Female Fitness Blog

Is it just me or are you sick and tired of reading outdated articles about a perceived myth among women about weightlifting? In my opinion, that myth is long gone. However, it just seems that every time a journalist has nothing to write about, they can re-create an article that’s been written many times about how women feel about weight lifting. If I lift weights, I’m going to look like a man Blah, blah, BLAH. The fact is that most women that are serious about their fitness level have some sort of balanced approach to exercise that includes cardio work along with either a machine workout or free weights. Earth to these journalists, you can get muscles from machine workouts just like you can from free weights. In fact, visit any gym in America and you’ll probably find many women on the machines and some of the women working out with weights. And they don’t look muscular; they actually look great.

I was just reading an article in the American Chronicle about these perceived myths which looks like it was written in 1972. It’s kind of like saying that men should not be on a treadmill because it makes you look like a girl. It’s simply not true. Women realize that a balanced approach to fitness is what makes sense and the fact is that most women adopt a balanced workout routine which includes a cardio as well as either a machine or free weight workout routine.

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Everyone wants to be as fit as Madonna and Charlize Theron but is much that we read about the stars actually a bunch of bologna? I recently read an article about Hillary Swank’s daily workout routine which includes about 45 pills a day. Mots experts point out that many of those pills are not absorbed by the body, especially if they are supplemented with a balanced diet.

What should real people do to maintain peak fitness?

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Written by Michael Vass

As the holidays progress, there are a few things you can count on. Most people will gain a bit of weight, Christmas office parties will embarrass someone after the holidays, you’re bound to get a gift that you won’t like/use, and It’s a Wonderful Life will be on television. Now of the above factors the one that will be most troubling to the general populace will inevitably be the weight gain. (Well depending on if there were pictures taken at the office party or not).

As with the never ending obsession of weight that is America today, one of the biggest New Year’s resolutions will be to lose the weight gained over the holiday season. Millions of men and women will start 2008 with the intent of dropping the pounds and looking healthier if not being so. Some will try the various fad diets that never work for more than a few days.

Some will take on various pills that promise to burn fat or restrict its absorption, avoiding the effort of eating properly and working out. The detriments of such pills are numerous, including the multiple side-effects they invariably create, the extreme cost, and often the limited results they provide.

Many will actually seek out professionals that will evaluate the BMI, nutritional diets, work-out needs of the individual. A balanced diet, with exercise has always been the most effective program, and the only one with real long-term lasting results. There are no ill effects and the only side products are the reduction in chances of cardiac disease, diabetes, looking better, and feeling wonderful.

But in that last plan, which is the most beneficial, I want to put in a point of caution and question. Don’t over do it. Far too many people want to, as an example, drop their BMI to extremely low levels. I personally don’t think that is a good thing. In addition, I don’t agree with the BMI, or the general image of health presented by the major media.

What I mean is that there is some level of common sense that needs to be applied in all this. There is no question that being thinner has been shown to be better, but looking like a model seems wholly unhealthy to me. For those that want to look like some 100 pound, 6 foot model I suggest a re-evaluation of images. Especially for Black and Hispanic/Latino women.

Too often the media says that Black, Hispanic/Latino women are fat, when that is far from true. We have often heard how stars of color are insured because of their measurements, and how they stand out in Hollywood. Take for example Mrs. Jennifer Lopez, or Beyonce. Neither is the typical waif lauded by Hollywood, and thank goodness.

If you were to go by BMI, or by media perceptions, you might think either of those women are fat. You might think that Oprah Winfrey eats nothing but bon-bons without ever working out. This of course is ludicrous. Each of these women work-out regularly, eat carefully balanced and prepared meals, and are examples of fitness. Yet none are a model.

The fact is that while too much weight is easily a bad thing, too little is equally unattractive, at least to this writer. Oprah looks ghastly at a size 8-10. Jennifer Lopez would look anorexic minus another 20 pounds (talking about pre-pregnancy weight). And so on.

My point is, as a man so take that as you will, that being thin is not nearly as important as being healthy. Trying to match up to the variable standards stated by the government (you do recall that the BMI index was reset recently and instantly made millions overweight overnight because of it) and the major media is anything but beneficial in some cases. Beyonce, J-Lo, Angela Bassett, Gabriel Union, Regina King, Gloria Estafan, Salma Hayek, Renee Zellweger, and Drew Barrymore are all sexy and beautiful women. They aren’t model thin either.

So as the New Year’s resolutions are made, and the plan to lose the holiday weight is started, remember that health trumps an airbrushed near-anorexic magazine cover non-figure any day. Expert government or Hollywood status quo be damned.

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I just read an incredibly interesting article based on a new study that was published in the December 5th issue of the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA).The study concluded that adults over 60 who had high levels of cardiovascular fitness lived longer than unfit adults over 60 regardless of other markers such as body fat.

The study looked at the relationships between cardio fitness, body fat and morbidity among 2,603 participants

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