Walk On!

It was sunny, if a bit chilly today, and my husband and I headed out for a long walk by the river. There is a well maintained rail trail that passes through our area and we headed for a section that is several miles outside of town. We spent a peaceful hour and a half walking, talking, and pointing out the wonders of nature to each other. It was good for the body, mind, heart and soul. Such a delightful and simple thing. This was the perfect walk for today!

Now on other days, I have other kinds of walks. Sometimes I want to challenge my heart and lungs and I walk where there are hills or staircases to climb. I tie a bandanna around my forehead to catch the sweat as I push myself forward, straining my legs as well as my heart and lungs. Those days I sometimes have to give myself a pep talk to get out the door for the walk, but ten minutes in I am committed and know I will see it through.

On yet other days, I grab my Nordic walking poles, my ipod loaded with a continuing education lecture, and I head for the rail trail for a steady, moderate intensity walk. Study and exercise all in one, multitasking at it's best!

And then there are the days when I am worried about family or business matters and I walk while I ruminate and problem solve, looking for a path of wisdom to emerge if I keep plodding forward. On those days the walk is a moving metaphor.

There was a walk last week, where I came to a spot on the trail that I remembered as the spot where I had to turn around when I first started walking in Morgantown in 2004. I was new in town and 70 pounds heavier than I am now. I was trying to get my health and fitness back and I had to start slowly. When I walked past that spot on the trail last week, I reviewed all the many times I have walked ( and yes, sometimes even run) that trail since that day and felt proud of the accomplishments that have come as I have continued to walk towards my future.

I don't ever recall going out for a walk and coming back wishing I hadn't gone. Such a simple and healthful pleasure. Have you been for a walk today?

Health Fair?

Warning! This is a bit of a rant.

Last Friday I dropped into the local mall to see a movie with a friend. When we arrived it was particularly crowded. There were many booths set up for a Health Fair that was scheduled to run through the weekend. Students and senior citizens had been bussed in to attend the event. Multiphasic blood testing, blood pressure checks, and balance screening were being offered. A couple of local chiropractic practices were offering free chair massages. These are all great services to the community and one could argue that they are important to health and wellness. However, there were many other booths that were more centered on disease, than health. Gruesome pictures of wounds that would not heal, diseased lungs, etc were on display. A number of surgical associates were promoting their services. One particularly ironic display was promoting laproscopic surgeries and had a display where you could play a game to try to find the piece of candy in the abdomen of the dummy - sort of like Operation, for those of you who remember that game. The technology on display was impressive. I was struck, however, by the fact that one would have to be decidedly unhealthy to be in the market for these services. I suppose many Americans find themselves needing to make decisions about these sorts of services everyday, but to see them marketed in a festive atmosphere seemed a bit bizarre to me. Maybe I am old enough to remember when health care was not a business and I just can't seem to make the adjustment to medicine as a consumer pastime. It seems to me that promoting health is a different venture than promoting critical care procedures. If that is my age showing, then so be it. In the meantime, I'll try eating and sleeping well, exercising intelligently, and staying engaged emotionally and intellectually, in the hope that it can stave off the need for most of the "health care" services I saw on display last week.

Balance

My new class is being taught at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and is targeting balance training for people in the second half of life. (For those of you new to the blog, I assume we will all live to 100 if that helps you to figure out who is in the second half!) This class is a new venture for me so I am learning even as I teach. What I am learning from this class is not all about physical skill. Certified trainers always do some form of assessment before working with clients. For this class I used a Medical and Health Behavior Questionnaire, a Balance Efficacy Scale, and 11 basic tests of balance and strength to gather information that would help me plan the class to best meet the needs of the people who attend. What most impressed me about the information I gathered was the confidence and positivity of my class members. Although a number of the class members are facing health challenges as they age, they rate their quality of life as good and remain confident in their abilities to meet the challenges that are before them. They don't let the changes in their physical condition overwhelm them. They remain active in the community and a number of them volunteer their time to charitable causes. They engage in intellectual pursuits. As a result, they are interesting and stimulating people to be around. We have lots of fun in the class and we laugh every day. The members of my class are models for how to stay strong in the second half of life, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and socially. That is a balance that I hope to achieve in my own life. There is magic in the teaching/learning equation. When you learn something you have the opportunity to go out and teach it, and when you teach something you almost always learn something more from the experience.

Preparation Meets Opportunity

The landscape of my life is illumined by optimism. I have had a great week! The bitter cold we have been experiencing in West Virginia has temporarily dispersed, the sun is out. I began teaching a new class this week and my ongoing class quadrupled it's attendance! I've signed with two new clients and was able to up the ante on my resistance training workouts after a period of lighter workouts while working on a back pain problem. The news broke on a national level this week that my town, Morgantown, WV is considered to be recession-proof and has the nation's lowest jobless rate - just 2.7 percent. Truly, it has been a great week.

Why is it that I am having such a good week, when the country seems to be in such dire straights? In part, I am lucky to be living in Morgantown, where we are buffered from the worst economic disasters, at least in the short run. But I think there is a bit more going on as well. I have been concentrating for the last 3 years on learning everything I can about my work and my passion for health and fitness. I have followed any lead that seemed interesting to me, even when I couldn't see a direct correlation to my current work. I've been reading blogs written by some of the best trainers in the business, and I have been learning the way the fitness industry works at the local level. I have been preparing myself for change in my life. And this week, preparation met up with opportunity. If you had asked me two years ago when that might happen I would have had no idea, but I prepared anyway. Had I not prepared, the opportunities might have been lost.

What are you preparing for? What are you doing today to get your body, mind, and soul ready for the day when your preparation meets up with opportunity? Invest in your own growth and development. The opportunities will come. Be prepared for success.

Timing is Everything

I just completed my workout for today and I feel great! The weather was sunny and above freezing for the first time in days so I went outside for a long Nordic walk. When I came home I did a 10 minute stretching routine and now I'm full of energy to tackle the long list of paperwork tasks that await me. That burst of energy and enthusiasm got me thinking about how exercise enhances my life and how I have learned to integrate exercise into my daily responsibilities.

Whenever possible I try to schedule my workout first thing in the morning (after being sure I have eaten a good breakfast - see previous post). If I leave it for later in the day I am much more likely to decide not to workout. Other tasks compete for time. But the real cost will come later when I am getting ready for bed and taking account of my day and realize that I did not take care of my health. By exercising early, I get a psychological boost along with the physiological one. I cruise through the day confident that I have met my obligation to myself to take good care of me. When the evening has set in I am relaxed and calm and am able to count up all the things I accomplished in my day beginning with honoring my committment to my health. It works for me.

This pattern doesn't work for everyone. I have a son in college who has ADHD. He doesn't wake up easily in the morning. When he sits in a classroom all day the stress builds for him. It is not only psychological, but physiological as well. At the end of a day of school work he needs to work his body to release that toxic buildup of chemicals that stress brings with it. We learned this together when he was still in grade school and it has stood the test of time for him. Exercising first thing in the morning just wouldn't give him the same benefits (although there is emerging evidence that getting your heart rate up in aerobic activity can improve the brain's capacity for learning tasks in the hours that immediately follow - maybe I'll blog more about that soon).

I'm sure many businesspeople find it advantageous to exercise on their lunch hour or after work as well. In fact, yesterday I read an interesting article from a businessman who works at his desk with his computer most of the day. He said he sets a timer for either 30 minutes or 60 minutes - never longer - and when it rings he pauses in whatever task he is working on and gets up and walks around the office or does a set of pushups against his desk. Sometimes he does 20 squats or lunges and then gets a drink and stretches a bit before he sits back down to his task. He insists it helps his productivity as well as ensuring that he gets some exercise. He'd rather spend his evenings with his children and wife than in the gym. His workout plan fits his situation.

Exercise can work wonders in your life, but you have to actually do it. When you are planning your health and fitness goals it helps to reflect a bit on what timing will work for you. Also think about what environment is best for you. If you know that at home you will be constantly distracted by family responsibilities, consider the gym or outdoor activities. If you feel self-conscious in the gym or it is too far away from home, hire a personal trainer to come to your home and design a workout for you in your own environment. There is a way around every obstacle to exercise. Be creative and keep yourself moving.

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.