The Exercise Equation, The Triangle of Fitness

Kathy Kaehler's Celebrity Workouts: How to Get a Hollywood Body in Just 30 Minutes a Day
by Kathy Kaehler

(Page 2 of 2)

The Exercise Equation

No matter who you are, in order to stay young and healthy, you need to move your body. It's as simple as that. Almost every system in your body, from your cardiovascular system to your muscular and skeletal systems, benefits from regular physical activity. By staying active you can reduce your risk of numerous health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, many cancers, diabetes, and osteoporosis. Exercise helps strengthen your immune system, so you can fend off many of these life-threatening diseases as well as ailments as basic as the common cold.

As many of you know, regular exercise is also essential for staving off excess pounds. Despite the many fad diets currently making headlines, research consistently shows that a combination of exercise and a healthy diet is the best way to lose weight and keep it off. By getting up and moving, you can burn calories that would otherwise be stored as fat. When you build muscle, you also speed up your metabolism, so your body burns more calories throughout the day, whether you're pushing a cart through the supermarket or sitting around watching TV.

But the benefits don't end there! Exercise can also have a powerful effect on your state of mind. During physical activity, your brain releases neurotransmitters called endorphins that can help elevate your mood and reduce feelings of stress and anxiety. Studies show that regular exercise can be as effective as antidepressants in alleviating mild to moderate depression. When you're feeling overworked and exhausted, exercise can help restore your energy, optimism, clarity, and creativity. After a good workout, you'll be more productive and make better decisions. You'll also be much less likely to fly off the handle.

It follows, therefore, that exercise can have a huge impact on what you're able to achieve in life. When you're better able to handle physiological and emotional stress, you feel more in control of your life. You sleep better. You feel better about yourself. You have more confidence, whether you're making a presentation at work or slipping into your favorite dress- or, in the case of my famous clients, accepting an Academy Award or shooting a steamy bedroom scene.

When a client comes to me wanting to get in shape for a movie role, a TV appearance, or a fashion show, I always remind them that exercise shouldn't be a temporary fix. The same goes for those of you who picked up this book determined to lose weight or firm up for a special occasion-a wedding, a reunion, or a trip to a tropical locale for spring break. There's nothing more motivating than knowing you're going to be bumping into your ex or wearing a swimsuit in public! But if you want lasting results, you need to make fitness a permanent part of your life.

Fitness isn't just a goal-it's a lifestyle that will allow you to look and feel your best, and in turn, to live your best life. It isn't a superficial luxury; it's a necessity for health and well-being. The celebrities in this book look so stunning because they have made fitness a regular part of their routine. They may not always enjoy it, but they've committed to it, and that-combined with a knockout exercise regimen-is what gets them superstar results. In this book, we'll do the same for you. You may not love working out, but if you stick with it, I promise that you'll love what it does for your body! And, as you get stronger, you may even find yourself craving every apportunity to get up and move.

The Triangle of Fitness

Physical fitness has three integral parts: cardiovascular fitness, strength, and flexibility. All three components are vital for a healthy, balanced body-and should be the basis of any solid fitness plan.

Cardiovascular exercise works one of your most important muscles- your heart-along with your lungs. If you do cardio workouts regularly, your heart won't have to work as hard to pump blood through your body, and your lungs will deliver oxygen with less effort. This translates into more endurance and staying power, whether you're running after your kids or competing in a bike race. Because cardio burns a lot of calories, it's also an important tool for losing weight.

The second component, strength training, helps work important muscles in other areas of your body-your legs, buttocks, hips, arms, shoulders, chest, back, and abs. As we get older, our muscles and bones get weaker, especially if we don't eat right or exercise enough. Strength exercises can help prevent or even reverse these losses, reducing your risk of osteoporosis. Furthermore, if your muscles are strong, you're less likely to suffer back pain and other debilitating injuries.

Many women think that cardiovascular exercise, such as jogging or walking on a treadmill, is the best and only way to trim down. That's just plain wrong. In fact, strength training is the secret weapon of many of Hollywood's hottest female stars. It allows you to develop specific muscles for that sexy, sculpted look we all admire. When you build muscle, you not only look more defined, your metabolism gets a boost, so you burn more calories all day long. Muscle weighs more than fat, but it takes up less space-so even if the numbers on the scale don't change, your clothes will get looser, and your body will begin to look firmer and more taut.

The last piece of the triangle is flexibility. Our muscles are like rubber bands-they are incredibly resilient. But the less you use them, the tighter they get. Flexibility is crucial for preventing injuries and staying mobile. By stretching regularly you can keep your muscles limber, increase your range of motion, improve your balance, and enhance your posture. What's more, research suggests that stretching immediately after your strength-training workouts can help you build more muscle for an even bigger metabolic boost.

How Much Is Enough?

And now for the million-dollar question: How much exercise do you have to do to get all of the benefits and achieve your best body? For weight control and optimum health, experts recommend at least 30 to 60 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week. Thirty minutes a day can help you achieve important health benefits, and is a good starting goal if you're currently sedentary. As you get in better shape, you'll want to aim for closer to an hour, and/or work on increasing the intensity of your workouts, for even more benefits and calories burned.

This may sound overwhelming to those of you who haven't been exercising regularly. But don't get discouraged! With my program you'll start slowly, and gradually work on building strength. You can also do the workouts at your own pace. If time is an issue for you, and you're worried that you won't fit it all in, remember that the benefits of exercise are cumulative. In other words, you don't have to do your 30 to 60 minutes all at once. Instead, you can do some in the morning, some at lunch, and some in the late afternoon. (You'll find more details on this type of scheduling in Chapter 2.)

When it comes to fitness, some activity is always better than none. But too much exercise isn't a good thing, either. I found this out the hard way. At the start of my career in Hollywood, I was working out way too much-even for a personal trainer! On a typical weekday, I'd train five or six clients in a row in the morning, then teach two back-to-back step aerobics classes at night. Even though I thought I was in great shape, I soon discovered that overexercising can lead to injury and burnout. I was fatigued and frequently in pain from one overuse injury or another.

Your exercise sessions should invigorate you, not wipe you out. So it's important to find a happy medium. These days, I take a much more moderate approach. And to tell you the truth, I feel much healthier, and my body looks about the same. Fortunately, this message has also caught on in Hollywood, and I no longer see as much of the exercise mania that gripped the industry a few years ago.

Excerpted from Kathy Kaehler's Celebrity Workouts by Kathy Kaehler Copyright © 2004 by Kathy Kaehler. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Kathy Kaehler is the fitness expert on NBC's Today show and the personal trainer to many top-tier celebrities. The author of the monthly "Fitness Insider" column for Self magazine, she lives with her husband and three children in Los Angeles.