Spin Doctor
Ride much? The best medicine for a healthy body is probably hanging in your garage.
by Selene Yeager
Forget the “as seen on TV” thigh trimmers and ab whittlers. To shed pounds quickly, and cheaply, pick up the first piece of “exercise equipment” you ever owned—a bike. Cycling is gentle on the joints, easy to do, and fun, which makes it the perfect workout whether you’re looking for a fitness tune up or a complete overhaul.
Just ask Phyllis Ingram, 60, of Barto, Pennsylvania. Eight years ago, she carried the burden of 225 pounds on her 5’6” frame. Just walking to the second floor in her home left her breathless, and it seemed like every joint hurt. Finally, she decided enough was enough and signed up for Spinning classes. Inspired by how fit and strong she felt pedaling in class, she bought a bike and started riding in small, casual groups. Today she is 70 pounds lighter and literally half her previous size, having dropped from a size 24 to a 12. She rides everywhere, often up to 100 miles on weekends, and has even started racing…and winning. “The physical benefits have been tremendous, but the mental ones are even better. I feel so much happier and more energetic. I get grumpy if I can’t ride.”
Ride for the Health of It
Cycling uses the largest muscles in your body—your legs and butt. So it scorches as many calories per hour, about 540, as jogging, but is much easier on your joints. And weight loss is just the beginning of the story. Along the ride, you pick up myriad health benefits including:
- Extra years Researchers analyzing data of more than 5,000 men and women from the Framingham Heart Study found that those who did regular moderate exercise, like cycling, extended their lifespan by nearly four years.
- Better beats Even the smallest amount of riding strengthens your heart by making it work harder. Riding just 30 minutes most days a week (enough to burn about 1,500 calories a week) can slash your total cholesterol by 10 to 20 percent.
- Happier moods Depression researchers have found that 30 minutes of moderate exercise like cycling three days a week works as well as prescription meds for alleviating depression. Even better, the exercisers were more likely to have long-term relief.
- Better immunity A year-long study of 115 overweight women recently reported that those who were sedentary succumbed to three times as many colds as those who started exercising 45 minutes a day five days a week.
- Healthier cells It’s never too late to start exercising to lower your risk for cancer. Doing any brisk exercise like cycling for 30 minutes three days a week, even when started in midlife, reduced breast cancer risk by 20 percent among women of all levels of risk for the disease, according to a study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Shrink Your Belly…and Your Footprint
There’s never been a better time to take up cycling. Scientists recently calculated that if all Americans between the ages of 10 and 74 replaced just 30 minutes a day of driving with a half hour of riding a bike we not only could lose weight to the tune of 6.5 billion pounds, but also could save 26.1 gallons of gasoline and cut 255 million tons of CO2 greenhouse gas emissions in a year. Talk about shrinking your carbon footprint! As gasoline prices rise and concerns about the environment grow, more people are climbing aboard bikes and there are more people to ride with, more great bikes to choose from, and more places to ride.
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