Build Bone, Strengthen Muscle, Part 2

Bone Building Body Shaping Workout
by Joyce L. Vedral, Ph.D.

(Page 2 of 2)

Raise Your Metabolism by 15 Percent in Twelve Weeks and Eat More Without Getting Fat

It has been medically established that our metabolism drops by 2 percent every ten years, and doctors are saying today that this drop starts at the age of twenty! By the age of thirty we lose approximately half a pound of muscle a year. And for every ounce of' muscle we lose, our body not only becomes "flabbier" but our metabolism goes down because muscle is the only body material that is active twenty-four hours a day.

What does this mean? By the time you are fifty, your metabolism has dropped by at least 10 to 15 percent. But it gets worse. Once a woman hits menopause and stops menstruating, she no longer burns the 20,000 calories a year that is burned by the "period" itself (the loss of blood). Since it takes 5,000 excess calories to produce a pound of body fat, most women gain 6.5 to 7 pounds in the year or two after menopause even if their diet and activity have not changed at all.

Don't get depressed! I have an immediate and foolproof remedy to tune up your metabolism to compensate for the slowing metabolism, and you can tune it up higher than it ever was, as I did, so you can eat plenty before you start gaining weight. After doing this workout for only twelve weeks, you can raise your metabolism by 15 percent so that you can eat 15 percent more than you used to eat without getting fat! And when you tune up your metabolism even higher, you put more muscle on your body over time — as I did.

How does muscle tune up your metabolism? Every pound of muscle you add to your body burns about 40 to 50 extra calories a day. You'll lose pounds of fat while gaining the muscle. So if you're overweight, you will lose weight on the scale, but the more dramatic change will be in your size. Muscle weighs more than fat, but it takes up less space. Think of muscle as a silver dollar, and fat as a kitchen sponge. The silver dollar weighs more, but the kitchen sponge takes up more space. The analogy holds true even to how it feels. Put your hand on a soft, fatty thigh and then on a muscular thigh. Which feels spongy and which feels hard?

One more point. I weigh 115 pounds, and I'm five feet tall. I wear a size 4 dress, but before I worked out, I wore a size 10 at the same weight and looked chunky. If I stand next to another woman my height and weight who never worked out, she will look heavy and wear about three sizes larger than I do. This is because I'm made of dense muscle that takes up less space and burns fat twenty-four hours a day. She is made of spongy fat that is lighter in weight and takes up more space. So once you do the workout, you'll see a major change in the mirror and in clothing size, but not necessarily on the scale.

Improve Your Strength, Balance, and Sports Ability

When you work out with weights (also called "strength training"), you improve your strength and become more capable when playing any sport. By following the workout in this book, your shoulders, back, arms, and legs will be stronger so you can better swing that tennis or racquetball racket, or that golf club. Your back, knees, and arms will be more powerful so you can ski with more stamina. Your legs and total body musculature will be stronger so that you can increase your endurance for running and walking. And, yes, if you do the optional weight-bearing aerobic additions, you will also improve your cardiovascular ability! Chapter 4 gives specific workouts for your sport.

We've talked about strength, but what about balance? We need it for everything from getting out of bed in the morning to walking — not to mention sports activities. Believe it or not, balance starts to decline as early as our forties. Small wonder that many elderly people fall so often. But this doesn't have to happen.

Studies show that working out with weights improves balance. One researcher reported that after breaking her hip, a seventy-year-old woman began working out with weights as part of her recovery program. This woman now cross-country skis with her grandchildren, and hikes with them as well. In fact, she has been seen shoveling snow off the roof of her house, having climbed there with no problem at all!

Reduce Your Stress Level

We've always known that doing aerobic workouts helps reduce stress by providing a natural high as a result of "endorphins," but now we know that working out with weights does the same — and more. A study done at Tufts University revealed that weight training was able to take the place of mild antidepressants for a group of women. My own twenty-five-year-old daughter, Marthe, is testimony to this. Whenever she is under stress, she does a weight workout. She says, "No matter how stressed out I am, after working out with weights, I feel as if a bur(ten has been lifted. I feel so relaxed. It's really amazing — like medicine."

Do the Weight-Bearing Aerobics and Get a Triple Whammy

In addition to the weight workout (strength training), you will have the option of doing weight-bearing aerobics, an option I strongly advise. Weight-bearing aerobics deliver a triple-whammy bonus when it comes to fitness. You get your heart and lungs in shape and at the same time burn off excess body fat. And in the bargain, you increase bone density.

If this is so, why not simply do weight-bearing aerobic exercises and forget training with weights? Because working out with weights increases bone density over every single body part. You are in full control of each bone you thicken and the muscle you build and shape. Aerobics is a more general workout for the back, legs, or spine. In addition, working out with weights gives you a greater increase in bone density than weight-bearing aerobics. Finally — and to me this is a key point — there is no other way to sculpt, define, tighten, and tone each and every muscle to give the proper shape to every body part: arms, buttocks, hips, thighs, stomach. You must use weights — and in a very specific way.

What are weight-bearing exercises? Well, for starters, swimming is not a weight-bearing exercise. When you swim, the water, not your body, "bears" the weight. Weight-bearing aerobic exercises are jogging, running, walking on the ground or on a treadmill, climbing stairs (stair-stepping and stair-climbing machines are not quite as weight-bearing as climbing real stairs), skiing (downhill or cross-country), jumping rope, and dancing, both social and low-impact aerobic.

In addition to swimming, the other aerobic exercises that are not weight-bearing are workouts on exercise and functional bicycles, and water aerobics. Yes, there is a slight element of "weight-bearing" in these, but not a whole lot. (See chapter 9, Bone-Building Aerobics, for more details, and chapter 4, Creative Workouts, for ways to incorporate these into your weight-training routine.)

What About Diet and Hormone Replacement Therapy?

Calcium, vitamin D, and a host of other nutrients are essential for bone and muscle health. But how do you obtain all these food elements and still lose excess body fat (if you are overweight)? A whole chapter is devoted to this (see chapter 10), but in the meantime, rest assured that you will be able to eat delicious, nutritious food without feeling starved and without using diet pills of any kind.

Every woman must decide for herself whether or not to go on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which is a combination of estrogen and progesterone. There is no doubt that estrogen replacement once menopause begins prevents rapid bone deterioration (and helps with a host of other problems, too), but it does not "build" bone. Whether or not you go on HRT, you need this workout.

Health and Beauty, Too

Okay, so you're just doing this workout for your health. Well, whether you like it or not, you're going to have a sexier, more beautifully shaped, tight, toned body, so you'd better cover it up or expect trouble.

I used to work out for the "beauty" aspect alone. Once I turned fifty, though, I began to see all the health problems that couch potatoes had and thanked God that I had inadvertently been doing the best health-strength-longevity routine. I decided to perfect it and make it ideal for bone and muscle health while keeping the beauty aspects because as you get older, if you don't have your health, very soon you won't have your life — at least not a life worth living. Hence this book.

Do the Workout at Home with Inexpensive Handheld Weights

The good news is that you can do the workout at home with handheld weights called "dumbbells," and you can purchase these weights at fifty cents a pound by looking under "exercise equipment" in the yellow pages. (In chapter 4 you'll learn exactly what to buy.) You don't need to spend more than about $10.00, tax included, to get started. Of course, if you want to get the fancy colored weights, you may spend a lot more. And indeed, as you get stronger, you will be buying heavier weights — but even at your strongest, you won't be investing hundreds of dollars.

But what if you want to use exercise machines, either at home or at a fitness center? You will find that, except when there is no possible substitute, there is a "machines" section for every exercise. I like the dumbbells better, but once in a while, for variety, I'll go to a gym and use the machines, too.

You Can Do This Workout at Any Age and at Any Weight

Whether you're sixteen or sixty, seventeen or seventy, eighteen or eighty, and whether you're overweight or exactly the right weight, you can do this workout. (If you are the right weight, you may need muscle tone, and for sure you can use the bone-building aspect. If you're overweight, you'll lose your excess body fat and get to that toned body you've always wanted.) In short, with your doctor's approval, you can get started right away and enjoy the wonderful benefits of weight training, the fountain of youth. What about men? Yes, men can do it, too!

Choose a Workout: Eight, Sixteen, or Thirty-two Minutes

This part will thrill you. You can work out only eight minutes a day and still get the promised results. If you choose the eight-minute workout, you will be doing something different each day — working one-fourth of your body each day. You will then repeat the cycle. You can have a day off or, better, just keep going and not take any days off. You can do this because you're never working the same body parts two days in a row. (More about this in chapters 3 and 4.)

If you are more ambitious and want to do the regular workout, you will work out sixteen minutes a day. You'll do half of your body on your first workout day and the other half on your second workout day. You will then repeat the cycle. You can keep repeating the cycle or take a day off after having repeated the cycle two or three times. (More about this in chapter 4.)

For those of you who want to have more days off and are ambitious, you can do your entire body in one workout day. Then you must take a day off. (You can even take two days off.) Then you repeat the entire body exercises during the same week. If you do your entire body twice in a week, you will be getting the same workout as if you did the sixteen-minute workout four days a week. (More about this in chapter 4.)

Doing the Max

There is no reason to do more than the above. But I know you! You'll probably say, "Hey, I love this. Can't I do more?" Well, you can do the ultra max. You can work your entire body three days a week for thirty-two minutes just as long as you take a day off after each weight workout. This is the maximum. When I say "a day off," I mean a day off the weights. You can still opt to do your "weight-bearing aerobics" on any day — whether you are weight training or taking a day off. (More on this in chapter 4.)

What You Will Get from This Workout

Increased strength — stronger muscles

Increased bone density — stronger bones

Toned, defined, firm, shapely body

Reduced dress or pant size in approximately three weeks

Increased metabolism so you burn more fat twenty-four hours a day

Loss of excess body fat, replaced with tight, toned muscles in twelve weeks

Improved stamina: sports, life tasks, and you know what else (begins with s)

Improved balance and agility

Improved posture

Increased energy

Improved outlook on life, self-image, and self-confidence

Reduced stress level

Reduced pain from arthritis

Copyright © 1998 by Joyce Vedral

About the Author

Joyce Vedral has become a legend in her own time!! In fact, in many ways, it was Joyce who gently edged the women into daring to pick up weights!! Yes, Joyce even got housewives from Iowa working out?as their bodybuilding son's stood by in awe. “Mom, I can't believe you're doing hack squats,” became a familiar cry. From the time Joyce appeared on The Sally Jesse Raphael show in 1991 to the present, her books have sold nearly two million copies. She has been on the New York Times and USA today bestseller lists four times?and once even beat every book in America?including Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh. Her books are bestsellers in Australia and other countries.