What are the best types of exercise?

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Jeannette Bessinger
Balance for Life, LLC
www.balanceforlifellc.com  
(401) 835-2428

Jeannette Bessinger, Board Certified Holistic Health Counselor and owner of Balance for Life LLC, is a co-author of the upcoming book, Simple Food for Busy Families, author of Your Baby's Best Food, and meal and recipe designer for the Dr. Jonny Bowden’s The Healthiest Meals on Earth. A motivational speaker and health/nutrition educator, Jeannette regularly gives talks and classes to businesses, corporations, non–profits, wellness centers, hospitals, colleges and faith–based organizations with an interest in wellness and disease prevention. Jeannette has provided services in health education and prevention for individuals and groups in a wide variety of venues for fifteen years.  Creator of the Whole Life Nutrition™ approach to health improvement, she currently runs successful lifestyle change programs in both hospital and holistic settings. Jeannette acts as a lifestyle health consultant to several public and private groups and coalitions working to improve the health of schools and cities. She was a lead strategist on a citywide intervention plan for obesity funded by the RI Department of Health, and designed an obesity prevention program for Head Start with a grant from the American Academy of Pediatrics. A graduate among the first class of women at Columbia College, Columbia University, Jeannette has pursued an extensive, multi–modal education in teaching, health and wellness. As a very busy wife and mother of two children, she understands first hand how challenging it can be to maintain a healthy balanced lifestyle as a working parent. With a personal history of autoimmune disease and diabetes, she knows how vital it is to put your health first on your priority list. Much of the depth and practical nature of Jeannette's material arises directly from her own efforts to meet the challenges of balancing health, family and a lively career.

What are the best types of exercise?

 

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Host: What are the best types of exercise?

Jeannette Bessinger: The kind of exercise that you need is really Bio individual. By that I mean your particular body and type needs a particular kind of exercise at different times at different ages. But having said that most bodies need three components of exercise to feel strong and at their best.

One of those components is increasing your cardiovascular endurance. In order to do that you need to breathe a lot, break into sweats. So, these includes things like bicycling, running, skating, even dancing around your house. It doesn t have to be an actual sport or even a class but moving to the point where you can still carry on conversation but you are definitely breathing heavier than normally.

The second component is something that we call resistance training. By that it means you are working with your muscles to breakdown the fibers, so that they will grow back more strongly. This is typically accomplished with a weights protocol lifting weights. But it can also be done isometrically which means that you are using the movements and the weight of your own body in a class or a form of exercise such as Pilates. The third piece of exercise is the one that most of us tend to neglect a little bit and that is stretching. As you are building those muscle fibers and building a stronger body, you need to stretch them out on a regular basis, so that you don t become stiff and it helps a lot of injury prevention.

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