Is The Sun Good Or Bad For Your Health?

Welcome to the positive corner of the internet. Every weekday, we make sense of the confusing world of wellness by analyzing the headlines, simplifying the latest research, and offering quick tips designed to make you healthier in less than 5 minutes. If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free daily email here.

Today’s Health Upgrade

• Monday motivation

• Is the sun good or bad for your health?

• Jumpstart your week

• Workout of the week

Arnold’s Corner
Monday Motivation

I hear from a lot of people who have just started their fitness journeys.

I see your frustration. Your struggles.

You send emails about how the new exercises hurt. They’re hard. Changing what you eat to be healthier isn’t easy either. You tell me about your missteps.

You miss workouts, cheat on your diet, and write to me like it’s the end of the world. I know a lot of you give up after these failures.

I need you to stop that. You can’t quit on yourself because of a setback.

In Be Useful, I said:

“Failure has never killed a dream; quitting kills every dream it touches.”

When you are building new habits, it’s going to be hard. You’re going to have missed days. You’re going to fail. You need to plan for that.

You need to learn to forgive yourself and just get back on the plan instead of beating yourself up and quitting out of frustration.

You want perfection, but none of us are perfect.

Not even me. I have days where someone puts delicious pastries or ice cream in front of me, and my famous discipline disappears.

And then, the next day, I just return to my healthy habits. I don’t give up and quit.

I can tell you this works because I also hear from people who are a year or two into their fitness journeys.

In the Pump app, I’ve heard from people who have lost 40, 50, and even 120 pounds. I’ve heard from men who reversed high blood pressure or pre-diabetes. I’ve heard from menopausal women who discovered they love working out — and more importantly — they discovered their new strength makes them feel less pain and more control in their daily lives.

When you hear these success stories, it’s easy to imagine they didn’t have any setbacks.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. I hear from them. I know they have struggles. I know they failed in their diet and missed workouts.

The difference between those who transformed their lives and those still waiting on their success stories is that they learned to treat failures as speedbumps instead of stop signs.

When they miss a workout, they forgive themselves and do it the next day. When they eat a whole pizza, they let it go and get back to healthy eating.

When their weight loss seems unbearably slow, and their goal feels far away, they just keep going.

I’ve had people with a lot of weight to lose tell me they’re disappointed they only lost one pound that week.

I remind them that if they did that for a year, they’d lose 52 pounds, and certainly, they wouldn’t consider that a failure.

I want all of you to learn the power of not giving up. Just keep going.

It will never be perfect. There will never be a month without a setback. It will never be easy.

But if you show up every day, and you just keep going, you’ll look back in a year and be shocked at how far you’ve come.

If you give up, you will never give yourself that chance.

Just keep going.

Health
Is The Sun Good Or Bad For Your Health?

When we suggest getting outdoors, it’s not just because it can improve your mood — it might also lead to a longer life. 

Research suggests that people who get outdoors and spend time in the sun live longer than those who stay indoors. 

While sun-exposure studies are all observational, several analyses come to a similar conclusion that a little bit of fresh air and sunlight is good for your health. 

One study found that people who spend more time in the sun live up to two years longer. Another analysis examined 143 studies involving more than 290 million people from 20 countries.

The research suggests that spending time outdoors is associated with a reduction in type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, premature death, and high blood pressure. And it might also increase sleep duration and decrease stress levels.

But don’t twist sunlight with no protection from the sun. Research also suggests that sun exposure without sun protection leads to an increase in cancer risk. 

Research suggests that a little more than 15 minutes per day outside can improve overall health and well-being. 

Jumpstart Your Week

Health
What We’re Reading: Are We Close To A Life-Expanding Breakthrough?

New research in mice has some people suggesting we’re closer to determining the upper limits of lifespan. The reality is that there’s so much we don’t know about targeting the “senescent cells” linked to aging. 

On one hand, it appears that if you can remove or change these cells, you could stop aging. 

On the other hand, those same cells are also involved with the development and care for important tissues and organs, inflammation control, tumor suppression, and other vital roles in immunity. We tend to oversimplify and overlook very real limitations and boundaries in the excitement of what could be possible. 

Will we one day figure out how to live forever? That’s unlikely, and we’re not sure that’s the right question.

Based on all the current research, a much more likely outcome is learning how to age more gracefully and fight off many diseases that speed up aging and make end of life so challenging and (too often) painful. If you ask us, we won’t put limits on science (even though we consider aging and death the natural parts of life). But we believe the goal isn’t to live forever — it’s to live healthier, happier, and better. 

Fitness
The Calorie Burner

Two weeks ago, we shared our love of rucking. One note, in particular, caught your attention. 

Studies have found that rucking helps you burn 100 more calories per hour than jogging at a moderate pace. And if you compare it to walking, researchers from South Carolina estimate that rucking can burn at least 2 to 3 times more calories than walking. 

But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Research from the 1970s found that carrying weight on your back just affects calorie burn differently. And just this year, researchers found the same thing—you burn more calories when you use a rucksack or a weighted backpack.

We love rucking for many reasons (we outlined them here), and the extra calorie burning is just the cherry on top. But since so many of you were fascinated by the potential of extra fat loss, we wanted to share a tool that might get you even more excited about your next ruck. 

Outside put together a calorie-burn estimator, which shows how much harder your body works when carrying weights. 

If you want to try rucking, we highly recommend the products from GORUCK. They are designed to carry extra weight so you won’t hurt your back, and the rucks are built to last with their lifetime guarantee. 

As a benefit of being part of the positive corner of the internet, you get 20% OFF your entire purchase. If you’re in the US, use the code “PUMP20GORUCK” for 20% off your order. And if you’re in the EU, use the code “PUMP20EU.”

Fitness
Workout of the Week

Most of the workouts we share are not just designed to be efficient, schedule-friendly, and flexible enough to do with minimal equipment. They are also meant to teach you intensity. If you’re going to train for less time, then you want to make sure you push your body to the limit and then call it a day. 

This workout is another example of maximizing intensity, working every muscle in your body, and doing it all in as little as 15 minutes. 

The Workout: Perform 1 set of each exercise for 30 seconds. Once you complete one set of each exercise (that’s one round), rest for 2 to 3 minutes. Then repeat again. Try to complete anywhere from three to six rounds.

Exercise 1: Overhead press

Exercise 2: Alternating dumbbell lunges

Exercise 3: Dumbbell row

Exercise 4: Goblet squat

Exercise 5: Farmer’s walk

Note: If you don’t have any dumbbells, load up a backpack or rucksack with anything that makes it heavier. You can perform any of the exercises by using the backpack.

Give it a try, and let us know how it goes!

 —

Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell