favorite types of stretches are active isolated stretching developed by Aaron Mattes.

A Heart- and Brain-Healthy Lifestyle

Start taking action to preserve your brain function now by implementing the strategies detailed in the guide below.

These strategies can also radically reduce your risk of all sorts of chronic diseases, so know that if you make the effort to enact these changes you will reap multiple health- and emotional benefits — even as you get older.

1. Optimize your vitamin D levels through safe sun exposure, a safe tanning bed and/or vitamin D supplements.
2. Eat a nutritious diet with plenty of raw fresh vegetables based on your nutritional type, and pay special attention to avoiding sugar.
3. Eat plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats. Fifty percent of your brain is an omega-3 fat called DHA. My favorite source of this essential fat is krill oil, and because it is so highly absorbed you need far less of it than fish oil. Additionally, it is loaded with beneficial antioxidants and is clearly the most sustainable source of animal-based omega-3 on the planet. Avoid most fish, because although it is high in omega-3, it is often contaminated with toxic mercury.
4. Avoid toxins, especially mercury, aluminum and fluoride. Dental amalgam fillings are one of the major sources of mercury, however you should be healthy prior to having them removed. Once you have adjusted to following the diet described in my nutrition plan, you can follow the mercury detox protocol and then find a qualified biological dentist to have your amalgams removed.(Be sure to only use a high-quality biologically trained dentist who is familiar with the removal of amalgam fillings or your health could get ruined.)Aluminum is found in items such as antiperspirants and aluminum cookware, which should also be avoided.Avoid flu vaccinations as well, as they contain both mercury and aluminum!Fluoride, meanwhile, is another powerful neurotoxin. The most common sources would be in your water and toothpaste. But it is also a part of some antibiotics (like Cipro), soy protein, and pesticides, so seek to have as much of your food organically grown as possible, and filter your tap water with a reverse osmosis filter to eliminate the fluoride.
5. Keep your fasting insulin levels below three. There is no question that insulin resistance is one of the most pervasive influences on brain damage, as it contributes massively to inflammation, which will prematurely degenerate your brain.
6. Exercise regularly, for all the benefits previously mentioned above.
7. Eliminate all processed foods and sugars, particularly fructose. This includes refraining from eating too many fruits, if you normally eat a lot of them. If you consume more than 25 grams a day of fructose you can damage your cells by creating insulin and leptin resistance and raising your uric acid levels.Berries tend to be lower in fructose, and wild blueberries, for example, are high in anthocyanin and antioxidants, and are well-known for being beneficial against Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseses.
8. Challenge your mind daily. Mental stimulation, such as traveling, learning to play an instrument or doing crossword puzzles, is associated with a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s. Researchers suspect that mental challenge helps to build up your brain, making it less susceptible to the lesions associated with Alzheimer’s disease.