If there is a secret to long, healthy life and virility...even if you did not choose the right parents, it is regular exercise: aerobic, graded, and integrated into one's life-style. 

But what is that concept?  Well, after getting medical clearance from your physician if you are over 50 or if you have long been a couch potatoe at any age, the important exercise is endurance-building rather than muscle-building: brisk walking, stair-climbing, bicycling, rowing, etc. For example, a 72 year old man, 6 ft. tall, 205 lbs, in fairly good condition and fairly active generally, does a 1 mile brisk walk at 4 miles per hour in fifteen minutes, with a two minute warmup and two mnute cool-down, during which time his pulse (monitored constantly by a Polar Pacer, very important) goes from 65/minute to 100 - 120, depending on the exercise, with a return below 90 within two minutes.  He then does 8 flights of stairs at 3 flights per minute.  He then rows (at maximum machine tension) 500 meters at 35 strokes per minute.  He does that two or three times per week.  It takes about 30-40 minutes...and it feels great.  

"Try it.  You'll like it".

GS

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Exercise... Issue 0505-01

May 8, 2005

In any diet regimen that can have a chance of working, exercise...more than you are doing, regular ( at least 4 days/week), and moderately energetic... is a must.  Only kings and queens of denial will cling to any other world-view of weight reduction.   And remember: the choice is not whether to lose or to stay at the same weight.  The choice is whether to lose weight or to gain another 10-20% of your current weight. 
 
A relevant article appeared in the August 18, 2004 publication of the Wall Street Journal, under Cubicle Culture, entitled "Today's Coffee Break: Form A Conga Line, Paint A Monkey Mural", by Kris Maher.  We've all seen - and some of us live in - huge offices divided by scores of cubicles.  Well, even rats in a maze get their exercise...and Sonja Pearson of a firm in Illinois is out to give her human employees equal time.  "It's break time at New Age Transportation, Distribution & Warehousing Inc, a Lake Zurich, Ill. transportation-logistics company whose workers spend most of their day on the phone, trying to match trucking operators with suppliers to ship goods around the country.  But twice a day, for about 20 minutes at a time, the office is transformed into a cross between a revival meeting and a down-home wedding.  Employees get up from their desks and jump around together as music blares.  A conga line sometimes snakes through the office."  The initiatives of several other companies are described, all designed to the get the blood flowing again to the rump, the brain and the legs.  And, although not enough,  that can't be at all bad.
 
GS

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