Aerobics and Fitness Daily

Are cigarettes robbing your will to exercise and leaving you breathless in the swimming pool and on the tennis courts?

   According to a story in Newsweek you will be able to get a shot that causes you to completely lose your cravings for cigarettes. The anti-smoking shot is being developed by the Institutive on Drug Abuse, which has so far given eight million for the research.

 If the FDA approves this shot it could be very good news for people who are pregnant and want to smoke. It may also prove to be a boon for women who find it especially hard to quit. Curiously many smokers actually get cravings for nicotine while they exercise.

An article in Medical News Today confirms what most of us already women. Women smoke to stay slim.

In fact a study conducted at the University of Michigan says that fear of weight gain is the number one reason why most women do not quit smoking. The study also investigated why women might be smoking in the first place.

Not surprisingly the number one reason was that they heard that it could cause them to lose weight. The study also suggested that a way out of this type of thinking is to remind women about the other adverse effects of smoking on their appearance such as wrinkled skin, yellow teeth and bad breath.

An article in the Montreal Gazette by Jill Barker called Turn Excuses Into Action talks about the main excuses that couch potatoes use to get out of exercising.  

An excuse that a lot of people use is “I’m not a gym person.” You don’t have to go to a gym to exercise. Biking, canoeing, swimming, running or even taking a walk in the park count as legitimate forms of exercise.  This way nobody is staring at your body or if you are wearing the latest in spandex fashions. 

One of the main excuses that people use is “I am not in good enough shape to exercise.” This of course is a self-defeating excuse with no way out of the dilemma. Barker suggests that the only way out of this one is to keep your goals attainable and start out slowly. In other words, get off the couch and exercise anyway!

There is a strain of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA that is now reported to be surfacing in gyms. According to a story in the New York Times, a staph bacterium usually associated with hospitals and nursing homes, has been surfacing in other settings.

If you don’t want to catch this deadly staph infection which cannot be treated by antibiotics then you don’t want to share towels or razors.  You should also avoid skin-to-skin contact when playing sports. Places to be careful around in the gym include the grips of exercise machines and the spouts at drinking fountains.  Buy a bottle of water to drink instead.

An article called “Constipation –A Preventable Problem” in the Indian Tribune by Dr. Harmeet Singh Saluja claims that exercise can help cure constipation. Constipation is usually defined by having less than three bowel movements a week. Dr Saluja suggests this should be revised to once a day.  Still, he stresses that no number of bowel movements a day is the correct number.

For some people having three bowel movements a day is the usual. His prescription to regulate your body so that it eliminates as easily and as often as it should is to take a twenty to thirty minute walk every day.  He also mentions the importance of finding the time to take this walk. Such a small, but simple measure can prevent toxins from building up in your colon and keep you in good health.