Whether you like it or not, your body will go through a number of changes as it ages. How these changes affect you depends in part on your genes. Think how your parents or siblings have aged and you've a good idea of how you will

• Changes: pre-menopause
• Changes: post-menopause
• Set targets
• Walking ideas
• Toning your body
• Healthy balance

Your level and type of physical activity and, of course, your diet also play their part. I strongly encourage everyone to be as physically active as possible throughout their whole life, but evidence suggests that the window from 35 years upwards has a more significant effect on your ageing than your physical activity levels in earlier years.

A number of physical changes occur in women pre-menopause, a phase often referred to as peri-menopause. These include:

1. Decreased metabolism

Owing to changes in hormones and muscle mass, your body needs fewer calories to perform its normal, everyday tasks. Not adjusting this calorie balance slowly contributes to weight gain and specifically a 'shape shifting' phenomenon in women.
2. Oestrogen levels fall

Specifically, they become more erratic, waxing and waning, and the storage site of fats shifts to the abdomen. Consequently any weight gained is laid down around the middle, and so the middle age spread is born!

Post menopause:

1. Rising cholesterol and blood pressure

Increases the risk of heart disease and contributes to other cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.
2. Decreased bone mineral density

The average bone loss in women during menopause is two per cent each year, yet it is possible to lose up to 20 per cent of bone in the five to seven years after menopause.
3. Weight gain

The shape shifting scenario and the changes in blood pressure and cholesterol can put women at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.
4. Falling oestrogen and testosterone

Women lose about 66 per cent of their oestrogen and 50 to 60 per cent of their testosterone. In most cases body fat is redistributed from the hips to the midsection, compounding the effect of the middle age spread that you may have started to experience during your 40s and peri-menopause.

Set targets
How to tackle such physical changes can seem daunting especially if you have never been physically active - however the good news is you can make a significant improvement to your health by addressing your exercise in three simple areas:

1. Cardio to strengthen your heart and lungs.

Walking is the best activity and will significantly reduce your risk of heart attack. Walking briskly for three hours a week - or just half an hour a day - is associated with a 30 to 40 per cent lower risk of heart disease in women. (Based on the 20-year Nurses' Health Study of 72,000 female nurses.)
2. Toning to improve your muscles strength and improve bone density.


3. Balance and mobility work to improve agility, posture and flexibility, all important as these are associated with ageing.

Walking ideas
Following a regular walking programme can boost the level of high-density lipoproteins (HDL), known as 'good' cholesterol.

Physical activity helps reduce low-density lipoproteins (LDL or `bad? cholesterol) in the blood, which can cause plaque buildup along the artery walls - a major cause of heart attacks.

However consistency of your actions is crucial for your heart health, but getting started can be daunting.

So here is a simple way to success: Invest in a good pedometer - I would only recommend my own one - which has been awarded a gold standard for accuracy available from www.joannahall.com.

Establish your average daily baseline number of steps (record your daily number of steps for four days and work out your average).

For the first week you must match your baseline number of steps every day.

For the next five weeks, add 1,000 steps to your baseline. Match that new baseline each day of each week. In week two, introduce four minutes continuous brisk walking on four of the seven days, adding a further two minutes each week.

This approach allows you to get fitter gradually, feel in control and with a little creative thought, should easily fit into your life.

Toning your body
Strength generally deteriorates as we age, partly due to a loss of lean body mass or muscle, but also because of a decline in our body's ability to send the correct message from the brain to the targeted muscle. This process of getting the correct message to the muscle and getting it to contract is called recruitment.

Studies have shown that muscle recruitment is at its optimum when we are 25, then slowly declines to about 40 per cent by the time we are 80.

Over the age of 50, the decline in muscle mass is accompanied also by a decline in the body's ability to recruit the right muscles fibres through the correct nerve message carriers.

This means that the loss of strength is not solely a function of loss of muscle mass.

At home, try exercises such as front and back lunges, squats and step ups three times a week for 10 - 12 reps.

At the gym, try body pump classes, more strength toning yoga such as astanga yoga and exercise equipment. Pilates has also been shown to have a significant strengthening effect to some joints and muscle groups.

Healthy Balance
From around the age of 40, our balance deteriorates. Tiny sensory hairs in the inner ear lose their sensitivity, decreasing our ability to detect balance changes.

As we get older the range of mobility around each joint is reduced as the connective tissue around each joint becomes less pliable.

This can cause a gradual loss of flexibility, coordination and directly effects balance.

To preserve or restore range of motion and flexibility around each joint, you don't need to spend hours stretching - a small selection of simple exercises can maintain your range of motion, making you feel better and your body more agile.

In fact improving your mobility and balance is the foundation to your exercise success.

At home, try standing on one leg and shutting your eyes, you'll feel how the muscle receptors in your legs and feet really start to work. When doing this it's a good idea to have a chair close for support if you need it.

At the gym, try yoga and martial arts, especially Tai Chi or with posture exercises or weight machines that strengthen legs and lower back muscles.