Exercise for the right reasons

NEW YORK -- Dr. Lisa Callahan says too many women exercise for the wrong reason.

They see it as a way to change their physical appearance - tighten the tummy, tone the biceps, strengthen the quads, drop a few pounds. If results don't follow, she says, they're likely to stop.

But there are benefits that no mirror can reflect. Exercise is a way to take charge of one's health, to get fit and stay fit.

Although fitness has many definitions, Callahan, author of "The Fitness Factor" and a well-known specialist in sports medicine, has her own. "As a physician, I think of fitness as the sum of four components that, together, allow the human body to function at its best."

These include a healthy heart, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility and a healthy amount of fat on the body. That means exercise along with a sensible diet.

Yet government statistics show that less than a third of Americans meet federal recommendations for exercise (at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity at least five days a week), and 40 percent of U.S. adults engage in no recreational physical activity.

In the last 20 years, obesity has doubled among adults to 61 percent and tripled among adolescents who are counted in the 13 percent of young people who are overweight. While the nation is adding girth, the government says a puny 3 percent of the population meets at least four of the five federal recommendations in the Food Guide Pyramid for the intake of grains, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and meats.

Further, when the weight goes up, so can the blood pressure, which increases the risk of stroke or heart attack. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in America, and those deaths each year include many of the 300,000 related to obesity and overweight.

Despite all of the known health benefits of exercise, only 15 percent to 20 percent of adult women exercise on a regular basis.

Such depressing numbers would give many health and fitness professionals reason to fold their tents and stop preaching. Callahan isn't among them. She's trying to spread the word to all those other women.

Her book, subtitled "Every Woman's Key to a Lifetime of Health and Well-Being (The Lyons Press, $24.95 hardcover), tells women that exercise goes hand in glove with "increasing energy, controlling weight, preventing heart disease, fighting osteoporosis and diabetes, reducing stress, decreasing cancer risk, looking and feeling younger, lowering cholesterol, having better sex and much, much more."

She also says women are never too old to start on the road to fitness. All that women of any age need to start with is a plan of their own, and Callahan's book is a good beginning.

Dieting alone, she says, is doomed to spiral into failure. Women who don't exercise lose muscle mass, beginning in their late 20s. Muscle burns calories, fat doesn't. So loss of muscle means lowered metabolism and corresponding weight gain.

But women tend to look to dieting to deal with the weight, she says. At any one time, she writes, "two out of every three women are dieting in an effort to shed those excess pounds. We spend upwards of $30 billion every year trying to lose weight."

Fewer calories alone won't do it. When you lose weight without exercising, you lose muscle along with the fat. When the weight comes back, and it most likely will, it will come back as all fat. No muscle.

Set realistic goals, work through the potential obstacles and design a personal fitness plan. Callahan's book offers guidance, and notes that the plan doesn't have to include the expense of health club or space-hogging equipment at home. Rather, you are the key component of your workout and your well-being, she says.

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Dr. Lisa Callahan, a specialist in medical and musculoskeletal conditions of women athletes, is co-founder and medical director of the Women's Sports Medicine Center at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York and an assistant professor of medicine at Cornell University Medical College. She co-hosts "Speaking of Women's Health" on Lifetime Television.

On the Web:

Lyons Press - http://www.lyonspress.com

National Institutes of Health - http://medlineplus.gov