When I was younger, in my teens and early-to-late twenties, I exercised practically every day. It was a key component of my high school, college and early work career lifestyle. I didn't give much thought to what I ate, much less the type of vitamins and minerals I should take. As I settled into marriage and a demanding job, I lost interest in the benefit of physical exercise. Once I hit a certain age, my metabolism went into slow motion and the weight started to pile up. I got to the point where I had to do something - but I didn't want to take time to exercise. So I ended up starting the Atkins' Diet. It was very interesting learning about how carbohydrates, fats and proteins interact in general with the body. But, it was more fascinating learning how my body reacted to the adjustments I was making in each of these areas. I had some great success with the diet, but I still had a question in my mind about why nutrition is important when exercising? I just wanted to diet the pounds away and had little interest by now in exercising regularly. Anyway, I did some reading and found out why I should add a nutrition focus to the exercising that I should be doing.

Once I committed to exercising, the results were faster than expected. This was mainly because I hadn't remembered some keys things.

1. Increased Metabolism - As soon as I started losing some weight and began exercising a little, my metabolism increased slightly. I could go to sleep and continue losing weight overnight. I could also hedge on my diet a little and not crash my weight loss.
2. Increased Energy - The increase in metabolism was nice, but I was most pleased with my increase in energy. I was more alert. I could do more things physically that I hadn't done in a long time. My sleep was more restful, too.
3. Combined with Proper Nutrition - Once I was commited to exercising and proper nutrition, my metabolism and energy increased even more. I started to use high quality nutritional supplements and some organic foods.
4. Muscle vs Fat - One of the most important things that I came to realize was that it's easier to burn calories when you have replaced your fat with muscle. Muscles support a consistently higher metabolism rate [I learned this from Muscle & Fitness magazine].

The benefit of physical exercise was so important to me regaining my healthy lifestyle. I am sure you too can obtain similar results.