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Do you know your Body Mass Index, or BMI? Most people don’t. And that’s a shame, since your number can offer a peek at your health.

By your number, we mean your body mass index (BMI), which indicates whether your weight falls within a desirable range for your height.

Depending on your classification, you may or may not wish to think about losing weight.

It is a useful tool to determine whether or not you need to lose weight because it takes into account all body types.

Here is a really handy Body Mass Index Calculator

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

Regular exercise helps to prevent back pain by increasing muscle strength in your abdominal or ‘core’ area. A solid core means a strong back, and this kind of lean strength helps with all your daily tasks that involve lifting and climbing and twisting.

In addition, it helps ward off the kind of frailty that one sees in the elderly.

And the best news is, in a lot of cases, you don’t even have to break a sweat to get the benefits.

Great exercise options for women include:

– yoga
– pilates
– walking
– swimming
– water aerobics

For those who don’t mind breaking a sweat, there is:
– jazzercise
– jogging or running
– volleyball
– rollerblading
– dancing of all kinds

Exercise doesn’t have to be complicated or even planned. For instance, you can:

- do housework quickly and to music
- take the stairs instead of the elevator, both up, and down, to use different muscle groups
- do yardwork, such as raking leaves, mowing the lawn

Even the busiest business person has time to exercise, though, so now you have no excuse.   Get off one stop before or after your usual stop on the way to work or on the way home, and walk the rest of the way.  Then make it 2 stops and so on.  Walk to the corner store instead of taking the car, and save gas at the same time.

The biggest enemy of exercise is supposedly not having time, but if you are spontaneous and creative in your exercise choices, you should be able to work these and other fitness activities you enjoy into your daily life.

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Everyone and their granny seems to have a gym membershp these days, but the question is, do they really use it? Or is it just yet another failed New Year’s Resolution along with ‘being more neat’.

More than 60 percent of women don’t get the recommended amount of physical activity daily, currently set at 30 minutes a day. One in four women aren’t physically active at all

Exercise produces many health benefits, such as reducing the risk of developing diabetes. Eight million people have adult-onset, non-insulin-dependent diabetes in the US at the moment, and that number is rising.  In fact, diabetes is up in the US by almost 100% in the past decade.

Exercise lowers blood pressure, reduces levels of “bad” cholesterol while raising levels of good” cholesterol, and slows your resting heart rate, enabling it to work more efficiently.

Physically active women experience less intense and fewer symptoms of menopause.  In addition, weight-bearing exercise, like walking or lifting light weights, and resistance training using bands, helps increase bone density and prevent osteoporosis.

Exercise can also improve your quality of sleep and elevate your energy level and mood.  Exercise releases endorphins to improve your feeling of well-being, and can even help treat depression naturally without the need for antidepressants, which can carry many unwanted side effects.

Aerobic exercise delivers oxygen and nutrients to your tissues to strengthen your heart and lungs and improve your circulation.