A question of answers
by Anup Deb Nath

FITNESS or being fit is very much in most people’s minds today and has been adopted in lifestyle as well. The hectic pace of life, the tension and stress that are commonplace in everyone’s day-to-day living, and the food habits — all contribute towards making fitness much more than a fad, in fact a tool to survival.

The very packed-in work days, commuting to work and back, the extra hours put into our social evenings, all are very tiring and draining on our body, but in no way do they constitute exercise. Erratic eating patterns as well as eating the wrong types of food again deplete our bodies of the energy and stamina that is so vital for it. And the immense amounts of stress and tension we live under everyday, be it at work or home, also help in pushing our bodies over the edge. The result of all these factors is often seen in many forms like heart disease, hypertension, high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, to name a few.

It is important to enjoy your workout

Though exercise is certainly no cure for these or guarantee towards removing them either, it can certainly help preventing them to a large extent or at least in giving your body that edge to fight diseases. Many people would like to start some sort of an exercise programme but don’t because they don’t have the incentive, while others have some basic questions or queries which will help them select and get started on the correct exercise programme but they don’t know whom to ask. We will take up some frequent queries that many of us have had and need to get cleared.

I do not need to lose any weight. So do I need to join an exercise programme?

A common misconception, particularly in India, is that you only need to exercise if you are overweight and need to lose weight. In fact there are many overweight people who join a gym with the idea of quitting it the moment they achieve their target weight.

Exercise is not needed to lose weight. In fact being fit and losing weight are not inter-related as many tend to think. Physical fitness can be roughly divided into three main areas of cardiovascular fitness, muscular fitness and body composition. By exercising you improve your cardiovascular fitness by strengthening the heart as well as the working muscles around it. The working of the lungs also improves and strengthens as during exercise the lungs have to inhale more oxygen to supply to the heart. Muscular fitness and body composition improve and the percentage of body fat decreases, giving your body more shape and a better toned look.

Once you enter the thirties your body’s metabolic rate slows down. This means that in your thirties eating exactly what you did 10 years ago and staying as active will still mean that you will put on weight as well as lose muscle tone. In order to remain fit, with your diet remaining the same your exercise level would have to significantly increase simply to maintain your body at the weight it was earlier.

What it all sums up to is that thin or fat, we all need exercise in some form or the other. The type of exercise, the intensity, duration, frequency etc will all vary depending on many factors like age, fitness level etc as well as the goal we hope to achieve.

I am a mother of a hyper- active 3-year-old boy. I am overweight but I am very active around the home and am constantly on my toes with my home and child. Though I am on the go all day and get exhausted by the end of the day, I am still not losing any weight. My mother says that what all I do more than equals an exercise routine. Is she correct or do I still need to exercise?

No matter how active any one of us is around the house, or how much running around a typical day in our life involves, in no way does this add up to a workout. Whether your aim is to lose weight, tone up your body or just improve your body’s flexibility and increase your stamina, what you need is proper exercise.

The reason exercise can help you achieve all these goals is that you need to increase your body’s heart rate to its target rate and then sustain it for 25 to 30 minutes for it to be effective. No matter how much work you do around the house, or how much you run after a hyperactive child, you can seldom achieve your target heart rate or sustain it for the required length of time.

You need not join a gym if your time or lifestyle don’t permit it. A brisk walk, jogging, skipping in your home, and simple callisthenic exercises can be just as effective. Choose an exercise programme that suits your time, lifestyle, budget as well as aptitude for it to be truly effective. Remember, if you don’t enjoy what you do, you will tend to miss it much too often for it to be effective.

This fortnightly feature was published on January 3.