Joan Lunden

"Fall Into Fitness" Chat with Joan Lunden
Television Personality and Spokesperson for the American Heart Association's Choose To Move^SM program
Thursday, October 6, 2005; 9:15pm ET

Fall Into Fitness! In the U.S., one in four females has cardiovascular disease and a woman dies of cardiovascular disease every minute. In a recent American Heart Association survey, 76 percent of women said that physical activity is important to them, but only 28 percent said they get the recommended amount. A live Web chat, titled "Fall Into Fitness," with television personality and health advocate Joan Lunden, spokesperson for the American Heart Association's Choose To Move^SM program was held October 6, 2005 at 9:15 pm ET on www.healthywomen.org, the Web site of the National Women's Health Resource Center (NWHRC). Ms. Lunden answered questions on how to increase physical activity and build healthy habits to lower risk for heart disease and stroke.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: NWHRC moderators retain editorial control over live Web chats and choose the most relevant questions for speakers. Speakers decide which questions to answer.

Joan Lunden: It's a pleasure to be here with you tonight. NWHRC and the AHA "Choose To Move^SM" program are two subjects that are very close to my heart. I admire all of the work that the NWHRC is doing to encourage women to lead healthier lifestyles. I hope to do that, too, so I am looking forward to talking with everyone who is logging on tonight.

Juju: I am a busy mother of three children under six. How do I find time to eat right and exercise in any given day or, at least, a couple times a week?

Joan Lunden: I can really relate since I have seven children, three older daughters who are 18, 22 and 25 years old, as well as two sets of twins who are 2 1/2 years old and 8 months old. I have always found, like so many women, that I tend to take care of everyone else in my life, but I seem to get knocked to the bottom of my to-do list. About 15 years ago, I was interviewing a representative from the American Heart Association on "Good Morning America." The AHA had a quiz for our viewers to assess their risk of heart disease. By the end of the spot, I realized that I failed the test myself. It was a real wake-up call for me. I had never lost those last 15 lb after each of my three girls and since 3 x 15 lb = 45 lb, I knew I had to do something about the excess weight, the lack of physical activity in my life, and about my bad eating habits. I really took the matter seriously. I worked with a nutritionist and a trainer and made major changes in my life. I was determined to be running in the race 10 to 20 years later instead of sitting by the sidelines watching. That moment has made such a difference in the quality of my life. I am so much more physically fit and healthier than I was 15 years ago and I know I added years to my life. Had I not made that major change in my life, I may very well not have chosen to have small children again and be once again out on the playground climbing the monkey bars and sliding down the slide.

Jane: What type of food can I cook that is heart healthy AND that my family will eat?

Joan Lunden: What I love about "Choose To Move^SM" is that the AHA has provided women across the country with the kind of information that I learned from studying with many nutritionists. What women today need with their busy lives are simple ideas and realistic ways to cook healthy so that the whole family will enjoy it. To me, some of the best tips are to plan your meals out for the week, shop once a week with a shopping list, read labels and be aware of saturated fat and trans fat. When you come home from the grocery store, prep your vegetables and your fruit and put them into small plastic containers. That will make it so much easier when you start getting squeezed for dinner. When I started cooking healthy, I simply took out all the fat and it was mutiny at my house. I learned that when you take out fat, you need to find other ways to put flavor back in.

You can grill chicken, pork or other lean meat and serve them with delicious fruit side dishes, like mango chutney. You can choose brown rice over white rice, and I try to serve fruits and vegetables at every meal. I add in interesting flavors like slivered almonds into green beans. I put peas and chopped carrots into brown rice. The kids actually have a great time picking out their favorite parts. You all need good ideas and you will find a lot of them on the "Choose To Move^SM" Web site at www.americanheart.org/choosetomove.

Marilyn: The question that has been on my mind is how to get the motivation to get started. I know that exercise will benefit me but I just cannot get started.

Joan Lunden: In a major survey by AHA, they found that while 76 percent of women were just like you-- they understood the importance of physical fitness--but only about a quarter were physically active. That's why I am involved. Heart disease is the number one killer of women. Half a million women die of heart disease every year. That is a death a minute. We must do something. We can do something. We can reduce the risk of three of the major risk factors: high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure and excess body weight.

We are here to help give you the motivation to start and it's [Choose To Move^SM] is a 12-week program to get you up and moving and eating better. I have always found that once you get started, you will feel so much better and that, in itself, is the best incentive to keep going. If you need to find a partner, find another mom at school, a neighbor, get your husband to walk with you. Whatever it is that you found passion in when you were younger, take that up again.

Jane: I've always been very active, but after my first baby was born two years ago, I just can't seem to get started again. Any advice?

Joan Lunden: I think that if you have young children, it is important to take part in playtime with them. I used to go out and jog and power walk. Often now, I go into my backyard and walk in a figure 8 and my 2 1/2 year-old twins try to follow me. I do squats in one corner and my kids think it's great. My older girls love to go hiking with me. This summer my 18 year-old climbed several mountains with me. I think it's important that our children see us being physical. We are their most important role models. Playtime together as a family--be it hiking, biking, skiing or tennis--is one of the best gifts you can give your child. You can make sure that they grow up expecting physical activity to be a part of their lives.

Colleen: I would like some advice on fitting in exercise with my very busy schedule.

Joan Lunden: Finding time to fit in physical activity is so crucial to our health that it needs to be perceived by us with the proper amount of importance. Whether you get up earlier to take that time for yourself, you can walk or exercise at home. When you go to pick up your kids, go early and walk around the perimeter of their school. When my kids are napping, I'll take a two-way baby monitor to the backyard and I'll work out in the sunshine. I love classes with other women and fun funky music. I found classes like that in my area. Contact your local Y, look in your phonebook and find something that you will enjoy.

Jill: I find it hard to believe that a small amount of exercise can make a difference. Don't I really have to exercise for an hour?

Joan Lunden: Absolutely not! If you don't have 45 minutes, 15 is better than doing nothing. In the beginning, I felt just like you. If I didn't half an hour, I would feel that it wasn't worthwhile. But the days keep passing by. The longer you are away from it, the harder it is to get back. Just taking 15 minutes in the morning can make all the difference. In the morning, as my shower water gets hot, I get down on the floor and do abdominal, oblique, tush and outer and inner thigh exercises. I may only spend 6 or 8 minutes on some days, but it affects how I feel about myself and how I carry myself physically throughout the day. I feel like I, at least, did something that reminds me to stand up straight and hold in my tummy. This is what I mean by the little changes that can make a real difference in your life

Alice Foxx: Joan... what do you feel is the most important thing women 40 and over should do for their health?

Joan Lunden: In addition to eating healthy and getting plenty of fruits and veggies, we should really scale down our fat and get an adequate amount of calcium. We also need to incorporate strength training. We begin to lose muscle mass as we get older. Unfortunately, muscle burns calories faster than fat. This is one of the ways we start putting on weight as we get older. You can buy a couple of small weights, 10 minutes every other day makes a huge difference. Not only will it help build muscle in the right way, but it will give you great arms and great shoulders

Another simple way to do pushups: as you brush your teeth, put your hands on the bathroom counter and start with 10 reps and build to 20 reps. You can do them in the kitchen when making dinner, as well as squats and lunges. This strengthens the back and core, and is important for those of us who are picking up children all day.

Sue: How do you instill healthy eating habits while not being too rigid as to set up your kids to have an eating disorder?

Joan Lunden: We need to be careful when children are small and not tell them that there are good foods and bad foods and that some foods are taboo. If he/she goes to a birthday party with cake and pizza, you can say, "These are the types of foods that you eat only now and then." It's an opportunity to teach them that. Even an occasional visit through a fast food drive-in is an opportunity to say, "This is a quick fun thing to do, but not something that we can do all the time because the foods aren't the healthiest for us." I am responsible for snacks for my 2 year olds' class next week. I will make sure it is healthy, but also enjoyable and fun to eat. When they wake up from their nap, they love sliced apples, strawberries, kiwis and little carrot sticks. We do "ants on a log," which is celery with cream cheese and raisins on it. For lunch today, they had whole-wheat English muffin pizzas with tomato sauce and cheese that they helped make.

Kim: Have you always been so physically active or is this something that became important to you later in life?

Joan Lunden: I really wasn't physically active so much when I was young and I had to learn how to fit it into my life and find things that I enjoyed as an adult. I made sure to do this because I wanted to live a longer healthier life and I am enjoying the benefits of making this change in my life right now. I want to make sure I teach my children these lessons early in life.

Jill: I commute an hour each way to work and when I get home I don't want to cook a big meal. I also don't want to rely on fast food. How can I pull together a healthy meal in a short amount of time?

Joan Lunden: I highly recommend that you make the effort to stock your fridge at home with fresh foods that you can prepare for the week on Sunday. Bake two lasagnas on a Sunday and freeze one. If you haven't cooked in a while, you can find healthy frozen alternatives in your supermarket and quite often supermarkets will have "healthy" foods cooked on the premises. This is a matter of your health. It is so important--it's about your life and health. Making these changes could determine whether you will end up with a chronic illness that could debilitate your body and shorten your life. It is too important to avoid.

NWHRC Moderator: That's all the time that we have for tonight's chat. We would like to thank Joan Lunden for her time, her knowledge and her enthusiasm. To learn more about Ms. Lunden and the "Choose To Move^SM" program, please click here. We would also like to thank all of you for participating in this chat. Good night.

Joan Lunden: I want to thank healthywomen.org for inviting me here tonight. I hope that you all log on to www.americanheart.org/choosetomove. It will be your friend and partner to get you going. There are many recipes that will help you incorporate healthier meals into your family's diet. I didn't think I could do it, but I have and I know you can, too! Good luck to you and good night.

© 2005. National Women's Health Resource Center, Inc.