Minimal Effort, Maximum Health

Make this the year of reaching peak health-with less time and hassle. Use these eight numbers as your low-sweat guide to a stronger year.

- By Lynya Floyd

7 NUMBER OF MINUTES YOU NEED TO WORKOUT TO SEE BENEFITS

When you're just starting to exercise, you don't need to slog through a long session. Just seven minutes can improve your heart and lung health, insulin function, and muscular strength and endurance. Pick 14 bodyweight exercises, some involving resistance (pushups, squats, planks), others involving cardio (jumping jacks, stepups). Do 20 seconds of one, rest for 10 seconds, and move to the next. We're such believers in the seven-minute workout that we created a whole book of them (Men's Health 7-Minute Workouts for Fat Burn). Caveat: "A more seasoned trainee will need a higher threshold to see increases in fitness," says clinical exercise physiologist Dean Somerset, C.E.P., owner of Somerset Fitness in Edmonton.

1 NUMBER OF DOCTOR'S VISITS YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON EACH YEAR

►Your annual physical needs to be, well, annual. "Most people only go to the doctor when there's an ache in their knee or a cough that won't quit, but preventive medicine is key," says Raj Dasgupta, M.D., at the University of Southern California. "You'll stay on top of your appropriate screenings so you can be ahead of the game." You have to know how your heart, colon, and everything else is doing to take care of yourself right.

0 NUMBER OF NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS YOU NEED THIS YEAR