Why Weight Bearing Exercise is so Important for Your Health and Wellbeing [Episode #794]

This week’s topic is: Why Weight Bearing Exercise is so Important for Your Health and Wellbeing

I quite recently have incorporated some weight bearing exercises into my own routine. I can’t say that it’s super regular or that it’s every week, however, it’s in the fold. It’s there, I would say, on a monthly basis because this recommendation was actually given to me by Dr. Suhas, an amazing Ayurvedic physician. And I did a vedic medical astrology consultation with Dr. Suhas, and he said that based on my constitution, where there’s a lot of Vata, a lot of wind, and a lot of air, weight bearing exercise is prescribed.

I’m not naturally drawn to lifting weights, doing squats and things like that. I love to be outside. I love to walk, I love to hike. I do some yoga and stretching. I used to do more of an active yoga asana practice. And so weightlifting was never something that I was really drawn to.

When I started to learn about the important benefits which we’ll discuss today, I realized that lifting weights in general is an important part of self-care, especially for us women, because there are important benefits that come from this specific type of movement. I’m really excited to get into our show today, which is practical and holistic. Increasing the strength in our bodies can actually strengthen our mental resilience, and can help foster emotional wellbeing. So everything works together.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question sent in by a Beauty just like you, listen now to find out!

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[Question Answered]

Tamara – Las Vegas

I keep hearing about the importance of keeping your bone density up, what are some of the best ways to do that?

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Speaker 1: 00:01 Hello, love and welcome back to our Thursday q and a show where our topic today is Why Weight Bearing Exercise is so Important for Your Health and Wellbeing. I’m very excited to discuss this topic today, and this has also blossomed from my personal experience. I quite recently have incorporated some weightbearing exercises into my own routine. I can’t say that it’s super regular, I can’t say that it’s every week, but it’s in the fold. It’s in there, I would say, on a monthly basis because this recommendation was actually given to me by Dr. Suhas, an amazing Ayurvedic physician. We will link to his interviews in the show notes. He was introduced to me, or we met each other rather through our mutual friend and colleague Deepak Chopra. And I did a vidic medical astrology consultation with Dr. Suhas, and he said that based on my constitution, where there’s a lot of Vata, a lot of wind, and a lot of air weightbearing exercise is prescribed in our uve, DDA and other holistic traditions from a mental standpoint to help us feel more grounded and also from a physical standpoint, which was we’ll get into in our show today to help maintain osti or bone density.

01:28 So I have to admit that I’m not naturally drawn to lifting weights, doing, you know, squats and things like that. I love to be outside. I love to walk, I love to hike. I do some yin yoga, I do some stretching. I used to do more of an active yoga asana practice. And so weightlifting was never something that I was really drawn to. But when I started to learn about the important benefits which we’ll discuss today, I realized that lifting, um, heavy, or we’ll say weight bearing exercise, lifting weights in general is an important part of self-care, especially for us women, but in general, for all genders, for all of us, because there are important benefits that come from this specific type of movement. So I’m really excited to get into our show today, which is practical. It’s holistic. As I mentioned, what we do for our bodies, increasing the strength in our bodies can actually strengthen our mental resilience, can help foster emotional wellbeing. So everything works together.

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Question around the topic of: Why Weight Bearing Exercise is so Important for Your Health and Wellbeing: I keep hearing about the importance of keeping your bone density up, what are some of the best ways to do that?

04:10  Alright, let’s get into our show today about the importance of weightbearing exercise for your health and for your wellbeing. So our question today comes from Tamara or Tamara, however you’d like to say it. My love in Las Vegas. Thank you so much for being part of our community, and I send you lots of love out there to that beautiful, wonderful, warm, dry place where you live in the sacred desert. And you asked, I keep hearing about the importance of keeping your bone density up. What are some of the best ways to do that? So let’s get into some research, um, Tamara, Tamara, and then we will get into some of these practical tips. So first of all, there’s a lot of research around this and it’s really coming forward into the collective, which I think is important because sometimes, you know, we get these ideas where I could say, you know, from my personal bias, I used to think that lifting weights was if you really wanted to focus on looking more muscular or being bigger.

Why Weight Bearing Exercise is so Important for Your Health and Wellbeing: Bone Health

05:25 Um, that was sort of my connotation with it. And, you know, we start to learn, hey, there’s a deeper meaning to this. There’s a lot of bone health benefits. One of the studies, um, comes from, and all of this is linked in the show notes over@myluna.com, should you want to peruse further into the science. This is published in Osteoporosis International, and it demonstrated that the impact of weightbearing exercise helped to improve bone mineral density. Particularly this study was measuring post-menopausal women. So there’s these different junctures in time where we are particularly more vulnerable to this depletion of asti. This is the SRI word for bone, right? This can happen after you have a baby. We say the bones are particularly vulnerable at that time. Also, when you go into menopause, you know, times of great growth. So another study, this was published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, found that weightbearing exercise.

06:30 So again, it’s not just, or for the first time I’m saying this actually in this podcast, it’s not just lifting weights. It can also include resistance training. This can include with bands even jumping rope. This increases bone mineral density in women having to, uh, reduce the risk of osteoporosis. So we have to pay attention to our whole body, our holistic health. And so we think to ourselves, what do we do to strengthen our bones from a food perspective, of course, there’s ingesting calcium, eating greens, making sure that we’re avoiding, um, acidic foods, which tend to delete el alkaline minerals from our body to buffer that acidity, uh, which then leads to urinary calcium excretion. So things like dairy, we would definitely wanna cut back on or avoid. And then from a physical perspective, you know, walking is great, that’s what I’m drawn to. But then we learn more and more that we actually need to, to bear weight, and this increases the bone density.

Why Weight Bearing Exercise is so Important for Your Health and Wellbeing: Muscle Strength

07:36 This signals to our bones, Hey, put some energy here and put in building, building the bone structure, building the capacity, building the foundation of the bones. So the ways in which we move, the ways in which we exercise creates this intention in the body, and the body does respond. There’s also benefits to muscular strength and functionality. There is, for instance, a, um, research from the British Journal of Science or rather sports medicine, finding that weightbearing exercise was effective in improving muscle strength and power in adults of all ages. There’s more research around enhanced mobility and reduced disabilities as we go towards, um, advanced age and maturity. Again, this might be important to share with a relative or someone that you love. That is, you know, getting a little bit up there in age and perhaps isn’t incorporating weightbearing exercise yet. This is important again, at all age spectrums, but there are certain points where we start to wake up more and more to this importance.

Speaker 3: 08:54  So again, about love, abundance sharing, passing this on cardiovascular health is also affected by weightbearing exercise. A study published in the Journal of Amer, the American Medical Association, found that weightbearing exercise, and here they’re also incorporating stair climbing was associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease. So this movement, we talk about cardiovascular function, which is great, but also bearing weight, adding that extra element is also really great for your heart. Research published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that weightbearing exercise improved cardiovascular fitness as indicated by increased maximal oxygen uptake and improved lipid profile. So it starts to cascade throughout the body to the all-important organ of the heart, which not just, it’s not just a pump for blood and oxygen, but also is an important messenger of information and signals throughout the body.

Why Weight Bearing Exercise is so Important for Your Health and Wellbeing: Mental health and wellbeing

10:17 Mental health and wellbeing is also benefited by weightbearing exercise. Now this is really interesting. This is where it intersects with Aveda found that weightbearing activities. This was found in the JAMA Psychiatry Journal. There was a reduction in depression and anxiety, very much in par with Dr. Sue ha’s prescription for me, the Vata imbalance. If you have a lot of air, a lot of space in your constitution, it means you tend towards constipation and also anxiety, which I know very well. Insomnia, just the thoughts can start going and going and you don’t feel as grounded. And then this way, your mental health can be detrimentally impacted. So there’s many, many other studies here. I’ll just mention one last one from the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, and it found that weightbearing exercise was associated with the reduced risk of developing depression in middle-aged women. So there’s such a wide range, again, back to our four cornerstones approach, which is that everything affects everything else. So when you’re adding with intention, strengthening physical activity, this can help to strengthen our mental resilience. We can feel more fortified against the ups and downs of daily life. We feel anchored to our center, our physical center, our bone structure, our spines, our central nervous systems, the true self, which resides in this center. We know our central, um, energetic centers, our chakras are located here within the center. So this has so many benefits. It means we don’t have to,

Speaker 4: 11:53 You know, like we’re being tossed around in the ups and downs, in the waves of daily life. We feel a deeper resilience, a deeper calmness that carries us through. And this is, again, important to our relationships. This is important to our emotional intelligence. It keeps us from swinging into reactivity and sugar <laugh>, you know, stretching and clinging to external sources of energy when we feel more depleted, when we don’t feel as safe or secure within our center. So I can speak from personal experience and say that again, I’m being really honest here. I’m not the most regular right now, but I feel that even incorporating a bit of bone weight bearing exercise for my bones, for my structure has really strengthened me in different ways. For me, it’s more casual. Right now, it’s hard. Um, in terms of my schedule, I’ve got the kids, oh, just a lot of activity right now, you know, running a household.

13:03 And then I’ve got SA Luna, I’ve got the podcast. And on top of it, now I’m deep in the midst of writing a new book. I’m very excited about it. I’m actually also working on a children’s book, so I’m working on the illustrations part. So there’s a lot of fullness to life. And so because of that, sometimes it’s where I fit it in. I happen to be going down visiting hubby who is very regular in his weightlifting. He lifts weights several times a week. He also boxes with a trainer several times a week. So there’s this sort of migration to our gym, our home gym, which is our garage converted into a gym. There’s some toys down there with the kids, there’s activities, there’s, you know, watching papa box sometimes, whatever it is. So it’s, you know, a little irregular. Sometimes I’ll just pick up some weights and I’ll do squats for my bone, for my leg bones.

13:59 And then I like to do some arm exercises for my triceps and my biceps and my, you know, my back. So it’s a little bit irregular, but again, just speaking candidly and honestly, a little bit is better than nothing and it’s quite beneficial actually. So this is an alignment with our food philosophy where it’s not all or nothing. And I think sometimes we have that approach, as in, if I don’t have a regular schedule, if I’m not gonna do it regularly, I’m not gonna do it at all. Um, we’ll talk about that in a little bit with the, with the tips here. Um, I think it’s important to just have it around and to work it into your life. So let’s talk about this from a practical standpoint. Some tips to really incorporate weightbearing exercise. So the first thing is to make it accessible, just like God, I was saying from my personal experience, it is not difficult.

14:57 And in fact, I encourage you to keep weights around areas where you migrate to. This could be in your living room if you have your yoga mat there, or in your bedroom, your yoga mat in a place you like to stretch, maybe you like to listen to music or you just like to chill out, read books, watch tv, whatever it is. If the weights are around there, you could naturally just work them in. You could be doing a call, you could be, you know, hanging out with a friend, and then it just becomes part of your life. If it’s really inaccessible, like you sign up for a high intensity workout class, but it’s, you know, across town, it’s two hours long, it’s really hard to fit into your schedule. It starts to feel more like a concept or an idea versus part of your life.

15:50 So yeah, maybe there are classes, maybe you can keep it more on, you know, an accountable system if you do it with a friend or with your partner or whatever. But I am also a big fan of the casual approach where keep them mad out, keep the weights around and then you work it in, right? So another tip that I have practically speaking is to stack the habit with something else. So when I was in more regular flow, or even when I’m doing it now, it most almost always is in the mornings. So I will flow into, hey, I mean it’s a little different now because it’s summertime. And so there’s camp that we’ll be starting up. We’re not doing so much camp because we’re gonna be in Hawaii a lot. But anyways, I did have this flow of, you know, Howard with lemon and my morning practices, having my SBO probiotics, taking brother to school, older brother.

16:49 And then as soon as we’d come back, I’m in this little gap of playing with Moses before, you know, I’d go into more work. And so in that little gap, I would go down into the garage. Papa would often be lifting two, the three of us would be in there, right? So stacking that habit by having a more regular time to do it. For some people it might be in the middle of the day, it’s a break in your work schedule. Maybe you do it during lunch or maybe sometimes it could be more at the end of the day. A way to cool down and relax. So Dr. Suhas mentioned this cooling element of weightlifting, which we usually associate with Pitta. We have all the elements inside of us, by the way. So I also have Pitta energy. I also have this fire. So what the weightlifting, the weightbearing exercise can do is it helps to dissipate excessive fire, which can lead to inflammation, it can lead to burnout, it can lead to frustration, it can lead to anger, lots of different things.

17:49 So the weight lifting is a way to flow that energy out in a constructive way. It’s a way of directing the energy into positivity, into a beneficial outcome, right? We’re looking to build strength. We’re looking to build muscle density, cardiovascular function, all the things that we mentioned before, right? So it might feel nice to you to do in the evenings before dinner or when you’re trying to cool down after work or whatever. So number one, make it accessible. Number two is to create some kind of stacking or some kind of routine. Number three is to remember that it’s all not all or nothing. So as I mentioned, it’s, you know, <laugh>, it’s better to have some of it in your life versus this all or nothing approach. And so we wanna, we wanna not beat ourselves up. We wanna bring this idea that we’re working towards regularity.

18:49 It’s okay if we’re not really regular. This isn’t about perfectionism, it’s just about creating some energy, some routines that are working towards this goal. So it’s just like the 80 20, or in my case, honestly, if I’m being really honest, it’s like 30% on, you know, 30% of the time I’m lifting these weights once, maybe twice a week. Now my husband said I really need to do it three times a week to have, you know, the consistency, but it’s just not really possible for me right now. So where I go to my mind is I’m doing something and that is building towards a more consistent habit, which for me isn’t right now, but maybe in the future it will be. And so I’m okay with that and I’m honest with myself around that. And so that feels good to me. And maybe, you know, taking that sort of approach may feel good to you.

19:43 On the other hand, you may be someone that has a lot of KAA energy, you know, tends towards slothfulness or more stagnation. So developing a more consistent, Hey, I’m gonna commit to this twice a week. Three times a week might feel better to you as well, right? So there’s no right or wrong here. It’s more just saying, let’s move away from a rigid perspective. Let’s move away from all or nothing perfectionism and see how that, how the cards play out in your life. Number four is to create some sort of enjoyment within this world of weightbearing exercise. If you really don’t like something, you’re never gonna do it. So remember, there’s a real range here. It’s lifting free weights. There’s bands, there’s high intensity workouts. There’s working with a trainer. There’s stair climbing, there’s a pretty popular, um, set of stairs here in, um, in Santa Monica, in Cal, in la

Speaker 5: 20:47 Uh, I think they’re known as the stairs or the outdoor stairs or whatever it is, where dozens of people go a day up these very long stairs, right? There’s a kind of a communal aspect to it. So anyways, that might help the enjoyment more. I do not find them enjoyable at all. I’ve done it one time. I walked up them one time actually to get to a photo shoot <laugh>. So anyways, but there, if you enjoy, um, stair climbing, there’s also gym work. There’s the machines and gyms, there’s stair climbers and gyms. So I would encourage you to find something that you’re naturally drawn to. I will say that there are hills on my walks. So there is an aspect of that weight-bearing exercise also happening in my daily walks. I’m fortunate enough to live in a more hilly area. We live up in the mountains here, so that’s another way I incorporated.

21:42 I guess it wasn’t my intention necessarily to seek kills and to do this, you know, promotion of bone density, but it’s naturally happening. So that’s wonderful as well. So also remember that if this helps to inspire you, remind yourself. This was helpful to me, the holistic benefits that we talked about on this show, because for me, if it’s like, oh, I’m just doing this one thing and it’s good for this one thing, nothing wrong with it, but let’s say it’s, I wanna have a lot of muscle tone in my one muscle in my one tricep, or I want to have a big butt, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. But for me, that’s not enough motivation to keep going. And maybe for you, maybe for your friend, if so, great, but I wanna just throw out remembering the holistic aspects in case that might give you some extra motivation.

22:41 So this is also beneficial for your mental health. This is also beneficial for your emotional wellbeing, for your resilience, for your strength, for clarity, for focus, for purpose, for all of these things because the strength and the foundation within your structure will support that in the energetics, in the formless parts of you. So there you have it. There is a lot of research. Now there’s a lot of studies you can peruse. Again, if you are interested in all the physiological benefits of weightbearing exercise. Then there’s the energetic, the mental health part, which I am hugely into of course. And here at Sal Luna, mental health and emotional wellbeing are part of our cornerstones, our third cornerstone. And they are very much related thoughts of the mind can fuel emotions, right? So there’s this

Speaker 6: 23:44 Interconnection and that in turn can fuel stress hormones, um, hormonal imbalance, nervous system imbalance, so on and so forth. So everything’s interrelated. And so it’s really important that we understand this context. And I love the auric prescriptive way, uh, because Ayurveda is the science of life. That’s what Ayurveda means. And so an Ayurvedic physician prescribes foods, they prescribe herbs, they prescribe lifestyle practices. So when Dr. Suhas looked at my constitution, he looked at my, you know, my vidic, medical astrology. There was one of the first things he said. He said, you need to get into some weightbearing exercise, which was really illuminating for me. It was a bit unexpected, but very well received and very, um, just insightful and just inspiring to me. Made me really excited. So of course, I would love to pass that excitement onto you. I would love, you’d love to share about this holistic way, because in our cornerstones, everything really does play a part.

24:50 And the sturdiness we’re talking about today, the sturdiness of weightbearing exercise, the sturdiness of as well of our overall Solluna lifestyle approach, allows you to melt into the wholeness of you. It allows you to melt into this wholeness of self-care, self-love, intuitively, how do I best care for myself? How do I nurture this wholeness? How do I nurture the true self coming forward? Our potential, our love, our peace, our connection, our vitality, life force, health, all of it, right? They’re the practical part though, is that we really need to take the steps, small steps add up. Today we’re talking about weightbearing exercise. We also talk about choosing the right foods, drinking your glow green smoothie, taking care of your gut health, meditating. All of it works together. So, and also on that note, just remember that these Thursday shows also rotate around the cornerstones. So I look forward to connecting with you more, please, any questions, any topics you want me to delve deeper into, you could submit questions over on the show notes@myluna.com and you can connect with me on social at _KimberlySnyder. Otherwise, we’ll be back here Monday for our next interview show. Until then, sending you so much love, so much gratitude, and I very much look forward to connecting with you more. Namaste.