How can cycling improve my health?

      I am not a doctor but I talked to one once. I hope I am not about to tell you there is no Easter bunny, but the unavoidable truth is some day we all die. How you treat your body is going to directly effect how you feel and what you can do until that last day comes. A fifty something year old man who came into the shop. He had just come from his doctor, who told him, “your blood pressure is high, you need to lose some weight and your cholesterol is over 200.” Fast forward a year later, I am riding one morning with him and I was struggling to not get dropped. I say to him, “you are riding strong” he responds; “I am down 50 pounds, my cholesterol is 170 and my doctor just stopped my blood pressure meds.” Wow that is great! What did you do? “I made a lifestyle change!”

     Change one: Put down the donut! Run do not walk away from the pizza! You know where is all that fat collecting on your gut, hips and rear comes from? Your mouth! Ouch! Was that too direct? Sorry let me reiterate a little nicer for the sensitive types. Mix in some good food too. Eat in moderation, eat less calories than you burn. Change from fried to broiled, chicken, and fish, switch chips and dip to nuts and fruit. Eat slow and stop when full.

Change two: Get some exercise! I recently read a book called: Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge. The premise of the book is simple, do cardio exercise every day. The authors do a great job of outlining the science of cell structure and how activity and inactivity effect your body without being too boring. Lodge, being the medical professional, gives the details and Crowley uses real life experience to explain the how and why of the principles. Just so happens that the authors love to cycle and throughout the book they edify how the low impact and cardio level makes cycling the preferred exercise.

Freebee alert! Do not join a gym, walk around on the way to the coffee pot and call it a workout. Lay out a plan, purchase and use a heart monitor, ride a bike, find a workout buddy, train toward an event, if you are not sweeting you are not working it!  

Change three: Stop doing stupid crap! If you are smoking you are a fool! This includes vaping Oops there I go with the sensitive stuff again. Put only fresh air into your lungs. I know this a medical professional who works in a local hospital, I hear regular anecdotes of people 40 to 60, who end up in the hospital that are in such bad shape from abusing their body that even if modern medicine can save them their quality of life is junk. Do not let yourself be one of them, make a change.

 

Ride Safe