Dr. Tracy McAlvanah's Wellness Blog

If recovering from exercise is so difficult it feels like it’s ruining your days and sapping your motivation, you may be suffering from loss of exercise tolerance. Exercise is supposed to make you feel better and give you more energy, not make you feel worse. The occasional off day is nothing to worry about, but if you find you’re consistently having a hard time handling your workouts, it’s important to find out why. Symptoms of poor exercise recovery Can’t complete normal workouts Difficulty recovering after exercise Need a nap after exercise Unexplained depression Loss of general motivation or enthusiasm Unexplained change in weight Aggression or irritability for minor reasons Weakened immune function Loss of menstrual cycle Symptoms of  leaky gut Seven things that can cause poor exercise recovery 1. You’re overtraining: It’s possible you’re simply taking too much on during your workout. Anyone can make this mistake. Try backing off for a couple weeks; if your ...

We’ve long been told if we want to be healthier and live longer we need to drop the pounds, but turns out being fit is the best predictor for longevity, even if you’re overweight. A team of  researchers  examined a collection of studies that together looked at thousands of people for as long as 16 years. They divided study subjects into three groups: normal weight, overweight, and obese. They then divided them into fit and unfit groups based on endurance tests, typically running on a treadmill. Their analysis showed that the subjects’ performance in the endurance tests determined their mortality risk in the coming years, not their weight. In fact, the unfit people had twice the risk of dying as the fit people, regardless of their weight. Overweight and obese people who were fit had the same mortality risks as fit participants who were normal weight. In a  nutshell   A thin unfit person is twice as likely to die as an obese fit person. This is great news to those...

Most of us are starting the New Year with resolutions to improve, but few changes will improve your life more than regular exercise. However, starting an exercise habit can seem insurmountable to the chronically sedentary. This article offers tips to get you motivated to begin and stick with regular exercise. First off, there’s more to exercise than just weight loss. Have you seen the significant difference between elderly people who exercise versus those who don’t? That’s because the organ that benefits most from exercise is your brain, and regular exercise will help keep you sharp and nimble well into your golden years. Exercise also is the key to lowering your risk of heart disease, bone loss, dementia, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, depression, anxiety, loneliness, poor self-esteem, and more. However, its reputation as a health panacea is not sufficiently motivating. To be motivating exercise needs to be is fun. Research shows that once they make exercise a “ should ,...