Stand Up for Yourself!

In October of this year I had the opportunity to travel to Oregon to visit my sister and her family. My parents, who are in their seventies and both facing some health challenges, were also visiting from their home in Montana. The first day we were together I could see my mom and dad were having difficulties getting up from the couch in my sister's living room.

This is an all too common problem for many aging adults. We all begin to lose muscle mass in our 30's. In fact by the time we are in our late 70's most of us will have lost about a third of our muscle mass. If we are active and exercise regularly we can counteract this process. It's when we become less active that the muscle loss catches up with us and begins to cause problems. But, not to worry, it is never too late to begin the process of challenging your body with some strength training to gain new muscle mass. Studies on older adults confirm time and again that a well designed strength training program can cause muscle gain in adults even in their 80's and 90's.

So, let's get back to the story about my parents. I offered to show them a strategy for getting up from a seated position that, if practiced regularly, should lead to stronger muscles in their legs as well as allowing them to have a better immediate result when they need to rise from a seated position. They were quick learners. The next morning they told me they had been practicing in different chairs and found the technique I taught them made a big difference. I was happy for them. I also found myself getting a little angry that none of their health care providers had advised them on this earlier.

Now that I have returned home from my trip I have channeled that anger into teaching everyone I come into contact with how to put this technique into practice. People I have shared the information with tell me that they have taught their parents and friends. Some have even visited friends at residential care facilities and taught them how to do this. I recently spoke with my brother in Montana and he told me that my parents had returned from their trip and shared the technique with my siblings. I was delighted! Hats off to my parents, who are still the spark that can set off a mini-revolution and touch the lives of people they have never even met.

And so in the spirit of that wave of learning that began in October, I posted a YouTube video under the title "Staying Strong in the Second Half of Life, Standing Up from a Chair". To view the video just click on the arrow below. Then go out and teach someone what you have learned!

What comes first, diet or exercise?

It is a new year and everyone is making their recommendations for how to be healthy in 2009. Some of the recommendations make my head spin. I'd like to simplify things a bit by suggesting one overarching recommendation that has the potential to produce great and lasting benefits to your health and well being. Cook. And I don't mean microwaving processed meals. In the last 40 years, access to quick ready cooked (in fact, this almost always means processed) foods has become the norm for most Americans. We cook a lot less than our mothers did. Interestingly, in this same time frame, obesity has become a major problem in this country. I think the two things are deeply connected.

When I decided to take responsibility for my health in 2004, my first committment was to make changes in my diet. It came before a serious committment to exercise. It turns out that I am not alone in this pattern. Weight loss is strongly correlated with a change in diet. It is not necessarily true that exercise leads to weight loss. It can, but sometimes exercise makes people hungrier and they take in more calories offsetting the potential weight loss from the increased activity. It's not that exercise isn't important - someday I'll commit to writing a list of the first 100 reasons I think exercise is a good idea - but if you want to change your health and or weight I think you have to start with the fuel you put into your body. If you are not giving your body quality food it will not be able to take you through the process you are embarking on. One hundred calories of potato chips and one hundred calories of broccoli are not equivalent. If you train with me, you know that I often ask what you had to eat for breakfast or what you plan to cook for dinner. In fact, if you told me that you had time to cook something or to work out, but couldn't do both, I would probably tell you to invest your time in a quality meal. It's that important.

So what constitutes a quality meal? First of all, it has to be real food. As my favorite nutrition writer says, "If you can hunt it, pluck it from a tree, pull it from the ground, or gather it from a bush it is probably real food" The list includes, meats, poultry, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds. It is best if they are sold in their natural state - not processed into other products that are sold in boxes, blister backs, heavy sealed plastic bags, and cans (I make some exceptions for the cans). By the way - that roasted chicken you pick up at the supermarket has a staggering list of chemicals that are injected into the bird as part of a "solution" that makes it so tasty. Sugar is often among these ingredients - just read the label the next time you buy one. (I do fall back on these conveniences from time to time myself - if the option is to buy a pizza or one of those roasted chickens I am definitely going to choose the chicken, but over time all those chemicals than enhance taste can cause problems for those who are trying to lose weight.) Those added ingredients are designed to stimulate your taste buds and increase your appetite so you will eat more. If you roast your own chicken you can avoid that

My second tip is that every meal or snack you eat should have a quality protein source. Protein helps to trigger the chemical signals in your body that lead to a feeling of fullness and because protein takes more time to be broken down by the body than simple sugars it helps control appetite swings.

The third recommendation I would make for a healthy meal is eat more vegetables - the non starchy kind - leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, and of course try to get as much color as possible. If preparing vegetables is the thing that keeps you from eating them, then investigate the possibility of ready prepped veggies at the supermarket. These will cost more, but I'm betting you would rather spend your money on good food than on drugs to control chronic diseases.

When I put my health as my first priority, I subscribed to an internet menu service called Saving Dinner. You can google it if you are interested. The service sent me via email a menu, cooking instructions, and a shopping list once a week. I shopped with that list once a week and had no excuses not to prepare my own dinner. The recipes were simple and took no more than 20 minutes to cook on most nights. It saved me a lot of mental anguish and kept me on track. More than 4 years later, I still cook nearly every night. I might eat out twice a month and the last time I ate in a fast food joint was in July on a road trip with my kids. I know it is hard to believe, but I don't miss it. I feel good about preparing my own food, it is a way or nurturing and caring for myself and my husband and it is a cornerstone of my day.

Please give it a try. It makes a world of difference.