A friend of mine asked me a question, she has read my articles in the past and this is how she posed her question, I have a personal question for you, please be “honest”, as if the things I write for publication are for show or some type of sales pitch. I tend to be very honest, some say brutally when asked questions but her question went like this:

Can you get really fit, I mean get shapely legs and arms at my age (she is 48 and I will not be using her name, I want to live to see Christmas). She goes on to say that she looks great for her age but she sees her arms and legs turning to Jell-O. My friend wants to know is it possible to get fit by walking really hard and maybe doing weights, she loves kickboxing and boxing but hates machines and stationary bikes, she needs to have fun in order to be consistent. She feels as though she is getting too old to get hard muscles and she wants to know is she right. Then my friend has the grand finale question of: “What is the fastest way to get your arms fit because the butt and legs she can hide under clothing. Hide under clothing? You might be able to hide your fatness or flabbiness under your clothes but you can’t hide from yourself.

My friend does not know I am answering her in print but she will find out relatively fast. Anyway I wanted to present this question because so many women have the same questions and the short answer is: Yes, you can get really fit arms and legs very shapely at age 48. However, if one wants to keep fit arms and legs and have them shapely at any age one must continue to do whatever combination of exercise that made them fit and shapely. One cannot exercise for 6 months and upon being satisfied with the result of the work on those newly toned arms and legs then stop exercising. Just think of Tina Turner at age 69, shapely legs, fit arms, there is your example people.

 Read these words very carefully maintaining a toned and fit physique is the journey “Carrie” from “Sex and the City” has with buying shoes you don’t stop, it is a life long proposition, there may be times you don’t buy as many shoes or don’t exercise as frequently but you never stop-period. I hear weekly from people that are presently out of shape “Oh I used to work out 3-4 times a week and I was in good shape but I stopped”. I will not go into the shape they are in now, place your own interpretation on that prospect.

 I don’t know if it is possible for her to get fit by “walking hard” and “doing weights” because this is subjective and I have never seen my friend “walk hard” or “do weights”, that being said if one maintains a walking pace that would be similar to how women walk when there is a 50% off sale at Macy’s then yes that walking is good and beneficial. As far as the “doing weights”, again not having seen my friend weight train, I have no idea, but it is possible and mandatory for her to tone those arms in no time using weight training exercises several times a week.

She likes kickboxing and boxing and this will give her a great cardio workout and most places that specialize in this type of format will incorporate weight training into their prescribed routines, after all what good is a punch if it only carries enough strength behind to lift a soup can?

So I hope I have given my friend part of the answer she has asked me, without more detailed information about her exact regiment and frequency of days and intensity level I can only give her “honest” answers to the questions posed.

Q. Ali I want to lose the extra fat around my waist and my hip/butt area, I am a 36 year old female with 2 kids and go to the gym 2 times a week and do my two aerobic classes and one abdominal class but it does not seem to be helping, please help me.

A. I am so glad you asked this is a question I get so many times from women just like you that need to understand what they want to happen with their bodies and the actions they take are not going to help them achieve what they want.

However, the ladies keep trudging away at those aerobic classes and abdominal classes hoping they will lose the specific areas on their bodies they want to target. OK, let me handle this so I make myself clear I want all ladies from here to Mars listen to what I am about to say; You cannot spot reduce, you cannot change one area by doing exercises just for that area, you cannot lose the fat around the stomach by doing only crunches or sit ups, you cannot lose the fat in the butt/hip by doing only exercises for those areas!

There I have stated the truth and women around the Universe are now looking like a deer caught in the headlights because that is the look I get whenever I inform women of this physiological fact.

When you work a specific area let’s use the abdominal area for example, you work and work those muscles with hundreds of crunches, but that area is a small muscle group, so the muscle group is one of six major muscle groups. So you have worked those abs hard but the other major muscle groups have done nothing and thus your fat burning mechanism, the metabolism, is just a little higher because you have only work one small muscle group.

You have to work your entire body engaging the major muscle groups (chest, shoulders, triceps & biceps, back, hamstring, quadriceps, with the same intensity you worked your abdominal muscle group and the fat burning engine now turns on. Now do this on a consistent basis and you will start to see drops in size in the areas you are looking for but only because of the full body work you have done.

If you want to get to the specific area start at your head and finish with your toes and then the areas in between will start to respond, work on just those areas and you will be working in vain.

Q. You spoke of being muscular, lean and healthy, so how do I go about achieving those 3 things being 37 yrs old and out of shape?

A. Well as I discussed it takes a lot of hard work to achieve that type of fitness model physique but as always there are exceptions to the rule. As George Bernard Shaw said; “Youth is wasted on the Young”, in this case meaning most young people that are active will sport very lean, muscular bodies accompanied by six packs.

Then there are the genetically blessed, some people can eat badly, drink badly and stay lean and muscular without doing much of anything even after passing that golden demographic of 18-24 yrs old. Then there are the rest of us that after passing those years have to work harder as we age.

Now to get to the question at hand, in order to re-shape your body whatever your individual goal is you must employ three principles; Cardiovascular Endurance Training, which are movements that are aerobic in nature such as brisk walking, jogging, running, biking, swimming, try to stick to activities that are rhythmic in nature for this specific purpose.

Resistance Training, the most common being weight training of some sort or resistant bands, weights, kettlebells, heavy rocks, whatever objects you want to use that is provide resistance will work.

The third principle is Nutrition, this of course being the hardest of the three for most of people not just here in our country but the world. It is another point to show people are basically the same all over the world, we all have problems eating correctly in the face of being tempted by the Corporate World of fast, easy and unhealthy foods.

For the quest of losing bodyfat, creating more muscle, re-shaping the flab to fabulous you must use all three principles together for a consistent period of time. The timeline is not that like you see on the infomercials, 60 seconds, 3 days, or 2 weeks. Unfortunately it will take a little more time on your part, depending on your starting point and what you are trying to achieve. However, if losing weight happens to be one of those goals then shoot for 1- 1.5 lb per week as the ideal goal and if you lose more than that amount great but if not stay the course and let your body do its work.

These principles are time tested and approved; they have worked for me and my clients for many years and will continue to work long after all the hype and sizzle of trends and fad products looking to seduce you with false hopes.

As a personal trainer I give free consultations for people that have an interest in improving their health and fitness level. Many people come to me that have health problems they would like to correct, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, borderline diabetes, chronic overweight problems and the king of kings that last 15- 20 pounds of bodyfat  they want eliminated. 

So many people are completely confused on how to go about achieving their goals but there is also an air of delusion amongst the masses when it comes to looking good. Now we all know when you look good you feel good and people want to feel fitness model good. They come to me thinking that if they go to the gym three times a week and eat healthy then their body will morph into the next cover one of those glossy magazine covers of the Fitness Genre. Then I have to introduce them to reality unfortunately.

Firstly, exercising 3 times a week and eating “healthy” are ideal to live a healthy lifestyle and reduce the risk of multiple diseases, if the majority of Americans followed this there would be no Health Care Crisis.

To enter the world of the fitness model, six pack, rippling definition is another level all together and because of misinformation and the quick sound byte type articles using fitness models as the picture gives people the wrong expectations. It is personal trainers around the nation that have to bring people to the harsh reality of the six pack minority.

Exercising 3 times a week for good health versus exercising 6 days for muscular lean body mass is the equivalent of driving a Toyota Camry versus a Porsche.  Eating healthy and eating to lose bodyfat is like Venus and Mars the two shall never met. Many people become frustrated because they tell me about exercising and eating healthy but not losing the weight, then when I examine their workout routine and food log the Toyota, Porsche, Venus, and Mars appear in order. 

People feel that their workout time is enough to get the body they want, then I am left to inform them for the type of body they want it takes anywhere from 2-3 more workout sessions per week and another 10 hours of cardio work per week.

Then people start to see the horizon of the fitness elite, lots of discipline, lots of time sacrificed from busy lives to reach their goal, whether it is to compete in an IronMan, ride a bike 100 miles, or to win a fitness competition.

I try to turn people’s attention away from looking like a fitness model to experiencing something new and different like a Douthalon and then training for the event and the side affects are always beneficial to the person’s appearance, thus when you look good you feel good.

                                                     Exercise and Age

Over the years of being in the fitness industry one frequently hears the age excuse from a multitude of people from all age groups. I am always intrigued when I hear men and women say “Well I am over 30, 35, now so I can’t do the same things I used to do when I was 18”.
Of course I will hear from the Older Generation “I am too old to exercise I am over 60 so it’s too late for me now, or the classic “You can’t build muscle once you are over 50 so what’s the point”. Well the point is all of those statements are dead wrong, incorrect, absolutely, positively wrong; did you get the point there?
I will give you a real life example of someone who lives right here in Sunny Isles.
I started training a gentleman back in 1992; he was one of my first clients upon moving to Florida, he was recently retired at age 60 and wanted to start working out.
We trained 3 times per week for 45 minutes per session and then worked our way up to 60 minutes per session. He was diligent, consistent and rarely missed his appointments unless he was going fishing in Costa Rica or Skiing in Colorado.
After 6 months of training year he came back from a fishing trip and gave me a $50 tip when I asked why he said on the trip he outlasted all his friends when fishing. After 1 year he came back from his ski trip and gave me a $100 tip again I asked why and he told me he out skied the son’s friends and the son who were half his age, when they tired he kept going.
After 2 years he came back from a stress test for a new insurance policy he was getting and gave me $500 tip, when asked about this wonderful gift, he told me the doctors were so amazed at his conditioning at his age that they called other doctors to read the results and recommend he receive a discount on his policy because his health was that of a 40 year healthy male, not a 62 year old.
This man is no different than the average citizen walking around but had decided he wanted to improve his health and fitness level.
He had thought there would be no results for him, he thought he was too old but wanted to try. I told him simply this “If you think you are too old than you are, because the mind controls the body”.
Regular people through a series of fun, work, play, and shifting of thoughts can improve or become healthy fit people both physically and mentally, that is what I and my team of trainers do at PerFit, Personal Fitness Center. When you are ready come see me, that is, of course if you are not too old.