Come on asthmatics, it's time to excercise!

If you have asthma it is paramount that you exercise, because the benefits of exercise coupled with a healthy diet not only help you lose weight, but it can help you better manage your asthma.

Even if it's just a simple walk, exercise has many benefits.  According to the Mayo Clinic:

• Makes your heart and lungs stronger.
• Increases your energy level.
• Increases your stamina and decreases fatigue
• helps you sleep better and improve your concentration
• helps you combat chronic disease
• Improves your mood, confidence and self esteem
• Reduces stress and anxiety
• Improves your immune system, which improves your ability to stave off nasty viruses and the flu.

Take a look at yourself in the mirror.  Do you have extra fat around your waist?  Do you have a pot belly?  Did you get winded as you walked back from the mirror to your computer to read this?  Be honest.  Your asthma may cause you problems, but being out of shape may be compounding the problem.

Sure, if your asthma is out of control, or if you have a cold, you should lay low.  But once you have your asthma under control, which should be easy to do once you see your doctor and get yourself on a good asthma management plan, you should be ready to exercise. 

If you have exercise-induced asthma, then you can premedicate as directed by your physician. Come one!  No excuses! 

When I was 14 my asthma was so bad I had no choice but not to exercise.  But after I was shipped to an asthma hospital in Denver, as soon as they had my asthma even somewhat controlled they had me in the gym doing aerobics.

Even back then, in 1985, it was well known the advantages of exercise as a tool to control asthma.  Even Teddy Roosevelt, back in the 1860s when there were no bronchodilators to control asthma, was encouraged by his doctor to exercise to improve his body size and improve his lung function. Hey, this isn't new wisdom.

Even the best of us have our lapses, though.  And, like many of you, life sometimes takes over and exercise doesn't happen.  So, even though I learned the benefits of exercise at a young age, I still -- like many of you -- had to learn the hard way.

As a kid I was able to eat whatever I wanted and never gain wait.  As I grew older, and kept eating the same, all this eating eventually caught up with me (sound familiar?). By the time I was 28 I was winded with minimal exertion and I was 40 pounds over weight.  Worst of all, my asthma was getting worse.

I just got a new job as an RT near my hometown.  I packed my clothing, hauled dusty boxes to my new home, and caught a cold.  My chronic asthmatic lungs, incapable of handling all this at once, started shutting down.

A few days later, a sweet old lady COPD patient of mine said to me while she was puffing on her breathing treatment:  "You look worse than I feel."