Time to do it now
If you're over 40, you're middle-aged, and there's just no way around it. Fitness becomes increasingly critical as you age, especially as you approach and go through menopause. Commit to getting or staying healthy now. Decide on a fitness plan you can really stay with, and make it a part of your life from now on.
Benefits
According to Debra Waterhouse, author of "Outsmarting the Midlife Fat Cell," exercising will help fight fatigue, make you mentally alert, help you sleep, reduce hot flashes, and reduce your risk of heart disease and breast cancer. Miriam Nelson, author of "Strong Women Stay Young," says strength training improves balance (which helps prevent falls and fractures), halts bone loss, increases your energy and helps control weight. The best fitness plan will incorporate both cardio workouts and strength training.
Cardio: More than Walking
As you age, it's important to strengthen your heart with aerobic exercise. But your usual two-mile walk may not be enough to keep your heart strong and the weight off. If you're just starting to get fit, it should work fine. But if walking has been your main form of exercise for some time now, you'll probably have to make it more strenuous to reap the most benefit. Waterhouse suggests you try adding hills to your route, walking at a significantly faster pace, alternating walking and jogging, or adding weights.
Vary your fitness activities to include swimming, working out on gym equipment, bicycling or rock climbing. Whatever keeps you interested and committed will work, as long as you are exercising about four days a week, for about 60 minutes, at 70 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. Waterhouse says middle-aged female fat won't really budge at lower levels of exertion.
Find a handy tool for figuring your target heart rate at the Mayo Clinic website. Just enter your age, and you can print out a chart of your target zone, and some tips on checking your pulse.
Strength Training
Dr. Nelson says that strength training is "a fountain of youth." She contrasts the average woman, who begins losing bone and muscle at around age forty, with the woman who lifts weights. After one year, the weight lifter's body will be 15 to 20 years younger by the measure of bone density and strength tests.
Strength training can be done on exercise equipment, or with free weights. Small dumbbells and sets of ankle weights are all the gear needed to go the free weights route. Dr. Nelson outlines a program you can do at home, or your fitness center will be glad to help you set up a routine to do there.
Get Started
By now you know yourself well. Analyze your options. Decide what kind of cardio workout you will really do and commit to that activity. Decide how you will pursue strength training, and make the appointments or purchases necessary to get that going. But before you start, check with your doctor to make sure there's no reason you shouldn't begin your chosen over-40 fitness plan.
Tags: fitness plan, free weights, heart rate, strength training, strength training, your fitness
