YOU on a diet - rest of Chapter 7

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The Tone Zones Think of yourself as a homunculus with a studly torso, hips, back, and belly-your body's foundation muscles. When it comes to fighting fat, who cares about muscle-bound biceps and calves? YOU TIPS! Know Your Fantastic Four. Physical activity and exercise are like vegetables; they come in all shapes, sizes, and tastes, and just about all of them are good for you. Depending on your health level and experience, you need to be thinking about including these components of activity in your life: Walking: We do it at the mall, around the house, and back and forth from the fridge to the water bed. And, yes, any walking is healthy (the optimum is to hit at least 10,000 steps a day). But you also need to dedicate a

total of thirty minutes a day to walking (broken up into chunks of at least ten continuous minutes if you need to). It's the foundation for all other exercise because it not only increases your stamina but prepares your body for strength training. As a daily routine, walking is the psychological discipline that helps you stick with an activity plan. In fact, it has the highest compliance rate of any exercise. Commit to walking, and you'll start committing to more than just the TV lineup on Thursday nights. Strength: Even if the only barbell you've seen is the one that's piercing your buddy's tongue, that doesn't mean you should shy away from resistance training. Strength training-whether you use dumbbells, machines, bands, or your own body weight-helps rebuild muscle fibers and increase muscle mass, which will use up all those extra calories that you crave, so you can burn calories more efficiently and help

prevent age-related weight gain. Now, here's the key to making it work: Many Americans tend to spend a lot of time working their peripheral muscles (like their biceps or their calves), but efficient strength training comes when you work the big muscles that make up the core axis of your body-your legs, the large muscles of your upper body (like your chest, shoulders, and back), and your abdominals. They're your foundation muscles. Best of all, you don't need a single piece of equipment to see the benefits One quick note about abdominal exercises: They won't burn fat per se, but they will strengthen your entire core to help flatten and tone your stomach when you do burn fat. And they'll give you a layer of muscular support that will also protect your lower back from injury. The tighter your abs, the less excess strain you'll cause your lower back. You can't

build a house from the second floor down, and, in a way, your abdominal muscles and your entire core provide a base foundation that you can build upon. Cardiovascular Stamina: By doing cardiovascular exercise-that is, any activity that raises your heart rate for a sustained period of time (sorry, watching Clooney movies doesn't count)-you'll increase your overall stamina, burn calories, and improve the function and efficiency of your heart, as well as lower your blood pressure. Getting your body to sweat also helps you to release toxins that would otherwise build up in your tissues. Flexibility: Being flexible isn't just a good trait for yoga teachers and potential spouses; it's also what you want for your muscles. Good flexibility helps prevent injuries to your joints, because stretching works your muscles through a wide range of motion that you'll go through during

exercise and everyday activity. Plus, being flexible just makes you feel better; it keeps your body from feeling stiffer than a week-old roach corpse, helps facilitate meditation, and allows you to center yourself as you focus on your body. Plus, the more pliable and loose you are, the less you're affected when you fall or get into accidents. The you diet Activity Audit What you need to do How Much You Need to Do Walking Ten thousand steps,

total, accumulated throughout the day (with at least thirty minutes of continuous walking) Muscular strength Thirty minutes of resistance exercise a week Cardiovascular stamina Eighty percent of your maximum heart rate (calculated by 220 minus your age) for twenty minutes, three times a week. For a fifty-year-old, the target would be 0.8 times (220 minus 50), which equals 136 beats per minute. Also, you can measure it through exercise intensity. On a scale of one to ten, rate the intensity of your exercise. You should exercise at about a seven or eight on that scale-70 percent to 80 percent of your perceived maximum. Flexibility Five minutes a day. Excuse-Proof Your Life. When it comes to working out, most of us have two excuse cards we like to play: We have the ace of "no time" and the jack of "it's not convenient." Now, we know you're busy. We know you're juggling more balls than a twelve-armed clown. We know it's easier to sit on the couch than to do a push-up on the floor. But we also know this: Time and convenience aren't excuses. First of all, with this plan, you don't need a whole lot of time (thirty minutes a day to walk and thirty minutes a week to do some resistance training). If you don't have the time to do this, then you have to be willing to admit that the problem is not the fact that you're out of time but the fact that your life is so out of control that you can't budget enough time for your health and well-being. And second, you don't need a gym or fancy equipment; heck, it takes more time

to drive to the gym and change clothes than it does to actually work out. You can do all of this activity at home-with a few modest pieces of equipment or even by making use of items you already have. In fact, in the YOU Workout, you use your body as your weights. It sure beats spending your workout time waiting at the exercise machine for someone to finish her issue of Quilting Quarterly. Yes, it's easy to say you're too tired, too stresses, too busy, too this, or too that. We say, too bad. The only way you'll strip away the fat is to start by stripping away the excuses. You Move, You Lose. One unsung form of exercise: fidgeting. Studies show that fidgety people are simply skinner people. If you have two people working the same job and eating the same diet, the one who gets up to talk to someone down the hall rather than emailing her will be

skinner. Studies show that it isn't some mysterious food, organ, cell, or gremlin that makes these people burn up fat like an iron skillet, it's these fidgeting movements. Now, that's not to say that if you go on an all-fidgeting, leg-shaking, finger-tapping program (think Robin ), you'll be thinner than a Hilton sister. But numerous studies have shown that the more you move-in very subtle ways- the more calories your body will burn throughout the day. Find an excuses to move your muscles wherever you are. Clear the dishes. Stand up and walk in circles while you're on the phone. Walk down the hall to ask a coworker a question, rather then IM-ing her. Tap your toes in a meeting. Take every opportunity to move around, and you'll give your body subtle metabolism boosters that may just have more-than-subtle effects.