Lifestyle

Fitness
Always consult your doctor before changing your normal diet or exercise regime.

Firstly establish how fit you are by testing your resting heart rate. You can do this by pressing your first and second finger onto the wrist below the thumb move your fingers around until you locate your pulse. The best time to do this is just after waking up in the morning. Using a watch check how many beats you can feel for 15 seconds, multiply the figure by 4 and you have your beats per minute. If you do it for a full minute you will obviously get a more accurate number.

These figures are for men, women should add about 5 beats per minute to these figures as women's hearts tend to beat slightly faster than men's.

Endurance athletes tend to have the slowest heart rates and can be as low as 30 beats per minute.

A good healthy workout will involve cardiovascular exercise for the heart and lungs plus overall muscle fitness exercise including legs, chest, shoulders, arms, back, and abdomen.

A reasonable amount of aerobic execise such as brisk walking, jogging, running, skipping each week will help to maintain a good healthy heart and lungs.
For instance jogging for 20 minutes 3 times a week would keep your heart and lungs at an above average fitness. You may need to work up to this if your body is not used to that amount of exercise, even starting with a brisk walk 3 times for the first week and then possibly a 5 minute jog introduced into the second week.
Don't over exert yourself, the aim is to get fit and not to end up with an injury before you really get started.
Always consult your doctor before changing your normal diet or exercise regime.

Weight training and some simple exercises will keep the rest of the body in good condition. Here are some examples.

• Press ups, chest and arms.
• Bench Press, chest and arms.
• Dips, chest and arms.
• Lateral raise, chest and arms.
• Pullovers, chest and arms.
• Chins, back and arms.
• Hyperextensions, back.
• Bent over rowing, back and arms.
• Shoulder press, shoulders and arms.
• Dumb bell press, shoulders and arms.
• Side lateral raise, shoulders.
• Bent lateral raise, shoulders and arms.
• Curls, biceps.
• Tricep Dips, triceps.
• Press downs, triceps.
• Crunches, abdomen.
• Leg raises, abdomen.
• V crunches, abdomen.
• Seated leg push, abdomen.
• Crossover crunches, abdomen.
• Squats, legs and back.
• Ascending stairs take 2 at a time, legs.
• Calf raises, calfs.