COULD YOU SURVIVE A TERRORIST ATTACK?

by | Aug 8, 2016 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

COULD YOU SURVIVE A TERRORIST ATTACK?

If you were somewhere close to a terrorist attack such as what happened in Nice, how would you fair physically?

  • If you had to run for your life, how far or how long could you run for?
  •  If you had to climb out of a window or up a very steep hill or something similar to reach safety how would you go?
  • If you had to walk nonstop for a day to reach safety how would you go?
  • If you had to carry a loved one to safety, how would you go?
  • If you had to overcome a wide range of physical obstacles to reach a food or water source,  in emergency situation who would eat first?
  • You and your family or
    • The person who has spent time on their health and fitness or
    • The person that is always too busy at work………?

ARE YOU A WEAKENED HUMAN?

As a human our evolutionary genetics have been built around activity. If we didn’t move we would die, it was simple. We are just figuring out that in the present times it’s no different but for different reasons.

Back in the time of the Paleo Man if we didn’t move WE WOULD PROBABLY DIE:

  • We couldn’t catch or find food.
  • We couldn’t provide shelter.
  • We couldn’t avoid or fight off predators

We had no option but to move, but in this day and age we can provide these very basic necessities of life with very little movement at all.

In comparison today:
·

  • For many of us our jobs are sedentary and in many cases stressful.
  •  We drive or catch public transport to work, very little movement and also stressful.
  •  For many of us we spend time sitting at a desk.
  • To catch our food we drive to the supermarket and very leisurely push a trolley up and down the aisles.
  • We buy food in boxes, packets, jars or tins that are heavily processed with huge amounts of added sugar and calories (Many of which are falsely labeled as healthy)
  • Or we order the same foods online and it gets delivered to our front door!
  • And quite often we order fully prepared meals that are delivered to our door, ready to eat!

Before you start screaming at me please read on because I do understand that our job, work or career is what puts food on the table and pays the bills and is one of those non-negotiables, as is our family time.

But, just like we have a financial budget we also have a time budget. There are 168 hours in a week. With this time we have to fit in:

·        Work
·        Family
·        Sleep
·        Exercise (only 4 to 5 hours per week). Less than 3% of our Time. (This will become the topic for another post)
o   Trust me if you have a major health event due to your own self-inflicted illness, you will be spending more than 3% of your time in the clutches of the medical profession along with lost productivity and earning capacity due to not being able to work.

EXERCISE HAS TO BECOME ONE OF THOSE NON NEGOTIABLES IN OUR LIFE!

SO BACK TO MOVEMENT
Without movement and challenges to our muscles and bones we become weakened humans.

  • Our muscles if not challenged become weak and wasted.
  • Our bones in turn are at risk due to the fact that our muscles are weakened and are not stressing the bones.
  • The pulling of muscles on our bones sends out signals for our body to send out extra calcium to the bones that are being stressed by the muscle contraction.

This is why resistance or strength training is recognized as good for bone density.

This lack of movement and physical challenging of our body can then perpetuate the onset of the many chronic diseases that afflict the masses within society today.

Many of which we have all heard before:

·        Diabetes
·        Heart disease
·        High Blood pressure
·        General vitality
·        Depression

Strength training can substitute the lack of activity in our general daily lives and the beauty is you are never too young or too old to start………………….

The other fantastic thing about strength training is that when done properly and safely and with a sensible eating regime your body will change shape, you will lose weight and you will become more agile which has many positive side effects and makes you more much resilient and able to handle emergency situations much more effectively. It also makes you more resilient to stress.

As your body changes shape and gets stronger you are better equipped to handle the stresses that life imposes on us both physically and emotionally.

It is a commonly recognized fact that for every 1kg of weight you lose you take 4kg of pressure off your knees. So if you are carrying knee injuries or have arthritic knees you will reduce your pain and in many cases reduce some or all of your dependence on pain killers and anti inflammatories.

If you are carrying a beer belly no matter how big it is your natural body balance is out and you place undue pressure on you back.

So in many cases losing weight, changing shape and getting stronger will fix or greatly reduce chronic back pain, once again reducing dependence on pain killers or anti inflammatories.

NOW BACK TO OUR PALEO MAN (His stress compared to our stress)

Cortisol is a stress hormone and it is designed to release fats and sugars into our system when we are presented with a stressful situation which for our Paleo man would have been a fight or flight situation in which we would have used the sugars and fats for energy which would have been used because he would have probably had to fight or run away from a danger or predator.

Now fast forward to the present day person and think of the stress situations where we get exactly the same physiological response:

·        A bad day at work.
·        A fight with our spouse or partner.
·        Someone cuts us off in traffic.
·        We are running late for an appointment.
·        Financial Stress.

So the stress hormone Cortisol causes the release of fats and sugars to be used, except for many we have no avenue to use the energy , so they are re-stored and they are typically re-stored as belly fat.

So exercise is clearly a stress reliever both physically and mentally.

Exercise is also great in the management of Anxiety & Depression. (Topic for a future post)

The term getting into shape is commonly associated with fitness but the reality is it’s just as much about getting into shape. Body Shape Change.

We have an exercise video that demonstrates about 40 common and safe strength exercises. All the exercises you see demonstrated , when incorporated  into a regular  exercise routine will not only start to change your body shape they will:

·        Get you stronger.
·        The regular exertion will also help strengthen your bones.
·        Help to reduce stress levels.
·        Reduce the cycle of stress induced belly fat accumulation.

Many people say to me I am just too busy, I can’t find the time. You can’t afford not to find the time.

I try to structure my sessions to last approximately 60 minutes, more is OK. And I try to get people to think that 3 sessions per week is the minimum. 4 or 5 sessions are much better!

In addition if you have a sedentary job you have to also get 10, 000 steps per day on the days you are not doing your strength training as a minimum. 10,000 steps every day even on training days is better and will help to fast track the body shape change.

Hopefully this information has triggered a new awareness of some of the things that happen to our physiology in an average day of the sedentary human.
If you would like more information or help with something you are struggling with call Lance or Tammy on 02 43650123