Imagine yourself with a fit healthy body, able to enjoy life and carryout all your day to day activities without any difficulty. There is enough and more evidence to show that over-weight leads to long term health problems and that slimming medication does not help reduce weight and may involve serious health risks.

Our muscles make up about 40% of the body. Muscular activity is closely connected to the workings of other important organ functions, such as the heart, circulation and respiration. Therefore regular physical work or exercise is necessary to maintain the performance of the body and its organs at a satisfactory level.

Such performance also needs managing of your body energy levels, its efficient storage and its use.

Exercise for fitness

Why Exercise? Exercise improves general health, self-confidence and your physical appearance. It makes you feel better, facilitate weight loss and helps improve the figure. Physically active people tend to have less cardio-vascular disease than those who are inactive. This programme is for you to be in good shape and be fit and not for a muscular build-up.

When you exercise for health enhancement reasons, a personal exercise program including aerobic activities becomes important. Aerobic activities require oxygen provided by the lungs and cardiovascular system to the muscles. This involves continuous, rhythmic contracting of the major muscle groups.

Your aerobic exercise program will consist of activities such as walking, cycling, swimming, rope skipping, slow jogging, or aerobic dance. These are endurance activities that don’t require excessive speed.

The objectives of a personal exercise programme should be to develop and maintain a desirable level of heart and lung (cardio-respiratory) fitness.

The program will help you perform activities that require stamina or endurance, and thereby slow the natural process of declining physical work capacity as you get older.

When accompanied by moderate reduction in food intake the benefits you see are:

Reduction in fatigue, tension and anxiety,

Improvement in joint function,

Desirable rate of fat weight loss,

Decrease in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease,

Potential reduction in loss of bone mineral, therefore

Lessening the risk of osteoporosis,

Possible decrease in cigarette smoking,

Improvement in appearance and a sense of well-being,

Increase in endurance exercise capacity,

Improvement in ability to perform physical and mental work,

Reduce certain cardiovascular disease risk factors such as overweight, high blood pressure, elevated blood fats and sugar, and feelings of tension and anxiety.

By gradually increasing the amount of exercise performed, you can improve your fitness level in eight to twelve weeks. It is important to realize that very strenuous exercise is not required to improve fitness. A moderate amount of exercise is sufficient, and will be more enjoyable for most people.

Your Personal Exercise Program should include:

Basic Stretching Exercises – warm up

Conditioning exercises – muscular toning

Aerobic exercises – cardiovascular maintenance

Start your program with a warm-up before the conditioning exercise and end with a cool-down routine.

Basic Stretching Exercises

A simple stretching program helps you achieve greater freedom of movement, improve posture, increase physical and mental relaxation, releases muscle tension and reduces risk of injury during exercises.

Warm-up

The purpose of the warm-up phase is to develop and maintain adequate muscle and joint flexibility, and to prepare the body for the conditioning phase of the program.

Stretching exercises and low-intensity endurance exercise are the essential parts of the warm-up. Warm-up results in a gradual increase in heart rate (pulse), body temperature, and blood flow to the muscles. Following these warm-up guidelines will help you avoid muscle stiffness and soreness and may help to avoid injury.

Stretch to the point that you feel a definite pulling sensation in the muscle group involved, but do not strain. Stretching should not result in pain. When performing the exercises, do not bounce rhythmically, but hold the position without movement for 10 seconds. These exercises may be repeated twice. As you hold the position, consciously try to relax the muscles being stretched.

Conditioning Exercise – Muscle toning

This is to give your body muscles strength to carry out day-to-day activities without frequent muscle sprains and back injuries. Strengthening and toning exercises should be carried out for a period of 5 minutes.

You should gradually ease into the conditioning exercise rather than start abruptly at a moderate to high intensity.

Your conditioning routine should exercise your hands, legs and body muscles.

Aerobic exercises – Cardiovascular maintenance

When you start your exercise programme, follow up with five minutes of easy, low- intensity endurance exercise by rope skipping or with your endurance exercise of the type you have chosen. (Brisk walking, rope skipping, cycling, swimming, etc.). It should then be gradually increased to between 20 to 30 minutes at each session.

If you use an exercise cycle, it must be complemented with a rowing machine exercise for a similar duration. When exercising at home, rope skipping, stair climb, and stationary running exercises are equally effective.

Discomfort should not result from a moderate exercise program. You should stop exercising and consult your physician if you develop chest discomfort or pressure, severe shortness of breath, bursts of very rapid or slow heart rate, irregular heart rate, excessive fatigue, marked joint or muscle pain, and dizziness or fainting.

Energy Expenditure for Selected Activities.

You should exercise at least three times per week on non-consecutive days. Increasing the number of daily sessions to four or five per week will increase the rate in improvement in fitness and help speed weight (fat) loss. Exercising more than five days per week may be done if weight loss is the primary goal.

Duration and intensity

Aerobic exercise duration should continue for 10 to 15 minutes at the required intensity. In order to gain a real benefit in your exercise programme for cardiovascular fitness, you should maintain your intensity at 60% to 90% of your maximum heart rate throughout the conditioning duration.

You can work out your maximum heart rate using a simple formula:

220 – age = maximum heart rate. For example, if your age is 40, your maximum heart rate is 180.

Your exercise heart rate should be:

(220 – 40) x 0.8 = 144.

Your (exercise) pulse count for 10 seconds

is 144/6 = 24

During exercises, take a count of your pulse for ten seconds. You should aim your exercise pulse rate to be as shown below.

Age Exercise heart rate

(Approximate counts per ten seconds)

 

• 20 to 24 27

25 to 29 26

30 to 34 25

35 to 39 24

40 to 44 23

45 to 49 22

50 to 55 21

Getting Started

It is extremely important to change exercise habits gradually. If you have not been physically active in the previous two months, start the conditioning exercise component of your program conservatively. Exercise session duration should be set at 10 to 15 minutes with a frequency of three times per week. Increase duration one to five minutes every other session, as tolerated. Gradually increase exercise intensity only after the desired duration of exercise has been achieved. Allow yourself a month or so to adapt to your individual exercise prescription.

All you need to follow this simple exercise program are a step stool, a cushion and a skipping rope.

 

Cool-down

This is the period immediately following the conditioning exercise portion of your program. The purposes of cool-down are to gradually return heart rate to pre-exercise levels, to prevent blood from pooling in the legs, which may cause dizziness, and to stretch the muscles, which have been used in the endurance activity.

Perform the stretching activities outlined in the section on warm-up, which will help relax the muscles, improve or maintain flexibility, and help prevent soreness. The length of the cool-down period is usually five minutes.

Special Considerations

As your exercises will increase body temperature, choose clothing suitable for the activity and the weather or place where you exercise. Do not wear rubberised suits or other clothing designed to increase sweating. These types of garments restrict the evaporative cooling effect of sweat and can lead to dangerously high body temperatures. Also, the weight loss during the time that these garments are worn is mostly water and will be replaced when you drink. In cool weather, wear clothing in layers so you can remove or replace layers as you warm-up and cool-down. A quality, well-fitting walking or jogging shoe is an important consideration, only if you are participating in those particular activities.

Environmental Considerations

During exercise on warm and/or humid days, more blood is directed to the skin to aid in cooling the body and less blood is available for the muscles than on cool days. Heart rate increases in response. On hot days, exercise during a cooler time of the day (morning or evening) or indoors and drink plenty of water. Drink water before and after exercise in warm, humid weather. If you exercise more than 30 minutes, stop to drink water every 10 minutes during exercise.

Enjoyment

In order to be successful in maintaining the exercise habit, choose exercise activities, which you enjoy. If you are comfortable exercising alone, you may prefer to use the exercise sessions as your private time for contemplation and solitude. However, if you enjoy company during exercise, consider exercising with a friend or a family member.

Avoid exercise after a heavy meal or immediately before bedtime. Exercise “first thing in the morning” has the advantage of fulfilling a desire to not allow a busy schedule to sabotage good exercise intentions. Exercise in the early evening after completion of the day’s activities allows relaxation and a positive way to “unwind.”

Injury risk can be minimized by beginning the program conservatively and progressing gradually in duration and intensity. In addition, if you are significantly overweight, choosing non-weight-bearing activities (cycling, swimming, rowing) as opposed to weight-bearing exercise, which emphasizes repetitive “pounding” (running or jumping-type activities), will reduce risk of injury.

Your goal should be to achieve the optimum body composition. That is; fat loss, not necessarily body weight loss or muscular build. The number of calories expended during exercise is dependent upon the exercise intensity, duration and the size of person.

Energy Expenditure for Selected activities

Most persons are able, once a moderate level of conditioning has been achieved, to expend 300 calories during a 30-minute session of exercise. By exercising four sessions per week (300 calories each) and by avoiding fat intake, an one-pound fat loss per week is achievable. One pound of fat equals 3,500 calories.

Jogging can be an enjoyable form of aerobic exercise but it is not for everyone. Most people do not need to exercise daily. (Exceptions to the rule include certain people with heart problems; people with very limited exercise capacities, diabetics, and people who need to lose a large amount of fat weight.) Three, twenty-minute exercise sessions on alternate days per week will result in substantial fitness benefits for most people.

Consider exercising once on the weekend with two exercise sessions during the week. By managing your time wisely and exercising on a consistent schedule, you will be successful in your program. You can save time by not traveling excessive distance to attend an exercise facility. Remember that many successful and busy people find time for regular exercise.

Injury

If you get injured during exercise, you should do the following.

1. Stop exercising immediately.

2. Apply an ice bag on to the affected area

3. Do not apply ice on open wounds

4. Get medical help

This guide is about having a balanced diet for energy management based on eating healthy food in style. It should give you a sense of achievement. Reward yourself with a healthier lifestyle.

Introduce variety without additional cost

Have what’s tasty and good

Remember –

Eat plenty of plant foods – They contain no cholesterol

Reduce animal foods – They are high in cholesterol and fats

Calcium plays a vital role in nerve and muscle function, clotting of blood, enzyme regulation, insulin secretion and overall bone strength. Bones and teeth store 99% of the body’s calcium.

Milk, Yoghurt, cheese, broccoli, and baked beans are a good source. Persons on limited vegetarian based diets may need sufficient calcium-rich foods.

Protein builds and repairs muscle, and manages body organs, hormones, enzymes and antibodies. You can obtain your necessary proteins from lentils, nuts, milk, and eggs.

Eat to enjoy life.

Protein and carbohydrates contain only four calories per gram, where as fat contains nine calories per gram.

Your body converts dietary fat into body fat with ease with only 3 calories, but needs 8 times as many calories to convert dietary protein or carbohydrates into fat.

With conventional diets your body tries to compensate for reduced intake of food by slowing down how fast you burn it. Consequently, your metabolic rate can slow down as much as 25%. So, a restricted diet can stop you losing weight.

Follow this simple energy management chart. As long as you keep close to it you will feel healthier and happier with life. Women need around 1400 to 1800 calories a day, while men need around 1800 to 2600 calories a day depending on their build.

Follow the chart only as a guide. The object is to keep your metabolic rate efficient by maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

The following chart gives an indication of the calorie needs and ideal weight of an average healthy person according to height

Height                weight kg                   cals per day

4’8″                      44 to 52                        1200 to 2000

4’9″                      45 to 54

4’10”                    46 to 56

4’11”                    47 to 58

5.0″                     48 to 60

5’1″                      49 to 62

5″2′                     50 to 64                        1400 to 2200

5″3                     51 to 66

5’4″                    52 to 68

5’5″                    53 to 70

5’6″                    54 to 72                        1300 to 2400

5’7″                    55 to 74

5’8″                    56 to 76

5’9″                    57 to 78

5,10″                 58 to 80

5’11”                 59 to 82                         2000 to 2800

(2.2 lbs equals 1 kg approximately)

TEA

The habit of tea drinking originated in China where its therapeutic effects had been recognised as far back as 200 BC.

A hot cup of Tea is one of the healthiest drinks you can have after your exercise sessions. It is entirely natural, free from artificial additives, processing, colouring and calories.

Tea is a refreshing drink that is both calming and relaxing. It is also known to have properties on reducing heart decease and other ailments.

Tea in an environmentally friendly produce and it still is the cheapest and safest drink in the world.

Golden rules on how to make a good cup of tea:

Use high quality Tea.

Keep tea in an air tight container

Always use fresh water that has just reached bubbling fiercely.

Always heat the pot.

Take tea pot near to kettle and not kettle to pot

Let the tea stand for between 4 to 5 minutes.

Stir the tea in the pot before pouring.

Healthy hints –

Don’t skip meals

Have a good breakfast

Eat fibre rich foods

Always drink plenty of water.

Avoid sweet fizzy drinks

Tea is a good healthy drink.

Eat fresh fruit – it’s always better than squeezed fruit juice.

Use the stairs and avoid the lift whenever possible.

Vitamins and minerals

Vitamins and minerals are essential to maintain your body in good working order. Try to get your daily needs for vitamins and mineral from your daily in-take of food.

The information given in this booklet has been compiled using material gathered from various sources. Therefore it does not provide all the necessary information about Exercise Guidelines and health related issues.

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