Is This Your Year to Grab the Title "Fit After 50 Female"?

Are you thinking "What the heck is the Fit After Fifty Female title?" It's the real title you give yourself when you invest time and energy to lose weight, get fit, increase your longevity, and generally feel better. It's the title you give yourself when you achieve your fitness goals.

Is This YOU?

This article is aimed at those women over 50 who want to re-gain their health because they are overweight or sedentary or just not feeling up to par or all of the above. If you already have a program in place and are on your way to grabbing the title, you may pick up a few tips.

What This Article is About

This article contains the highlights of 4 areas you need to work on to gain the title: Mental Conditioning, Nutrition/Eating Plan, Strength Training, and Interval Training (sometimes tagged as aerobic activity). On this journey, you will lose weight, strengthen muscles, gain flexibility, and improve your balance.

These are very big topics to cover in one article, so I will highlight resources (some are no cost to you) that will expedite the journey.

A few words of wisdom - start slow by picking an activity from a topic area each week or so. People who charge in and try to hit all four areas at once are most likely to feel overwhelmed and give up reaching for the crown.

If you pride yourself on knowing what you're getting yourself into and you're interested in details, you might want to check out the following book reviews:

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Raise Your Hand If You Care About Your Health! If you raised your hand, this article is for you! In fact, if you really care about defying age and becoming fit, this article is a must-read!

Do whatever you can to prepare mentally and emotionally for getting the Fit After Fifty Female crown as follows:

1. See your doctor for a checkup (a must-do activity).
2. Set up your short and long term goals, including weight loss, inches gained and lost (biceps, chest, waist, hips, thighs and calves), and readings for blood pressure, sugar, and cholesterol.
3. Make the list of benefits you will get when you have attained the title. Answer the question "What will you gain when you lose?".
4. Learn how to think thin. Click Number One Bestseller Tells You How to Lose Weight Easily.
5. Learn how to meditate to reduce stress (reaching for the crown IS stressful). Simple guided meditation CD's are the best. This is my favorite: Indigo Dreams: Adult Relaxation-Guided Meditation/Relaxation Techniques decrease anxiety, stress, anger.

Mental Conditioning

Nutrition/Eating Plan

Strength Training

Interval Training

There are so many eating plans/diets available that I hesitate to recommend one. What worked for me was a phased plan.

1. If you are doing strength training of some sort (and you should) eat the amount of protein and calories recommended for your body weight. You can find these recommendations online or in strength training books like the New Rules of Lifting for Life.
2. It is very difficult for post-menopausal women to lose weight (I know), so get the eating rules in Fight Fat After Forty by Dr. Pamela Peeke. She recommends strength training also.
3. Restrict sugar (and bad carb) intake. The pounds will drop automatically but it will be a major shock to your system, especially if you like candy and desserts. Check with doctor if you are a diabetic.

When I realized that strength training is one of the major ways to burn fat and to get fit, I started a program of weight lifting specifically designed for women. See How To Be Your Own Personal Fitness Trainer.

An important exercise concept involves changing up workouts frequently. The New Rules of Lifting book series mentioned in the article above allows you to switch routines easily. New Rules of Lifting for Life (also mentioned in the article above) takes age, experience, and injuries into consideration in workout design.

Need an alternative to weight lifting?
If you are opposed to women lifting weights, there are alternatives. I turned to exercise DVDs as a different way to gain strength. An exercise DVD system such as the one described in the following article will provide up to a year's strength training (if used several times), allow you to modify for experience level and injuries, and save you health club fees:

Get On the Fast Track to Weight Loss in 30 Minutes a Day (Without Hitting the Fitness Club)

If you are a fitness newbie, you will need to start your exercise program slowly. If you plunge into high-powered programs, you could injure yourself. Walking is the perfect initial fitness activity.

Once you get used to walking and then walking with weights, you can amp up your program with interval training, an aerobic activity that takes a whole lot less time than aerobics and accomplishes better results. This article describes the benefits of interval training:

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