Jane asks... Do I need to lift weights for my legs? I walk 2 miles on most day?

The answer is yes, Jane, you do need to add strength training in order to keep your legs strong. Walking is a cardiovascular exercise, which helps keep you healthy, but here are some reasons why strengthening exercises are important for you.

1. You lose muscle every year unless you do strengthening exercises, walking doesn’t prevent muscle loss no matter how much you do!

2. Each pound of muscle you loose reduces the calories you burn by 50 calories a day.

3. Maintaining strength in your legs is secret to preventing knee pain.

4. It is the muscles in your legs that burn the majority of your calories.

With the right program and equipment Jane, it can take as little as 15 minutes twice a week to add strengthening exercise for your legs.

I’m Mike Arteaga, from Mike Arteaga’s Health and Fitness Centers and our mission is to make regular exercise a permanent part of your life!

If you have any questions, e-mail me at mikesquestions@gmail.com

Lets ask the Fitness Expert Mike Arteaga from MIke Arteaga’s Health and Fitness Centers:

Hi! this is Mike:  Bill asks is a scale a good way to measure fat loss?

No, Bill, in fact scales can be misleading and dangerous. 

Scales only measure total weight loss or gain, not whether you are losing fat and gaining muscle, which is ultimately your goal!

The scale is very misleading. Most diets dehydrate you, so that the scale goes down,.... even though you have lost little or no fat.

To gauge your fat loss more accurately, measure the area where you tend to put fat on first.  Men usually put it in on their waistline and women on their hips first. As you go down a hole on your belt or down a size on your slacks, you will know you’re losing body fat.

I’m Mike Arteaga, from Mike Arteaga’s Health and Fitness Centers

And our mission is to make regular exercise a permanent part of your life!

If you have any questions e-mail meat mikesquestions@gmail.com

Sue asks, can I use hand weights while I do my cardio vascular exercise to strengthen my upper body?

Sue, this isn’t a good idea since it does very little if anything to strengthening the upper body,.... and can actually lead to shoulder problems. Here a couple of quick guidelines to make strengthening exercises work for you.

1. In order for strengthening exercise to work, the weight needs to be heavy enough so the exercise cannot be continued beyond 60 to 90 seconds.

2. Strengthening exercise and cardiovascular exercise are two completely different kinds of exercise and cannot be effectively mixed together.

3. Set aside time for cardio and strength exercise each week. Both are important for your health!

4. you can accomplish both in as little as two hours a week.

I’m Mike Arteaga, from Mike Arteaga’s Health and Fitness Centers and our mission is to make regular exercise a permanent part of your life!

If you have any questions, e-mail me at mikesquestions@gmail.com

Tom says he has arthritis and asks how he can exercise when his knees hurt so much?

Great question Tom! The Arthritis Foundation recommends strengthening and cardiovascular exercise because it reduces the pain. 

Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Start easy with short walks and very light strengthening exercises, preferably with an experienced trainer.

2. Avoid exercises that obviously aggravated the knees, like Jogging or walking on hard surfaces.

3. Try cycling, elliptical machines or swimming, all these are low impact.

4. With strengthening exercises, work only within your pain free range of motion.

With some care you can exercise pain free and work to reduce the day to day pain of Arthritis, Tom!

I’m Mike Arteaga, from Mike Arteaga’s Health and Fitness Centers and our mission is to make regular exercise a permanent part of your life!

If you have any questions, e-mail me at mikesquestions@gmail.com

Sean asks how do I get rid of the fat on my stomach? I’ve been doing lots of sit-ups and it isn’t helping! 

Here is a quick guide on how to reduce fat on your stomach or your hips.

1) You can’t spot reduce. You have to reduce your TOTAL body fat to reduce the fat on your stomach or your hips.

2) To reduce your total body fat you need to burn more calories than you take in!

3) Exercise regularly to increase the calories you burn and to maintain your health.

4) Muscle increases the calories you burn everyday!  Make sure you include strengthening exercise to add muscle to your body.

5) Slowly reduce the calories you are eating and drinking to make sure your body doesn’t think your starving!

I’m Mike Arteaga from Mike Arteaga’s Health and Fitness Centers and our mission is to make regular exercise a permanent part of your life!

If you have any questions, e-mail me: mikesquestions@gmail.com

Because inactivity has now been proven to be MORE DANGEROUS to our health than even smoking, nearly everyone is trying to exercise.

I’m often asked what can I do to stick with my exercise program?

Experts say it takes 21 days to develop a new habit. Here are 5 quick tips on how to keep exercising!

1) It’s very important that you choose program you can do year-round!!

2) Try different programs to find the one you like the most!

3) Get involved with others.

4) Try for 30 minutes 1 to 3 times a week to get started!

And most importantly…

5) Write it into your schedule each week and make sure it’s a concrete part of your weekly schedule!

I’m Mike Arteaga from Mike Arteaga’s Health and Fitness Centers and our mission is to make regular exercise a permanent part of your life!

If you have any questions, e-mail me: mikesquestions@gmail.com