How’s your heart?

What are YOU doing to help it?

Maybe I should put the fear of God in you first with some disturbing facts…

1) Heart disease kills more women than ALL cancers combined.

2) Four (4) percent of women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually, whereas Forty-Four (44) percent of women are diagnosed with heart disease.

3) Even though heart disease has been called a man’s disease, since 1984, more women have died annually from heart disease than men. (30% of all women)

4) In the United States, 39,520 women died of breast cancer last year but nearly 500,000 women died from heart disease. Put another way, in worldwide figures, 400,000 women die from breast cancer, but 8.6 MILLION women die from heart disease.

5) Given these statistics, only 24 percent of participants in all heart-related studies are women.

6) For 50 years, women have been treated based on diagnostics created for men. Our symptoms differ

7) Surveys of available data show that a very small percentage of research dollars spent in the United States focus on the treatment of women with heart disease.

What’s the ‘take home’ message?

Women need to pay attention and take care of their hearts and health.

What can YOU do?

You need to include heart healthy exercise to your daily, yes, you heard it, DAILY routine.

You need to pay attention to your nutrition.

Forget ‘going on a diet’ just to look good. How about eating well to live well? That is, to see your children grow up and be a cool Grandma and not a dead one. I know that sounds harsh.

Time for some tough love.

Fact is, heart disease is TOTALLY PREVENTABLE.  These statistics make my blood boil because women are letting this happen to them.

Here’s a great little workout to get you started on your heart healthy exercise…it takes nothing more than a little space and the will to improve your health. If you don’t want to do it for YOU, then think of the loved ones that you’ll be leaving behind if you were to become one of the statistics.

Get a Gym Boss timer, an app on your phone or use an old fashion timer of sorts…

Welcome to the tabata. This is a workout protocol that Scientist, Izumi Tabata did the 1996 study that concluded tabata training causes:

And guess what? This is the sort of HEART HEALTHY exercise that will help increase cardio function and help prevent disease.

Do 20 seconds of work and rest 10 seconds. Do 8 sets all together for 4 minutes of total work.

The exercise that you choose for the tabata depends on your fitness level. Exercises can include things like:

• jumping jacks (step jacks)
• high knees (march in place)
• running stairs
• jumping rope
• mountain climbers
• burpees (super hard!)

Rest up to one minute between each tabata. Work up to 3-4 tabatas for a total of 15-20 minutes of high intensity cardio work.

You know how I feel about those that read a magazine while pedaling a stationary bike or walking on a treadmill…that sort of exercise is better than nothing, but not much. Spend your time wisely when you workout and help your heart out at the same time.

I have audio tracks that you can download to your MP3 player so I can tell you when to start and stop for a tabata if you can’t manage a timer. I have a great plan to help you with these mini workouts…you owe it to your loved ones to get your heart in shape so you’ll be around to nag them the way I nag you 😉

Find out more HERE or for low impact workouts that provide modifications for beginners you can go HERE.

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This entry was posted on October 3, 2012 at 7:29 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in Workouts by Shawna 3 Comments