Common Sense Approach to Fitness

I’m a 54-year old woman living in menopause.

I have a shocking secret to tell you: Not ever in all my adult life have I exercised “5 times per week” like so-called experts tell you to do.

Years ago the New York Times offered this alternative guideline: to exercise for 150 minutes of vigorous exercise each week. Or for 175 minutes of moderate exercise each week.

Dr. Chatterjee in his book How to Make Disease Disappear lists a 15-minute HIIT (high intensity interval training) exercise routine you can do in your home.

A couple of years ago in the New York Times a champion track-and-field athlete wrote a column. She vetted that when she changed the frequency and intensity of her workouts (shortened them) she had better results.

I can vouch for this because I lift weights 2x per week for 45 minutes total in each session. I train harder because I have a limited time to do so.

Shortening my exercise routines has made all the difference.

Lindsey Vonn the Olympic gold-medal skier in her book Strong is the New Beautiful also empowers readers in this regard.

Vonn believes you’ll love to exercise when you find The Fitness You.

This can be salsa dancing or bike riding or gardening or swimming.

The key factor is to get moving and keep moving throughout the day.

I found my Fitness Me when I started to lift weights. Strength training was the number-one activity that toned my body and sharpened my mind.

To readers everywhere I say: put down the diet books. Find the exercise you like to do and keep doing it as long as it helps. Find something else to do when it better suits you.

At 54 years old I can no longer work out for an hour at a time in each session. I”m more of a sprinter not a marathoner in terms of exercise.

If you think you’re a “failure” because you don’t live up to the standards that so-called experts preach to everyone in America: think again.

I’m here to say that listening to what your body needs and paying attention to the signals your body is giving you matters more than what an expert says who hasn’t met you.

In the coming blog entries I’m going to report on other changes I made living in menopause.

The science backs up these habits.