Tag Archives: Vitamins

Boost your Immunity System with Exercise

Health should be a year round priority and did you know that you can Boost your Immunity System with Exercise? Exercise and staying active is a frugal way to stay our healthiest. Whether we are on the path to financial independence or already enjoying our early retirement we have too much we want to do and don’t want to be sick.

I happen to be writing this during the holidays because it is a time when we tend to live with added stress even though we know we should be enjoying our time. We tend to stray from our healthier diets and overextend ourselves with all kinds of social gatherings, shopping for gifts, worship, and celebrations.

Boost your Immunity System with ExerciseWe are in close proximity with many people and our immunity system may be tested and called upon many times. Right when we have absolutely no time to be sick.

Regular exercise is a way to keep our bodies and immunity system in top condition. To stay healthy we must keep our immunity system strong to protect and defend our body against illness and to help quicken our recovery if we do fall to illness.

Boost Your Immunity System with Exercise – How It Works

When we are in movement it also results in our body’s immune cells being more active. Faster circulating immune cells are able to overcome and kill any invading viruses and bacteria easier.

The extra immune cell energy boost that is gained from our movement through exercise lasts hours after the workout ends.

Did you know that research has found that people who exercise regularly have fewer colds and sick days from work than those who don’t?

  • Exercise makes us less vulnerable to illness by slowing our release of stress hormones. I know I come out of a workout less stressed than when I went into it.
  • Exercise also helps us fight infection by raising our body temperature. I know I am exercising when I feel the heat turn up.
  • Exercise causes us to sweat and increase our breathing. That in turn helps us flush out disease-causing bacteria from our bodies through our sweat and lungs. YUCK! Remember to wipe down the workout equipment after use.

You Can Boost your Immunity System with Exercise But Don’t Over Do It

There comes a point when exercise loses its health benefits. That happens when we go overboard and over exercise. Extreme exercise will stress our bodies too far and weaken our immunity system’s ability to fight off disease. This can occur with long and strenuous workouts of 90 minutes or more.

Boost your Immunity System with Exercise but don’t ignore other healthy actions.
Exercise is easily forgotten and for many people the first to thing to be sacrificed when we get busy. There are the other healthy habits that we need to also remember to keep as a priority to boost our immune system.

  • Go to bed and get enough sleep.
  • Manage and try to control your stress.
  • Concentrate on eating healthy.
  • Take your prescribed medication and any required vitamins/supplements that are part of your health routine.
  • Don’t drink your immune system into drunken oblivion and avoid all tobacco smoke.

There you have it.

Go ahead and make a plan to Boost your Immunity System with Exercise.

Do speak with your Doctor before significantly increasing your exercise or activity level.

If you can’t talk while exercising then you may be pushing too hard and over doing it. Those of us who may be a little out of shape will need to take it slower and work towards things. It can take far less than the 90 minutes mentioned above if we push ourselves beyond or fitness level too quickly. It can end up taking things too far. We don’t want to exercise ourselves into a compromised immunity system.

Do you find that when you exercise regularly you are sick less?

Do you see yourself letting exercise slip away from your healthy living routine when life gets hectic?

Pay Yourself First is More than Money

In the financial independence world we hear a lot about pay yourself first. But pay yourself first is more than money. Unfortunately setting a budget, living a smart-frugal life, paying off debt, saving and investing our money is what we put our highest focus on. For many years that is exactly what I did. What about our health? Shouldn’t that also be just as important? Is it a coincidence that Health and Wealth are only separated by a single letter?

LiveHealthy-pay yourself first is more than moneyWhile I was in my second retirement over the last several months I had the time to make my health my primary focus. I did this by exercising every day for 2 to 3 hours. I was successful in losing 40 pounds and knocking several years off my age. I still have a ways to go to reach my health goals. But now that I have started this new side hustle it isn’t as easy to pull off. My struggle to pay myself first with dedicating time to exercising after work is what made me take a little self-assessment of my financial independence pay myself first short-comings.

Pay Yourself First is More than Money- Time For Self Assessment

  • I enjoy and look forward to my bi-annual meeting with my financial adviser. We go over my fund performance and discuss investment strategy and goals going forward.
  • I don’t feel the same about my bi-annual doctor appointment for blood tests. Where we also meet to discuss my health, what I am doing to improve it and strategies to meet my health goals. I always dread going in. Perhaps because I wasn’t making any improvement until these last several months.

 

  • I will without fail track my spending and saving. I never miss a beat with my finances. I eagerly look forward to my financial statements.
  • I am less than committed to tracking my exercise for the day and any health gains or loses. It can always wait and when I am tired or busy with anything else. When busy I put exercise as secondary. Not much to track anyway. I don’t hold myself accountable for my health goals.
Bingo. My brain says there is a problem

I have only worked 5 days at this full-time side hustle. I admit that the first two days I did come home and just told myself it is alright to not exercise. Just relax and chill after a rewarding but long day. I thought a lot about this over the weekend. Dammit! I come to realize that my health is just as important as my wealth. I better start treating it that way. I have to start treating it as paying myself first just like the financial stuff.

All the thinking I did about saving my side hustle income in a 401K to shield it from taxes this year and not one minute worrying about fitting in a sufficient amount of time to exercise daily. I basically lost all the weight that I had gained working until retirement number two for these exact lack of exercise reasons and I don’t want to gain it back. I feel healthy now but I won’t for long if I don’t stick to it.

Pay Yourself First is More than Money, it’s Also About Your Health

Making the pay myself first health and exercise plan
  • I made a scaled down version of my larger and longer exercise routine so that I now commit to at least an hour after work. I have set that time as my own from 6:00 to 7:00 PM during the week.
  • I started tracking my exercise and health gains during my retirement for the first time. I will now continue to do the same while working this side hustle to hold myself accountable.
  • I will honestly communicate with my doctor instead of just getting through it as quickly as I can. I will be a fully active participant in this bi-annual get together which is done for me in the first place. I was so stupid!
  • I will work to improve my healthy diet knowledge and start incrementally moving to a more healthy diet.
  • I will read my Health related magazines more in-depth instead of gleaning through them. Maybe learn something. My doctor had recommended my using and joining (membership) a company called “Life Extension” for both the periodicals and the vitamins they offer. I also recommend them to anyone who wants improved health and knowledge. (BTW, Full disclosure. I do now have an affiliation with Life Extension. Although this is a personal recommendation based on my own use of their products, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you if you use these Life Extension links or the Life Extension Ad in the sidebar to place an order. Do your research and if you decide to use their products follow all instructions and consult your doctor when recommended.)
Conclusion

Pay yourself first is more than money. It also includes our health by paying ourselves with the time and commitment to be the healthiest that we can be. What good will wealth do anyone if their health is poor and they are unable to enjoy the freedom that financial independence will give? Aside from the misery that poor health can cause, all the effort to reach financial independence wasn’t just to hand it over to cover high medical costs due to preventable health issues.

Do you struggle to commit to exercise and a healthy lifestyle because you are too busy or do you have it down and can share how you are able to stay committed to your personal staying healthy plan?