I recently spoke to my physician about my weight-loss goals. She expressed that in addition to monitoring caloric intake, that it’s important to find a workout regime that include weight training. I admitted to her that I had been slacking off a lot.
I told her how good I had felt a few years ago when I was working out 5x a week. We also talked about a workout buddy system and personal trainers, both of which I’ve had in the past. My personal trainer was a young guy named Joe. Joe was the quarterback on Coe College’s football team and was assigned to me through a personal training course. But that was several years ago when I worked and lived in Iowa.
Quite frankly, my doctor told me to start eating healthier foods, find a workout buddy and regime, and to stop making excuses. She also referred me to the American Heart Association’s website for weights to improve my fitness level with weight training.
Well, I logged onto to http://www.americanheart.org/ and found an article weight lifiting and middle-aged wonene. Apparently, “women who lift weights twice a week can prevent or at least slow middle-aged spread. Their study of overweight and obese women found that strength training dramatically reduces icreases in abdominal fat compared to similar women who merely received advice about exercise. The women in the two-year weight-training program decreased body fat percentage by 3.7 percent, while body fat percentage remained stable in the controls. The strength training reduced intra-abdominal fat, which is more closely associated with heart disease and metabolic disturbances. More specifically, the women who did strength training experienced a 7 percent increase in intra-abdominal fat compared to a 21 percent increase in intra-abdominal fat among controls, a difference of 15 percentage points.
One of the most frigthening thoughts noted from the article was that you’re considered obese when you have a BMI over 25. My doctor mentioned that my BMI was too high for my height and age but I didn’t hear a number. And, now I’m afraid to call back.
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