Exercise and the Classic Patient Response
Mrs. H is in today weighing 196 pounds. She has high blood pressure and high cholesterol and is on medications for both. In discussing her medical care and how her health is shaping up, I strongly suggested that she needed to focus on losing weight this year and this should include an exercise program.She chuckled. "I'll try".
Does that mean yes, no, or maybe?
"Well, ..................maybe".
"I do all my own house work you know, and have all my life. That's my exercise".Well, ma'am, have you lost any weight doing your house work all your life?
"Uh.................., I guess not". (Nervous chuckle).Please refer to the new American Heart Association guidelines referenced in my February 20, 2007 entry for the current recommendations for "high risk" women and exercise.
(60-90 minutes of moderate to intense exercise "most days").Further comments intended to make this topic VERY simple.
NOT Aerobic Exercise:
Housework--even if you've done it "all my life".
Feeding the dogs, the cats, or the cattle.
Working eight hours per day.
Going to the grocery store 3 times per week.
Driving all your kids to their activities every day.
Cooking and laundry.
Babysitting 5 kids at the same time.
Taking out the garbage.
Paying Taxes.
Studying hard before finals.Aerobic Exercise:
Raises your pulse for a sustained period of time.
For those of you inclined to figure out your target heart rate,
use the following formula:
220 minus your age (in years) divided by 1.4
(OR multiplied by 0.7).
This gives you the heart rate at which you are likely
to get the most benefit and the least likely to injure
yourself.
Will make you sweat (as unpleasant as that sounds to us ladies).
Makes you breath hard.
Requires you to be in an upright position.
Requires you to be off the couch.
Examples of Aerobic exercise are:
fast walking, bicycling, swimming, use of other
stationary equipment, tennis, racquetball, etc.Weight training is isometric exercise and does not
generally have the same beneficial effect on the
aerobic system.
Multiplying by .7 is not the same as dividing by 70. You need to take out that "divide by 70" business.
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You are correct--thanx for the mistake edit. It is corrected.
Rima
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Heh. I got tired of trying to make myself excercise so I took drastic action and gave my car to my son. Voila, problem solved. I know I'm never going to be a regular at the gym, so I'm going walking everywhere instead. I used to be a gimp, so I love walking since I got my fabulous new hip.
Just did this, so It'll be awhile before I can report any improvement to my weight, BP, etc.
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Dear Doc,
Your are issuing orders.
She is not telling you (and perhaps she herself doesnot understand)her motivations and reluctance.
Neither of you is communicating. You are talking past each other.
If you would like to play the "blame" game, there appears to be enough to go around.
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