According to an article at Medical News Today a survey of several different sources in the Western world place the humble apple atop a list of the 10 healthiest foods.
Some of the apples benefits are great source of antioxidants (slows aging and fights free radicals) and one study shows females that regularly ate apples had a decreased risk of developing heart disease by up to 22%.
The article lists nine other foods, almost all of them really tasty and easy to add to your regular diet, that have proven health benefits if eaten regularly.
We’ve all heard since we were small children that calcium is the best nutrient for strong healthy bones and if you’re a woman over 50 you probably already know that not enough calcium in your diet can lead to loss of bone mass and brittle bones as you age but did you know that there are more ways of getting calcium than drinking milk? Or that the rate of absorption and the efficiency of the calcium you take in is very dependent on several other factors than just how much you consume?
This article at Fitnessrepublic.com tells you how you can get your calcium requirements met from other sources than milk such as dark green vegetables like spinach, collards, kale and broccoli or even oranges and almonds.
You also need to know that calcium needs vitamin D in order to be synthesized by the body. This is a must! Vitamin D is made by the body when you are exposed to the sun. You don’t need a lot of sunlight to get this started, the article tells you how little sun you need each week to get enough vitamin D.
The article also goes into detail about some food sources for vitamin D and what other nutrients are needed for optimal absorption of calcium as well as telling you about some foods that may actually inhibit your calcium absorption even if you’re getting enough.
This article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal points out that some of the most effective practices for maintaining or improving your health over 50 can be done in fifteen minutes or less and doesn’t even require you to leave the house.
Dr. Wendy Bazilian, a registered dietitian, public health doctor, and past quest on the Live with Regis and Kelly show says that a few simple things when done consistently can have a big cumulative effect on good health and wellness.
Just four of her suggestions are:
Stretch – Stretching 15 minutes a day if you’re over 50 keeps you flexible lessening your risks of falls and helping to maintain mobility
Make sure you’re cooking with the right oils. Use olive oil and organic grapeseed oil that may raise the healthy HDL cholesterol and lower the unhealthy LDL thus decreasing risk from heart disease and some cancers.
Omega-3 fish oil supplements – the fatty acids found in Omega-3 is thought to improve brain health.
Ran across this excellent website the other day that in my opinion is one of the best out there for finding good exercises for beginners. The site Beginner exercises at Fitness Republic list over 95 beginner exercises that you can pick from and has them arranged in a number of different ways such as by body area, muscle group or equipment needed (although most of the routines require no equipment or maybe some basics like a mat or exercise ball, resistance band or steps.
Looking over some of the exercises the beginners level seems to focus a lot on building a good foundation. There’s a lot of moves for the core and improving flexibility and strength. I also notice quite a few moves that concentrate on that pesky area behind the upper arm, you know where all that loose skin seems to want to hide!
There’s just too much stuff on this site to go over in a short review like this. There are tools to help you build your own personal workout, there are fitness videos, meal and weight trackers, logs for your workouts and much, much more.
Hepatitis C or Hep C as it is commonly called will soon kill more people in the Unitied States than HIV. According to the Centers for Disease Control as far back as 2007 Hep C killed over fifteen thousand Americans while the virus that causes AIDS killed almost thirteen thousand.
For people over 50 this should be especially alarming because;
Two thirds of Hep C infections in the U.S. are in people born between 1945 and 1964, the baby boomers
Although over 3 million people may have Hep C about 1/2 of gthem don’t know it
Hep C is a “silent disease” infecting the liver and doing damage for years before it’s discovered
Although the infection is ussually spread through sharing needles, and the preponderance of casual drug use among baby boomers in decades past makes them more likely to have caught it this way before the threat of HIV ended this practice for many, it can also be passed along by simple blood transfusions. Today all blood donations are tested for hepatitis but this wasn’t the practice prior to 1992.
Dr. Harvey Alter with the National Institutes of Health says that “most people with chronic infection are still not identified,” and recommends that those at higher risk like those that received blood transfusins or organ transplants before 1992 have blood test and be screened for hepatitis C.
According to this NBC news report the loss of mental facilities that we all fear might happen in our 60′s and 70′s may actually start in our 40′s. The good news is that although it’s irreversible it can be prevented with exercise.
It’s believed that the benefits associated with increased oxygen and blood flow to the muscles and heart that we get by exercising may also help the brain stay young.
I don’t think there is a gym anywhere in America that you enter where you won’t find at least one exercise ball. I’ve been in gyms that didn’t have a jump rope or maybe was missing the resistance bands but NEVER have a seen one without the exercise ball and there’s a few good reasons why.
They’re Fun!That’s right, I don’t think that there is a more child-like piece of equipment in the gym. There are literally hundreds of different exercises that you can do with them and you ‘re bound to find one of them that’s easily within your range of difficulty if you search or just ask one of the gym staff if you’re at the gym.
They help maintain good form and improve posture. I can’t stress this enough to newbies. Form and posture is MUCH more important than amount of weight or number of reps when you’re just starting out. Why? Well for one thing it sets the foundation for more advanced exercises and moves. If you learn the correct way in the beginning you’re more likely to continue to use correct form when the routines and workouts become more physical and demanding. Secondly proper form ensures that you are working the targeted muscle groups. When you cheat a little by changing your posture or form even just slightly you may be bringing different muscles into play that the exercise was not designed to engage. Lastly and most importantly, SAFETY! Using an exercise ball stabilizes your core, helps maintain the natural curvature in your back when doing floor exercises and actually forces you to constantly adjust you posture just to stay balanced.
Versatility. As I mentioned there are hundreds of different exercises created for the ball. A great place to start is with this Complete Guide to Ball Exercises. There you will find workouts of varying degrees of difficulty for just about everyone.
A lot of women over 50 (and yes some men too) develop the cursed “flabby arm” syndrome. Why? It could be one of or a combination of two things. Loss of muscle mass and/or increase of fatty mass.
As I’ve mentioned in previous articles the aging process naturally involves loss of muscle mass beginning around the age of 40 and increases as we get older. This is called sarcopenia. Because of this it is very important for older people to include resistance or weight-bearing exercise to their fitness routines as well as cardio for the heart and lungs.
One of the areas of the body that seems to lose muscle mass the quickest in a lot of women (and paradoxically add fat at the same time) is the arms, more specifically the triceps muscle area.
One really effective exercise to fight the loss of muscle and tone up this underside of the upper arm is the “triangle push up”. The American Council on Exercise, one of the leading certification agencies for Professional Fitness Trainers, rate the triangle push up as the number one exercise to combat flabby arms!
Triangle push ups are performed just like regular push ups except instead of placing your hands beneath the shoulders you form a triangle with your pointing fingers and thumbs in front of your chest . Be sure to keep your back and torso rigid and your head aligned with your spine while lowering and raising your body in a normal push up motion. This exercise has a medium to high level of difficulty so it can be done from your knees or even from the wall push up position.
Follow this link to read the ACE study on the Three Best Triceps Exercises. This is a PDF file so if you’d prefer to download it and read later you can simply right-click on the link and chose to save it to your computer.
