Part I
Getting Your Butt off the Couch
In this part . . .
This part helps you get going on a fitness program, no matter what shape youâre in. Chapter 1 explains what fitness really means and helps you devise a game plan. You find out how to set realistic goals, track your progress, and make exercise a habit. Chapter 2 explains the important first step toward getting in shape: testing your fitness. You can either do this on your own or hire a professional. Chapter 3 gives you the lowdown on healthy eating, including how to slim down without going hungry. Chapter 4 tells you how to become a savvy consumer of fitness media, including TV, Web sites, and blogs, so that you can distinguish accurate news reports from misleading fluff. In Chapter 5, we explain how to protect your muscles and joints from injury and what steps to take if you do sprain an ankle or strain a muscle.
Chapter 1
Establishing Your Plan of Attack
In This Chapter
Defining fitness
Pushing yourself with goals
Choosing the right exercises for you
Making exercise a habit
If youâre reading this chapter, youâve decided to get fit. (Or like wannabe chefs whose action plan amounts to sitting on the couch watching cooking shows, youâre pretending to get fit by reading this book!) Although transforming yourself from couch potato to fit, lean, exercise machine doesnât take a PhD in physiology, youâll have more success if you know whatâs in store.
This chapter explains what the term fitness really means, whatâs involved in becoming fit (no, you neednât quit your job and take up residence in a gym), how to get started, and how to stay motivated. We want to help make fitness a permanent and enjoyable part of your lifestyle (rather than some weird hobby, like UFO hunting, that you once took up for a month before moving on to something else).
Understanding What Fitness Means
Fitness, which some people refer to as wellness, has a lot of different meanings. You can be fit to run 5 miles, fit to hoist 200 pounds, fit to do a headstand in a yoga class or transform yourself into a pretzel. You can look fit â that is, lean â and not actually have much stamina, strength, flexibility, or balance. Or you can possess all those attributes but still consume doughnuts and soda for breakfast â not what weâd call a health-conscious diet. Itâs a rare human being who is a champ in all respects, and we donât expect that of anyone, including ourselves.
Individuals need to pick and choose which areas of fitness to focus on, the ones that make the most sense for the goals they have and the lives they lead. Still, it doesnât take that much effort to achieve a basic level of physical fitness in the five key areas: cardio, strength, flexibility, balance, and nutrition.
Cardio fitness: Workouts that get your heart pumping and continuously work a lot of large muscles such as the arms, torso, and legs are known as cardio (short for cardiovascular) exercises. These activities, such as walking, cycling, and using an elliptical machine, improve your heart, lungs, blood vessels, stamina, and, to some extent, strength. Cardio workouts also burn plenty of calories, which can help you lose weight. Check out Chapters 6 through 9 for a primer on cardio exercise, both indoors and out.
Strength training: Whereas some men focus on weight training to the exclusion of all other fitness activities (you may meet a buff bodybuilder who canât run a mile), some women shy away from lifting weights for fear of looking like that buff bodybuilder. In fact, for reasons we explain in Chapter 10, both men and women should incorporate some strength training into their fitness programs.
Flexibility: Unlike cardio exercise and strength training, flexibility training â also known as stretching â doesnât get any glory in the fitness world unless you happen to be a gymnast or a dancer. Most people skip stretching altogether or do a few cursory toe touches and call it a day. Thatâs because the benefits of stretching your muscles and joints arenât immediately obvious; being flexible doesnât make you slender or buff or able to outrun your teenager. So why bother? Because as you age, your joints become less mobile. Maintaining your flexibility through the exercises in Chapter 14, yoga (Chapter 16), or Pilates (Chapter 17) helps minimize your risk of falling and getting injured while allowing you to continue moving with grace and good posture even into old age.
Balance: If flexibility is the forgotten stepchild of fitness, then balance is the ignored twice-removed third cousin. But like flexibility, balance is an aspect of fitness thatâs important when youâre young and absolutely essential when youâre not. A good sense of balance helps you move more fluidly and prevents unnecessary falls. Even if you have no aspirations to become a tightrope walker, doing the basic balance moves that we describe in Chapter 15 should be more than enough to help you maintain your sense of balance. Think your balance is already stellar? Take the balance tests described in that chapter and see how you rate.
Nutrition: When you make wise food choices (ahem, that means nixing the peanut-butter cookie in favor of the whole-wheat toast with peanut butter), you have more energy to exercise, and you recover more quickly from your workouts. And of course, cleaning up your eating habits is the key to losing weight. But when youâre faced with conflicting research reports and sneaky marketing tactics by food manufacturers, making good choices is tough. High protein or high carb? Do you really need eight glasses of water a...
