What are the benefits of regular physical

What are the benefits of regular physical activity?

These are the benefits often experienced by people who get regular physical activity.

Feeling better

Regular physical activity —

• gives you more energy
  
  
• helps in coping with stress
  
  
• improves your self-image
  
  
• increases resistance to fatigue
  
  
• helps counter anxiety and depression
  
  
• helps you to relax and feel less tense
  
  
• improves the ability to fall asleep quickly and sleep well
  
  
• provides an easy way to share an activity with friends or family and an opportunity to meet new friends
  
  

Looking better

Regular physical activity —

• tones your muscles
  
  
• burns off calories to help lose extra pounds or helps you stay at your desirable weight
  
  
• helps control your appetite
  
  

You need to burn off 3,500 calories more than you take in to lose 1 pound. If you want to lose weight, regular physical activity can help you in either of two ways.

First, you can eat your usual amount of calories, but be more active. For example: A 200-pound person who keeps on eating the same amount of calories, but decides to walk briskly each day for 11/2 miles will lose about 14 pounds in 1 year. Or, you can eat fewer calories and be more active. This is an even better way to lose weight.

About three-fourths of the energy you burn every day comes from what your body uses for its basic needs, such as sleeping, breathing, digesting food and reclining. A person burns up only a small amount of calories with daily activities such as sitting. Any physical activity in addition to what you normally do will burn up extra calories.

The average calories spent per hour by a 150-pound person are listed below. (A lighter person burns fewer calories; a heavier person burns more.) Since exact calorie figures are not available for most activities, the figures below are averaged from several sources and show the relative vigor of the activities.