Exercise is one of the key methods for lowering cholesterol – and blood pressure, my new concern — without medications. So to reduce my blood pressure and to continue to keep my cholesterol in check without any meds, I’ve been wondering just how much, how hard, and how often I need to exercise.
In researching, I found this nifty chart from the American Heart Association. It’s a little busy, but the key is the bottom-most graphic, which is for lowering cholesterol and blood pressure (how handy that they are together goal-wise!)
Apparently, to lower cholesterol and blood pressure,
I’ve been in an exercise black hole since January 29th – the day I hurt my elbow shoveling. Since I had tennis elbow surgery 10 years ago, I knew this time to immediately stop playing tennis and quit spin to let my elbow heal. Suddenly it was 4 months later and I’ve gained weight and am out of the regular exercise habit.
YES, I could have done some other exercise. YES, I have both a treadmill and an elliptical in my home. NO, I didn’t use them and instead wallowed in my sadness that I’d reinjured my elbow.
If you’re like most Americans, getting more exercise is on your list of New Year’s resolutions.
And for good reason: exercise is one of the key methods for lowering cholesterol – and blood pressure, my new concern — without medications. Oh, and that dropping weight side-benefit (ha ha) is kind of fantastic, too.
So to reduce my blood pressure and to continue to keep my cholesterol in check without any meds, I’ve been wondering just how much, how hard, and how often I need to exercise.
In researching, I found this nifty chart from the American Heart Association.
Even blogging about exercising hasn’t inspired the near-daily exercise I need to lower my cholesterol.
And we already know the goody-two-shoes example set by my husband isn’t doing the trick either. I suspect my ‘goody-two-shoes’ choice of adjective might be part of the problem.
Actually, though, the problem for me with exercise this week was tennis. With all the snow and ice-storms, the roof at the indoor courts I play at twice a week caved in on Tuesday, taking the entire structure down with it. Thank goodness the club had been closed early due to the weather so no one was there when it happened.
The whole “It’s Important To Exercise Daily to Lower Cholesterol” thing is really bugging me. (Possibly because I didn’t exercise yesterday or today. No elliptical, no tennis, nada.) But daily exercise as a goal feels unreasonable to me. It seems like overkill — I mean why daily? Why is daily so critically important?
And aren’t I exempt because I’m already in decent shape?
Searching for that exemption led me online, where I found the opposite. Turns out, there is a concrete reason why exercising daily is important to lowering LDL, no matter what kind of shape you are in (there are probably many reasons,
