Exercise tips to feel sexier and stronger

Ask non-exercisers why they don't get up and move, and you're likely to hear many similar stories. They don't have time. They're not in shape. And most tellingly, it's just too darn late to bother. Here are some health improvements you're likely to see in as little as six months if you begin exercising regularly.

Just 30 minutes a day of vigorous exercise is enough to slash a man's risk of erectile dysfunction by between 37 and 58 percent, depending on the intensity of the physical activity. Sexual frequency, enjoyment, and satisfaction in older people is also directly linked to their fitness levels; the fitter you are, the more often you're having sex!

Here's another good reason to get outdoors and be active:

• Exercise is a critical factor in reducing the size of fat cells around your abdomen, the so-called visceral fat. This is the fat that gives men their beer bellies and women an apple shape.
• It's also the type of fat that accumulates within your abdominal organs and liver, contributing to inflammation, insulin resistance, and diabetes.
• Plus, it's associated with metabolic syndrome, a cluster of health markers that significantly increases your risk of heart disease as well as diabetes.

We now know that the size of these fat cells, as well as the number, is directly related to your risk of developing diabetes, regardless of your weight. Simply cutting calories won't shrink those cells; you must add exercise to the equation.

That's what researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, found when they studied three groups of women. All cut 2,800 calories a week, either through dieting alone or through a combination of dieting and exercise. Both exercise groups burned 400 calories a week through walking and shrank their visceral fat cell size by 18 percent; the dieters, who reduced their body fat, weight, and waist and hip measurements exactly as much as the diet-and-exercisers, saw no change in the size of those fat cells.

A similar study found that while diet alone and diet plus exercise reduced total and abdominal fat in overweight women to the same degree, only exercise reduced blood levels of chronic inflammation markers like C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6.

Sometimes it's easy to overlook the obvious — in this case, that exercise makes you stronger! Exercise your arms, and carrying groceries becomes easy. Exercise your legs, and stairs become a nonissue. You may not be able to see it when you put on a bathing suit, but as little as two to four weeks of weight training can create the kind of microscopic molecular changes in your body's production of hormones — including growth hormone and other chemicals, as well as proteins related to muscle growth — that contribute to muscle repair and strengthening. Researchers have even seen significant improvements in as few as four workouts.

This is critical, says Dr. Mitchell, because the more muscle you have, the better your cells use insulin and take in glucose. Those two factors play a major role in inflammation, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, and are behind many of the health-related benefits of exercise and its ability to keep you feeling young as you age.Yet, he notes, "There's no magic pill you can take to train your muscles." He's not just touting the company line; Dr. Mitchell, 79, walks an hour a day most days and works out with weights two or three times a week.