Rose Reisman walks her two German Shepperds Rocky, left, and A.J. near her home in Toronto, On.Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail
Rose Reisman began exercising in 1993 after a diagnosis of high cholesterol. But she was slim and thought that running five miles a day was a ticket to eat whatever she wanted, so she stayed with high-fat foods until discovering a Mediterranean diet, the key to her weight control. Now 56, the author of 16 cookbooks shares how she stays fit while catering to her genetics.
My goal:
"I want to maintain a healthy level of fitness so that I feel good, look good and benefit my health."
My workout:
"I workout seven days a week before work. I do everything from a combination of the elliptical to stationary biking and running/walking/hills. I do cardio for 60 minutes. Strength training is every other day for 30 minutes with free weights, ball and balance trainer doing compound movements focusing on large muscle groups in a high-rep routine. I do two sets of 50 squats, then step-ups, lunges, push-ups, or some low-impact pool training for variety.
"I do the weights on my own and meet with a trainer once a month just to give me more ideas, and every six months I change my program."
My lifestyle:
"I wake up every morning at 4:30 and go to bed at 10:30 p.m., and I go all day long. I have four kids and four animals, including a 14-week-old puppy, and a husband and an intense career."
"After I walk the dogs every morning, I'm at work at 9 to 6 running around catering, meetings, attending to all of that. Then after dinner, I do another hour of work."
"I have breakfast at home: bread with peanut putter and banana and yogurt. Lunch, I always have in my car, is a huge salad with salmon or chicken and I put some beans in, some cheese, some dressing on it. Eating the Mediterranean way is to have your biggest meal in the middle of the day. Dinner is a smaller meal."
My motivation:
"I want to be a role model for my family so that they pass on [healthy habits] to the next generation. My family was from Eastern Europe and they had to work when they were 15 years old. They smoked and ate too much and they couldn't be role models for my sister and me."
My anthem:
"I love Oh, What a Night [by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons] and Hard Day's Night [by the Beatles]
My challenge:
"High cholesterol. My entire family has a history of diabetes, heart disease and stroke and everybody was on medication. My dad died at 56; he had a massive coronary. His sister died of the same thing. My grandmother [died] at 52 of diabetes Type II, and obesity ran in the family."
The critique
Kathleen Trotter, a CanFit pro fitness trainer, applauds Ms. Reisman for her active lifestyle, and says she's hard pressed to improve upon Ms. Reisman's regime, but identifies three key areas where the author can get fitter from her workouts without adding time. The first one is the easiest to apply.
Take a rest day
Seven days of intense training is too much because rest days are important for muscle and joint recovery and to help Ms. Reisman avoid overtraining as muscles break down. "When you work out, tiny tears happen in your muscles, and it's during rest and recovery that muscles actually get stronger," explains Ms. Trotter, who is completing a master's degree in exercise science at the University of Toronto.
"I suggest Rose take at least a day off to allow for recovery, maybe get a massage, because her body will respond to her next workout better - if she rests, she will get stronger - and she'll feel peppier and give 10 out of 10 on those workouts rather than five out of 10, and her motivation will be higher."
Do cardio that improves fitness
Ms. Trotter agrees that daily cardio is one strategy to looking and feeling good, but Ms. Reisman's steady state cardio undermines her goal. "If she's doing 60 minutes of cardio a day, she's probably doing fairly low intensity because unless she's an athlete she's not working at nine out of 10 in that hour, and if she's always doing the same thing, she's not getting the maximum benefit," Ms. Trotter says.
"On days Rose strength trains, I suggest she bring the cardio down to 30 minutes, but do intervals: repeat two minutes intense effort with two minutes of easy effort, so she's getting a different type of cardio that improves her fitness by challenging her lungs and heart to work harder; then do 45 minutes of weights, which is good for preventing osteoporosis."
Pump up bone health
As to strength training, Ms. Trotter recommends that Ms. Reisman add core and back exercises, important for posture. "For every set of push-ups, Rose should do two back exercises; for example, she can do rows and lat pull-downs; and she can wake up her deep abdominal muscles with foam roller hip folds and pelvic tucks; and then once her transverse abdominis are awake, she can switch to plank and side planks," Ms. Trotter adds.
By following this advice, Ms. Reisman will continue to benefit from increases in her muscle tissue, fat loss and health well into her senior years, and then her children's children will have to keep up with grandma.