Aerobic activity is necessary to grow, repair and maintain healthy body tissue. Every cell in your body is constantly at work. Before you were born your body was producing new cells at the rate of 15,000 each minute, and eventually you reached a total of 50 trillion cells (assuming that you are a normal-sized adult). New cell material is constantly replacing old and damaged material. The effects of aging appear when the cells are not able to reproduce themselves fast enough to repair damaged body tissues.

Every tissue in your body is made up of specialized cells for specific bodily functions. Each specialized cell is a sophisticated factory that performs very complex functions as it processes nutrients and minerals to produce new cell material, and for this process there must be an abundant supply of oxygen. Oxygen and nutrients must arrive at the cells in correct proportions. Without enough oxygen to assimilate them, nutrients cannot be processed and will be eliminated from your system unused. Aerobic activity helps your body to optimize its oxygen intake so that there will always be an ample supply to assimilate its nutrition.

Without aerobic activity your body’s oxygen supply is depleted. Minerals and nutrition in your system will be wasted, leading to premature aging. Ligaments turn weak and are easily torn. Muscles turn lax and fill with fat. Bones become brittle. Both the blood and the bones need an abundant supply of calcium, but the blood needs it more. If the blood is not able to assimilate enough calcium from its nutrition because of an inadequate oxygen supply, the blood will actually steal the calcium it needs from the bones, making them fragile and leading to osteoporosis. Read the rest of this entry »