Womans health: exercise

Working with women has shown me that, no matter skin colour, religious beliefs, or qualifications, almost all women select a clothes size or a number on the scales as the measurement of fitness. And that is just plain WRONG!

I have witnessed a women who is a perfect size 8 not able to do a complete work out because of lack of strength. I've also witnessed a women cry because she didn't want to believe she was 11 stone even though she had a lower fat count then a woman of only 9 stone.

Fitness is not just how we look, but also how we feel and our endurance. Fitness does mean endurance in the dictionary, therefore defining fitness by size or weight alone is just plain wrong.

I have learned from CURVES to celebrate being strong and healthy and being a woman with curves.

In church we've talked about the value of walking or playing golf for de-stressing. But did you know regular exercise can also help prevent diseases such as Cancer, Osteoporosis, Dementia, Alzheimers, and Heart Disease?

The latest study that was in the news on October 4, 2005 has shown just exercising enough to get out of breath two times a week can diminish the risk of getting Alzheimers by 50%. Log on to www.bbc.co.uk to read the full report.

Exercise can also help 'lubricate' your joints to help decrease the pain of arthritis. There is no easy way to say it but we will all be 75 years old and wouldn't it be nice to be active with our grandchildren as oppose to being ill or in pain because we didn't take just a little time out of our busy schedule to exercise.

If you have not exercised for a while or have a medical condition, then check with your doctor first!

I would recommend some type of low impact class such as a body conditioning class or Pilates. In order to get a proper work out incorporate strength training if you decide to use a cardiovascular machine.

If you like to walk that is a great and free exercise, but you need to walk fast enough to get your heart rate up.

Monitor your heart rate regularly while you are exercising. Experts agree that this is the best way to see if you are not doing enough or doing too much.

As a rough guide, for your body to burn its stored fat your heart rate only needs to be about 60-70% higher than your resting rate - any higher and your body will start to build muscle. You just don't need to go flat out 'pumping iron'!

If you want a more precise value for your 'training' heart rate range, then use this calculator - it takes account of your age, your fitness level and your rest heart rate.

To keep your heart rate in the right range while your are exercising:

• Use the calculator to find your 'ideal' training heart rate for the ten second period.
• Look at your watch or the clock in the room then count your heart rate over ten seconds.
• Compare it with your training number and slow down or speed up a bit to get in the range.

It's very simple and should be done every 7 minutes, while you are exercising, to get the results you desire. Note: we use ten second periods, because if you stopped for a whole minute then your heart rate would start to slow down!

Whatever exercise you choose remember to stretch after your work out or else you will loose 19% of the exercise time you just did. Don't stretch before because you may strain muscles that are not warmed up.

My name is Charlene and I would like to tell you a little bit about myself and what I do. My husband, Frank, and I own and operate a women's fitness centre in Crawley called CURVES. [Now you all know why we have curves stickers all over our Beetle.] The founder of CURVES is a guy called Gary Heavin - he has been on a number of talk shows, magazines, and written two best selling books.

Gary and his wife Dianne designed the machines and circuit to work in harmony with a women's body. There are 9,000 clubs in the world. In fact there are two CURVES to every one McDonalds in North America! If you would like more information on the centre log on to www.curves.com