Are You Fit? Take The Test!

Looks can be deceiving.  You may be 50 plus yet people flatter you by saying how you don't look a day over 40. But you know better than to let this compliment go to your head.

You know deep down, that you're struggling with gastrointestinal issues, high blood pressure or chronic fatigue.

How can you  tell if you're physically fit?  Today's excerpt from my new book Intelligence For Your Life:  Powerful Lessons For Personal Growth provides you with an easy-to-take fitness test.

There are lots of definitions of fitness. We have had many physicians on our radio program to discuss what constitutes a healthy human being, and each had his or her own slightly different definition. For me, one key to coming up with a good definition of fitness or health is to separate fitness from appearance. If you want to know if you’re fit, ask, “What can I do?” not “How do I look?”

I ran across one report in the London Observer that introduced a new category of the male and female bodies. TOFI. That stands for “Thin on the Outside, Fat on the Inside.” The premise is that even though many people can get themselves razor thin, sometimes the horrible food they consume to get that way produces visceral fat around their vital organs. And so as a TOFI they actually become more of a health risk than a heavy person who eats right and works out just a half hour per day. There are quite a few studies pitting skinny couch potatoes against plus size gym rats. The couch potatoes look great in their skinny jeans, but they often end up first in line for the Statin drugs and blood pressure pills.

So for the purposes of this exercise, forget about your appearance. Instead, ask yourself the following questions about what your body is able to do:

   Can I walk a mile in fifteen minutes or less?

   Can I carry a couple of grocery bags from the supermarket to the car without difficulty?

   Can I climb one flight of stairs and not be out of breath? Is my blood pressure below 130/80? (Some more aggressive doctors—including mine—believe that number should be even lower . . . like 120/80).

   Is my resting pulse rate seventy beats per minute or lower?

Add to those five questions what my trainer Doug Larsen calls a “core fitness test.” This measures your core strength of your legs, arms, and stomach all at once. Lie face down, resting on your forearms with your elbows at a ninety-degree angle, and push up onto your toes so your body is stiff like a board. This is called “the plank.” Hold that pose for forty-five seconds. If you don’t sag, you pass.

If you meet all these criteria, then you meet the minimum in the fitness department. Of course, you should get a cholesterol test to see what’s going on inside your arteries . . . there’s no do-it-yourself way of testing that. If you failed in any one category of this test you are officially at a health risk level. Please don’t wait to see a doctor, and commit to doing whatever it takes to get back in shape.

John

Email John: johnsblog@teshmedia.com

More tips on how to stay healthy and fit are found in my new book  Intelligence For Your Life:  Powerful Lessons For Personal Growth.  You can buy this new product at your local bookstores or order it online from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Comments

[High Blood Pressure Treatment]

High blood pressure can make a person’s life in risk in a number of ways. Elevated blood pressure effects not only heart but it can produce devastating effects for kidneys, cardiac muscles, strokes etc. If left unmonitored blood pressure can be dangerous to a certain extent.