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- Photo: yuan2003 / Flickr
Many of us buy fitness gym equipment with very good intentions, only to let it gather dust in a spare room after our initial enthusiasm starts to wane. Possibly the most popular of all home gym equipment is the treadmill, which outsells rowing machines and exercise bikes by a big margin. If you’re guilty of buying a treadmill that’s now languishing in a forgotten corner, here are five very good reasons for putting it to use.
Curb cravings
Next time you find yourself craving chocolate, consider taking a walk. A study recently published in the journal Appetite found that subjects who walked briskly for 15 minutes had their cravings decreased by 12 per cent. So set your treadmill to a busy pace and get walking.
Lose weight
This is a bit of a no-brainer. We know that exercise burns calories, helping us lose weight. It’s interesting to know, though, that just a little cardio can help keep extra weight off. A study published in the journal Obesity found that only 80 minutes of cardio a week slowed weight gain in participants, as well as preventing them from gaining visceral fat (that’s the nasty fat that gathers in the stomach area, which has been linked to diabetes and heart disease) a year after weight loss.
Stop smoking
Research has found that 10 to 15 minutes of aerobic exercise can cut nicotine cravings. A separate study found that cardio can also make images of smokers and smoking less attractive to smokers.
See things clearly
A study in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science found that subjects who ran between two and four kilometres a day had a risk of developing age-related macular degeneration 19 per cent lower than those who didn’t. The study also found that those who ran more lowered the risk for developing macular degeneration by up to 54 per cent.
Lower your breast cancer risk
A study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that women either exercised at a moderate pace for 2.5 hours or took part in vigorous activity for 75 minutes a week lowered their risk of dying from breast cancer by one third. For women who did twice as much cardio, the risk was lowered by 55 per cent.
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