That's Fit

It used to be that group classes at gyms were broken into a few small categories -- men/women, high intensity/low impact and so forth. But gyms have started to offer special classes that are designed to benefit much smaller groups. Most recently, gyms are offering classes designed for people with certain conditions or illnesses.

Osteoporosis, cancer, and cardiovascular conditions are just a few of the health problems gyms are starting to target. Depending on the condition, the classes may aim to improve the symptoms and/or reduce risk factors for recurrence.

If you have a specific condition, talk to one of the trainers at your gym. (Or call a local gym if you don't have a membership.) Even if they don't have condition-specific classes scheduled yet, they may have other gym-goers who are interested. In the meantime, a trainer can design a program that works specifically for your health needs.

Have fitness questions? Fitz has your answer. Our ThatsFit.com fitness expert -- and now your own virtual personal trainer -- will help you get fit, increase your overall health and do it in a fun way. Drop your questions here in the Comments section below and we'll choose one per week to publish on That's Fit! Learn more about Fitz here.

Q. Hi Fitz, I'm a lady who is happily turning 51 next week and am finally ready to get into shape. It seems like I went from a skinny-as-a-rail teen to a weighty 180 pound middle-ager. There are so many weight-loss programs, tips, recipes out there, and it gets quite confusing. I don't like to exercise per se, but I love to garden, wash the car, play kickball, and dance. For both weight-loss and aging concerns, I know there are some diet changes I need to make as well. For instance, I've had to cut out 2% milk and switch to 1% because the higher-fat just didn't agree with me anymore. But what's the next step? High fiber, low-fat, no carbs, or carbs for daylight hours only? I missed the point when my body was supposed to be racked, stacked and packed! I'm now hoping it's not too late to achieve that at this stage in my life. Can you help? Atia

A. Hello Atia! I love your question. Glad to hear that after 50 years you're ready to make a grand effort towards a fitter, stronger, and with no shyness ... a hotter looking body! Of course it's not too late; it never is. I also agree with you that the information put out about fitness is far too confusing. Being an "expert" in the field, it's nice that people give me credit for being somewhat brilliant about it. I'll let you in on a little secret though (promise not to tell a soul?): All my years of education and experience have taught me this: Fitness is ridiculously simple.

A reduced risk of cardiovascular disease has long been associated with the antioxidant properties found in red wine. The high level of polyphenols can help keep arteries unclogged and the heart pumping at a healthy rate. Well, it turns out that these same polyphenol compounds may help prevent against fat storage.

A recent Israeli study found that the polyphenols found in red wine help your body block the absorption of fat. And, just in case you're not much of a wine drinker, it seems as though similar results can be obtained from red wine marinades.

To make your wine shopping more enjoyable, why not try visiting some of your local vineyards? There, you'll be able to sample many of their unique varieties during a wine tasting. For a listing of vineyards in your area, visit Wine and Times, the website that allows you to plan your own winery tour anywhere in the U.S.

Volunteering at our local Humane Society and caring for a room full of rescued cats is keeping me and my little boys plenty busy and happy this summer. It may also be helping our hearts.

Researchers have found a correlation between cat ownership and a decreased risk of deadly heart disease. While we don't own our very own cat, we do engage in many of the tasks that cat owners practice. And so maybe, if we're lucky and keep at our community service project, we'll enjoy a 40% lower risk of one day dying from a cardiovascular condition.

Caring for cats can make you more energetic and happy, say researchers. I believe it. My seven-year-old is very content while petting, brushing, and loving the cats we visit. And while having any pet companion is good for both physical and emotional health, it seems cats do the trick better than dogs do. Maybe it's because there are more cats owned in the United States -- there are 90 million compared to 74.8 dogs. Makes sense. There are 90 some cats in our Humane Society cat room. There were about 10 dogs last time we visited. Clearly, there's more cat work to be done.

Of all the healthy foods I've posted about here on That's Fit, I'd have to say the one I mention most frequently is green tea. Whether it's highlighting its protective effects against Alzheimer's and certain types of cancer, or its ability to improve cardiovascular health, the green stuff continues to earn its place in a healthy diet.

To help solidify its standing, green tea has added a new benefit to its already impressive resume: fighting physical and mental fatigue. Muscle & Body magazine, citing a recent Japanese study, reports that an active ingredient in green tea -- known as epigallocatechin gallate -- reduced markers of fatigue and oxidative stress.

What if you don't like the taste of green tea? Good question. Thankfully, the answer is not to block your nose and chug it. Instead, try one of the many flavored varieties that are available.

Add strawberries to your grocery list, ladies, because according to Harvard Medical School researchers, the nutrient-packed fruit may offer extra protection against cardiovascular disease.

Seems women who ate two or more servings of strawberries a week were 14 percent less likely to have elevated levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) than those who hadn't eaten the berries in the past month. High levels of CRP can indicate a higher risk of heart attack.

Prepare to arm yourself. With strawberries. And some literature on just how great these berries are -- check out these fun strawberry facts, refresh yourself on a previous That's Fit strawberry post, learn why strawberries are considered one of the world's healthiest foods, and get the lowdown on the nutritional stuff from which strawberries are made.

When we stand in front of our mirrors in the morning, examining our bodies for the first time of the day, we get a fairly good look at our physical well-being. We know if we could stand to drop a few pounds, just as we also notice when we have. The signs of our health are literally staring right back at us.

However, our eyes can only see so much. True, they may be able to see definition forming on arms, or something that resembles the start of a six pack on a midsection, but they unfortunately cannot see how healthy a heart is. This is where our other senses (and technology) of course come into play. We utilize our sense of touch to check our pulse, and our sense of hearing is used to listen to a heartbeat. It is through these methods and others that we are able to determine, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, how our ticker is doing.

But what can we do to keep it ticking?

While exercise is among the best ways to keep our heart healthy, many relaxation techniques are also quite effective. In fact, these techniques -- which include soothing massage -- reduce the body's production of stress hormones. British researchers found that when people received reflexology (a type of foot or hand massage), their heart rates lowered by as many as 8bpm. I don't know about you, but this sounds like as good a reason as any to finally get that massage.

When I was a kid, I took gymnastics at a local ... gymnastics place (for lack of a better term). I eventually quit, deciding that baseball, basketball and football were more my things. Anyway, the one part of gymnastics I always missed was bouncing around on the trampoline. As the years passed, I've always been tempted to buy one, but for one reason or another never got around to actually doing it. This is a shame, really, because not only are trampolines a lot of fun, using them also burns a good amount of calories.

Studies show that 10 minutes on a trampoline burns just about the same amount of calories as a 30-minute run, and it does so with 80 percent less impact on the ol' bones. Moreover, there are actual exercises you can perform on a trampoline, many of which you're probably familiar with already.

Common moves like the push-up, standing squat, lunges, and even jump squats done on a trampoline require greater use of your core muscles than when done on a hard, flat surface. The instability of the trampoline necessitates a certain amount of stabilization, or else you will tip over ... which is no problem, because then you can literally just bounce right back again.

Would you rather be slim and in shabby shape or big and in super shape? If you wish to live longer, bigger is better.

Slimmer folks may seem to have the advantage, says Fitness magazine, but body size may have less to do with longevity than we think.

Researchers have determined that overweight people who are cardiovascularly fit tend to outlive their lanky, out-of-shape counterparts. Fitness -- all it takes is a brisk 30-minute walk most days of the week -- can decrease your risk of premature death by up to 50 percent, even for those with a high body fat percentage. Fitness also lowers the risk for diabetes, coronary heart disease, and hypertension.

More on longevity here at this AOL Body site.

Singer and actor Barbra Streisand has donated five million dollars to an LA hospital for a a women's heart center. Her donation creates permanent funding for the Barbra Streisand Women's Cardiovascular Research and Education center at Cedars-Sinai. The hospital plans to expand its research efforts.

In a written statement Streisand said: "Women need to be educated about female cardiovascular disease and the medical community must be propelled toward change." She continued: "Just like with breast cancer the impetus must come from women themselves striving to become empowered to reduce their risks for heart disease."

Learn more about heart disease at AOL Body.

Women are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. That's why it's even more important today to prevent one of the leading causes of death among women: heart disease. In fact, heart disease is the leading cause of death among women over 65.

While most of the risk factors, signs and symptoms are the same in women as they are in men, there are unique aspects to women's heart health that are different, so it's important to get tested. And though many tests measure cardiac health, some are better at detecting disease in women.

According to MORE magazine, these are the tests that you should be asking for and why:

• Stress echocardiogram -- A stress echocardiogram uses ultrasound to show the heart's motion at rest and at peak exercise and is more accurate for women than conventionsl stress testing, which can lead to false positives in women.

The cardiovascular benefits of drinking a glass of red wine daily have long been known by scientists and everyday people like you and me for quite some time now. We've heard about how the antioxidant properties can help mitigate radical damage, and how reversatrol, a compound found in grape skins, has a direct effect on protecting our hearts.

But what about the rest of our body?

Well, it turns out that red wine can not only help us feel better, but it can also help us look better!! Researchers at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology in France found that drinking wine can help you lose weight and increase endurance.

Reversatrol, the same part of the grape skin that helps cardiac function, may also increase energy-producing components within muscle cells, according to the study. This compound can be found in supplement form as grape seed extract at GNC, Vitamin Shoppe and other retailers. As for where red wine can be found, well, I'm sure you know a place or two.

Name a tried and true way of losing weight. If you answered "Cardio," you are absolutely right. This is not to say that there aren't any other effective methods, but performing regular cardiovascular exercise creates almost a certainty that you will drop some pounds. But how many pounds? That depends on everything else.

If you're consuming an inordinate amount of calories every day, you obviously won't lose much weight with your cardio routine. This mistake can sometimes be made by accident; in fact, it is often made when people are trying to eat healthy. Case in point: the Health Bar. The high calorie content of many of these bars causes you to burn the bar itself before you start burning any fat. That's why noshing on a low-calorie meal that contains slow-digesting carbs about an hour before your workout is a much better way to go.

For several days now, I've been writing an ongoing series of diet and fitness posts titled "Why the Pounds Are Sticking Around," which are a collection of tips sourced from the health magazine Self. Since the response has been so positive, I decided to forge ahead with an idea I had for a series of healthy living posts. Since exercise and training are more my forte, I sought out information from an outside source -- Men's Health magazine. To that end, I found ten great health and wellness tips that I thought would be perfect for pieces on healthy living.

So, just as I have been doing with the diet and fitness posts, I will also be posting one healthy living tip per day as part of a series I think I'm going to call "Living Well." I think you'll find these tips to be as interesting and as helpful as I did.

Healthy Tip #2 - Sleep the right amount each night

Time and time again, we hear about the importance of getting around 7 hours of sleep each night. Failure to do so, as numerous studies have shown, can increase your risk of a host of maladies. But, did you ever wonder if it's possible to sleep too much?

It's quite possible, say researchers from the University of Warwick Medical School in England. The British researchers found that individuals who increased the number of hours they slept per night from seven to eight hours or more were more than twice as likely to die from non-cardiovascular disease within 11-17 years as those who kept sleeping for seven.

The takeaway, so it would seem, is to make sure you're catching your Z's, but to not become a permanent fixture on your bed.

When I took up running, I noticed a few changes to my body, namely:

• I felt taller and leaner
• I had more energy
• My knees hurt like heck.

I'm working on the knee thing, but all things considered, I think my decision to take up running was a good one. Truth is, running does some amazing things to your body, and taking up a regular running routine will do you a world of good.

Not convinced? Check out this article on the great benefits of running. The gist of it? You'll strengthen your heart (thereby reducing your risk of heart trouble later in life,) you'll increase your cardiovascular endurance (so no more huffing and puffing when you climb the stairs from the basement,) and you'll train your body to burn fat as its energy source (and who doesn't want that?)