HEALTH & FITNESS

• Physical Fitness
• Beginner's Walking Program
  
  
  

Physical Fitness*
Everyone knows that exercise is good for your health and will help you lose weight. But the truth is, it's not always fun. Even people who do it regularly, don't always love it everyday. I'm one of them, so I know!

Then you may ask, "so why do it?" The answer is plain and simple, because you want to look better and get the health benefits that go along with it. Believe it or not, even though exercise isn't always fun while you are doing it, you will usually feel great afterwards.

General Benefits of Exercise

• Reduce Percentage of Fat in the Body
• Reduce Eating Impulse - Desire to Eat
• Reduce Stress - Anxiety - Tension
• Reduce Chance of Weight Gain
• Lower Cholesterol
• Lowers LDL
• Raises HDL
• Improves Cardiac Reserve
• Increases Basal Metabolic Rate

Before we talk about why you should exercise regularly, let's look at the types of exercise you need to do. You'll get the best results from aerobic exercise.

Aerobic means "with air" and it refers to activities that are of moderate intensity, can be kept up for long periods of time, and use large muscle groups such as the legs and arms.

Examples are walking, cycling, swimming, rowing, cross crountry skiing, running, jogging, stair climbing, soccer, skipping rope, skating and cycling.

You may ask, what are the specific benefits of aerobic exercise? Here are the ones related to weight control:

1. Exercise burns calories. Combined with a reduction in food calories, exercise will help you lose weight.
2. Aerobic exercise burns fat as fuel. During the first 30 minutes of exercise, you use both stored carbohydrate (glycogen) and fat. After 30 minutes you burn mostly fat.
3. Exercise can increase your muscle mass. It can also protect muscle loss during strict dieting. Since muscle uses up more calories than fat, a large muscle mass means you can take in more calories without gaining weight.
4. Moderate exercise decreases your appetite. Studies show that light intensity exercises can increase your appetite. Very high intensity activities will initially decrease your appetite, but several hours later you will be hungrier. On the other hand, moderate intensity exercises seem to affect your brain's appetite control center, decreasing your desire to eat.
5. Exercise helps reduce stress and depression, both common causes of overeating. It not only provides an outlet for aggression, but the hormones produced by exercise also play a role in decreasing stress and depression.
   
   

You'll get the most health benefits by exercising regularly. Here's a list of benefits for exercising. Use this list to help convince yourself why you need to include your friends, spouse or children to do it with you.

• Exercise can decrease your risk for devleoping heart disease in several ways.

  • Regular exercise.
    • Reduces high blood pressure, even without changes in diet.
    • Controls cholesterol levels by decreasing the "bad" type of cholesterol in your blood and increasing the "good" type.
    • Helps reduce high blood triglyceride levels through weight loss.
    • Helps control diabetes by increasing the use of sugar by the body and aiding in weight loss.
    • Strengthens the heart muscle. More blood is pumped with each beat so the heart doesn't have to work as hard.
    • Even helps you quit smoking! Studies show that many smokers quit spontaneously when they start an exercise program.
      
• Regular weight-bearing exercise helps decrease your risk of developing osteoporosis (a thinning of the bones) by increasing the amount of calcium absorbed by the bones.
• Exercise helps you to sleep better, providing you don't do it too close to bedtime.
• Regular exercise helps keep your bowels regular and prevents constipation.
• By increasing the fluid that lubricates joints, exercise can help arthritics move around easier.

I'm sure you'll agree that exercise has a lot of benefits. Now let's talk about what you can do to get these benefits.

Have you ever heard of the F.I.T. principle? It stands for:

• Frequency
• Intensity
• Time

Frequency relates to how often you exercise. Your activity must be done on a regular basis from three times up to six times per week.

Intensity relates to how hard. Your activity must be performed with greater intensity than everyday activity to get the health benefits. It should also be done from three times up to six times per week.

Lastly, Time relates to how long. Your activity must be performed with greater intensity than everyday activity for 20 minutes to get the health benefits. It also should be done from three times up to six times per week.

Here's a chart that may help you determine your fitness goals:

So now you have an idea of what you are looking to accomplish.

Need to Lose Weight before starting an exercise program?
Click here for information.

Next, you'll need to calculate your maximum heart rate to determine your intensity. To do this, you need to know what it is. You can calculate your intensity from your pulse. You can find it in your wrist (inside on the thumb side) or in your neck (to the side of your Adam's Apple).

If you take your pulse in your neck, don't press too hard or you may feel lightheaded. Use your index and middle fingers to feel your heart rate since your thumb has it's own pulse.

Once you locate your pulse, count for ten seconds and multiply by six or count for fifteen seconds and multiply by four. Either way, you'll get your heart rate in beats per minute.

You'll want to take your pulse halfway through your workout and then again at the end.

Here's how you can determine your target heart rate range:

• Subtract your age from 220 to get your maximum heart rate.
• Multiply your maximum heart rate first by .60 (60%) then by .85 (85%). This will give you your target heart rate range.
• Here's an example for a 40-year old person:
  • 220 - 40 = 180 (maximum heart rate)
  • 180 * .60 = 108
  • 180 * .85 = 153
  • Target heart rate range: 108 - 153

You should plan on adding the F.I.T. principle into all of your workouts.

Additionally, you'll want to add a warm-up and cool-down period as well. Both of these should be 5-10 minutes of low level activities such as slow walking, low level biking or walking in place.

After you are done, you need to stretch, too. Stretches should be done in a slow, smooth manner without bouncing. Hold each stretch for 10-15 seconds.

It's important that you don't skip either the warm-up or cool-down. The warm-up gets your muscles ready to work out and can help to prevent soreness or injuries.

Then the cool-down helps to prevent soreness. But more importantly, it assists in getting blood back to the heart after exercise so you don't feel lightheaded or dizzy.

Now let's look at the other components of exercise. We just talked about Cardiorespiratory Endurance. Let's review and add the rest.

Five Components of Physical Fitness

Cardiorespiratory Endurance - the ability to delivery oxygen and nutrients to tissues and to remove wastes over sustained periods of time. Long runs and swims are one way that can measure this component.

Muscular Strength - the ability of a muscle to exert force for a brief period of time. Upper-body strength, for example, can be measured by various weight-lifting exercises.

Muscular Endurance - the ability of a muscle, or a group of muscles, to sustain repeated contractions or to continue applying force against a fixed object. Push-ups are often used to test endurance of arm and shoulder muscles.

Flexibility - the ability to move joints and use muscles through their full range of motion. The sit-and-reach test is a good measure of flexibility of the lower back and backs of the upper legs.

Body Composition - refers to the makeup of the body in terms of lean mass (muscle, bone, vital tissue and organs) and fat mass. An optimal ratio of fat to lean mass is an indication of fitness and the righ types of exercise will help you decrease body fat and increase or maintain muscle mass.

How often, how long, how hard and what kind of exercises you do should be determined by what you are trying to accomplish. Your goals, your current fitness level, age, health, skills, interest and convenience are among the things to consider.

For example, an athlete training for high-level competition would follow a different program than a person whose goals are good health.

Your exercise program should include something from each of the basic components. Each workout should begin with a warm-up and end with a cool-down. Remember, you need to burn 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of body fat.

Although most people will have no problems with exercise, problems to occur that may need medical attention. If you experience any of the following, stop and consult your doctor.

• Chest pain or pain in the arms, neck, jaw or upper back. If pain lasts longer than two minutes after stopping, seek medical attention immediately.
• Nausea
• Dizziness or lightheadedness
• Unusual or severe fatigue
• Several leg pain or cramps
• Severe shortness of breath

Now that you know what you should be doing, it's time to get started.

Pick something you enjoy doing. If you like being with a group of people, try a team sport or bicycle or swim with a group. Remember, you don't have to be a super athlete. Anyone can exercise. Social activities like dancing and mall walking are also good.

Don't kid yourself. Be honest about what you realistically think you can do. If you have always hated to climb stairs, step aerobics probably isn't for you. Maybe a walk is more for you. Many people today are walking toward fitness. Click here to start a walking program.

Take into account how much physical exercise you are currently doing. If you haven't exercised in years, you'll definitely want to start with some modest activities. After you get going, you can increase your activity.

Next thing to consider is your schedule. Are you a morning person? If so, then plan to exercise in the morning. If you're like me, the snooze button wins! So, I usually exercise at lunch or in the evening.

Start with a block of time, maybe 15 minutes. As you get into your routine, expand that time to 20, then 30 minutes. To get the maximum benefit, you'll want to exercise 3 to 4 times per week.

Before you know it, you'll be having fun and exercising five times per week! Just remember, if you do something for 21 days, you form a habit. So what habit are you forming?

What are you waiting for? As Nike says, JUST DO IT!

Return to top

Beginner's Walking Program
Walking is one of the easiest fitness programs to begin! All you need is a good pair of shoes, comfortable clothing and most importantly, a desire to be more fit.