By Tim Seyfert

After years of inactive lifestyles, three nuns from the convent at St. Simon’s Catholic Church in Los Altos decided last year to change their habits — and they weren’t talking about religious garb.

Since September 2002, Sisters Margaret Rose Adams, Osue Chuta and Leo Shirley Cummings have been putting faith into a different kind of devotion: regular exercise.

At least four times a week, the nuns can be found working up a sweat at Lady Circuit — 30 Minute Fitness in Sunnyvale, combining low-impact aerobics with muscle-toning resistance training. Now, nearly nine months after starting up, all three sisters proudly declare themselves converted exercise buffs, showing that even nuns worry about keeping fit.

“I now wonder why I ever let myself get to be so unhealthy,” said Sister Adams after a workout session last week. “I should have started all of this 20 years ago.”

With little to no previous exercise experience, each nun had a different motivation behind getting in better shape. For Sister Adams, the principal at St. Simon Catholic School, it was an unhealthy body weight and high cholesterol.

“I was on medication for my cholesterol for five years,” she said. “After six months of working out, I no longer needed to take it.”

Sister Adams initially got inspired to join Lady Fitness when a St. Simon’s parent recommended the facility, a program which gets clients in and out in 30 minutes, to the busy nun. When people began commenting on how good she looked and how much more energy she seemed to have after only a few weeks, Sisters Chuta and Cummings started tagging along.

Since then, each nun has not only reduced inches, but their number of yearly doctor visits as well. Sister Adams has lost more than 36 pounds and nearly 6 percent of her body fat; Sister Chuta said good-bye to 5 percent of her body fat and greatly increased her range of motion; and Sister Cummings got a thumbs up from her doctor for decreasing her blood pressure and dropping 130 cholesterol points.

“During the Easter Vigil, my skirt from last year didn’t fit,” Sister Adams said. “I had to hold it so it wouldn’t fall off while I was distributing communion.”

The three sisters have also become inspirational staples at the fitness center, according to Lady Circuit owner Kristin Gerhard.

“Everybody loves them here,” Gerhard said. “The benefits of physical fitness see no religious, ethnic or age-related boundaries, and they’re proof of that. They’re inspiring.”