Everyone, no matter what age, can benefit from exercise,
but it is especially important for seniors.

From age forty, you can lose three to five percent from your muscle mass
every decade. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the
Unted States Surgeon General note that by age 65, walking and gardening
are the most common physical activities. By age 75, nearly a third of men
and nearly halve of women take practice no physical activity at all.
Worldwide, circa 3.2 million deaths annually can be ascribed in some way
to inactivity.

Physical activity doesn’t have to be strenuous to be beneficial, and you
don’t have to do a lot of it.
The guidelines are for 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week or
75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week. Experts say that even a moderate
amount of daily activity can have significant health benefits.

The most important benefits are:
*  Maintaining strong bones, muscles and joints
*  Improving stamina and general level of energy
*  Reducing arthritis-related swelling and pain
*  Improving circulation and reduce blood pressure
*  Improving mobility and balance, reducing the risk of falls
*  Reducing the risk of death from heart disease,
    high blood pressure,  diabetes, and colon cancer

As a senior, you may have to adapt your activities.
One if the best exercises is walking. You don’t need special
equipment and you can do it right outside your front door.
You can walk for five minutes or one hour, depending on your
stamina

YOGA
Yoga is easy to start, you can work at your own pace.
All you may need is a yoga mat.
Yoga can help you to become more flexible, strengthen
muscles and bones, enhance your mobility and balance,
and relieve stress or anxiety. Additionally, chair yoga offers
an even lower-impact workout for seniors.

SENIOR-SPECIFIC CLASSES
There are organizations with fitness classes, specifically
 designed for senior fitness, and led by instructors who
understand their needs. Like pool aerobics or chair exercise
classes. Many insurance plans cover all or part of gym and
community costs for people over 65.

WEIGHT TRAINING
Weight training doesn’t seem like a senior activity, but it
provides resistance, improves your strength, and helps
keep your bones strong. As with other kinds of exercise
programs, you need some guides at first and want to start
easy.

SWIMMING
Swimming in a pool or the sea is one of the best exercises
for seniors. There’s no impact, like there can be in other
aerobics or fitness classes. Also, the water provides its own
resistance, and you reap the same benefits as other exercises
in terms of heart health, flexibility, muscle and bone health,
and stress relief.

HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST FITNESS PROGRAM FOR YOU
There are some important factors you need to consider
when choosing a fitness program.
*  Your current level of activity and fitness
*  Any medical or health conditions
*  The kind of exercise that appeal to you personally
*  Whether you have any schedule limitations
*  Whether you have physical limitations –  which may mean
    you need a personal trainer or instructor

EFFECTIVE FITNESS PROGRAMMING
When you are a member of a senior living community,
such as assisted living or long-term care, you could join
their senior fitness program, which benefit residents’
mental health and enhanced social connections.

ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING
It’s difficult to know for certain when it has become too much
for a senior to live independently. Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)
are basic tasks you should be able to do without help.
How a senior handles these activities can give you an objective
way to gauge how capable you or a loved one may be.

Activities of daily living are:
Mobility, Eating, dressing and grooming, personal care, transfer

CDC statistics note that, as you’d expect, limitations in individuals’
abilities to accomplish the ADL’s are greater the older they get.
About two percent of those in the age range 45-64 struggle with ADL’s; that increases to about four percent between the ages 65-74
and about 11 percent in those over 75.

INSTRUMENTAL ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING (IADLs)
This is a higher category of ADLs, which require more thought,
planning and organization than the basic ADL’s, which include:
*  Transportation and errands
*  Money management
*  Meal preparation
*  Home maintenance and housekeeping
*  Communication skills
*  Managing medications

Maintaining a healthy weight is important when you get older. It’s wise to make good food choices, watch how much protein you take and be active. Fast weight loss is not healthy. When you lose weight quickly you can lose muscle and this can affect your health. Remember that adults come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Try to eat at least the minimum number of servings from all four foods groups each day. Grain products (6 – 7 servings) Vegetables and Fruits (7 servings) Milk and Alternatives (3 servings) Meat and Alternatives (2 – 3) Canada’s Food Guide (www.healthcanada.gc.ca/foodguide provides good advice on what foods to choose and how much you need to eat to be healthy. Follow Canada’s Food Guide for the correct serving size. Eat regularly. Include three meals each day. If you are hungry, add a small snack in between meals. Limit high fat and high sugar foods. Eat your meals slowly and enjoy each bite. Choose fruit instead of fruit juice. Eat when you are hungry. Stop when you are full. Don’t overeat, you don’t have to finish all the food on your plate. With efficient metabolism food gets shut to the furnace to be burned quickly.

Coffee can speed-up your metabolism and increase the efficiency of your metabolism. Skipping a meal, especially breakfast, will make it harder to get all the nutrients you need each day. Eat at regular times every day. Plan your meals and snacks ahead of time. If you don’t feel like cooking, replace a meal with 2 or 3 easy snacks. Meals don’t have to be complex or require cooking Have a toast with peanut butter, fruit and a glass of milk. Aim for at least three food groups for your meals. Pack healthy snacks to take with you when you are away from home. How is your appetite? If you live alone, sitting down to eat a meal by yourself can be hard. You may not feel like making meals for just yourself. Food may not interest you and may not taste as good. Here are some ideas to help you to increase your appetite: Choose a comfortable place to eat. Exercise or take a walk before meals. Add flavor to your food by adding herbs and spices. Eat meals with family and friends, if possible. Try a new recipe Join a cooking club or community kitchen. Ask your health care provider if your medications are causing appetite or taste problems Do you get enough protein in your diet? Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, legumes such as beans, peas and lentils, tofu, nuts and seeds are excellent sources of protein, iron and B vitamins. You don’t always need meat, fish or poultry to meet your protein needs. Try other foods that are good sources of protein such as nuts, legumes, eggs or tofu. They are quick and easy and make great snacks! Try to eat 2-3 servings of protein rich foods per day.

Discover how you can lose your stubborn belly fat quick and easy with this amazing
weight loss program: www.weightlossplanforwomen.com

Healthy Lifestyle Habits

We all like to stay young and healthy forever. But unfortunately, that isn’t
entirely possible. Longevity is a hot topic these days, and there are many
lifestyle habits, natural and pharmaceutical based supplements and
treatments on the market that can be used as tools to slow down the aging
process.
The anti-aging industry is a fast-growing industry. Successful aging is on the rise
for many people, with our fast-aging population. There are currently 671 million
people worldwide who are over the age of 60.

People are living longer, partly because our success in preventing childhood diseases,
like polio, as well as finding new treatments and prevention strategies for
adult conditions such as heart disease.
But it’s also because scientists are unlocking the secrets of aging itself.
We have found out why our bodies break down and how to put the brakes on
our own destruction.
In the process we are expanding not only our life spans, but also what scientists call:
our health span. “we are living too short and dying too long,” – Dr. Myron Wentz.

The Antioxidant Power  
Researchers discovered that one of the most important causes of heart disease,
cancer, wrinkles, arthritis and many of the other problems that comes with aging
is the same process that makes an apple turn brown and our body cells to break
down and age, it’s called oxidation.

Through a series of chemical changes, oxygen molecules in our bodies lose
electrons, making them unstable. These unstable molecules are called free radicals.
By raving attempts to stabilize themselves, free radicals steel electrons
from healthy cells throughout your body. Every time they steal an electron,
two things happen: A healthy molecule is damaged, and more free radicals are
created. Free radicals can damage the DNA of your cells, proteins in tissues
throughout your body, and other components that make you function properly.
Unless the process is stopped, more and more cells are damaged every day,
and your health pays the price.

Nature provides an enormous arsenal of antioxidants in order to keep this
damaging process under control.
These are compounds in foods that can stop free radicals from doing harm.
Antioxidants come between free radicals and your body’s healthy cells,
offering up their own electrons and preventing yours of being stolen.

Although your body maintains its own antioxidant system naturally,
the antioxidants in foods gives you a powerful boost of extra protection against
free radicals. “But if you understand the tremendous damage that oxidative
stress inflicts during normal daily life on the human body, you realize how
important it is to optimize your own natural defense system.
Your health and life depend on it.
Through my research I learned that the strongest defense against these diseases
is our bodies’ own natural antioxidant and immune systems. These are far
superior to drugs I can prescribe.”

“I concluded after much study that using nutritional supplementation on patents
is not alternative medicine but is instead complementary medicine.” Dr. Ray Strand M. D.

Some studies have found that vitamin E may help to protect you from heart
disease, (and beta-carotene and selenium is a mineral that’s an ingredient in
some of your body’s antioxidant enzymes) may help lower your risks of some
cancers.

What is Longevity?
Longevity is not just about living as long as possible, but living the longest,
healthiest life possible – free of chronic diseases.
This is where the term “health span” comes in. Many may agree that a person’s
health span is far more important than the life span. However, being “healthy”
means different things to different people. A better definition of longevity might
include being free from serious disease, having energy and cognitive processes,
as well as physical mobility and strength.
Successful aging means having a healthy physical body and good mental health.
What’s interesting however, is hat when we do things that are healthy for our
physical bodies, these actions benefit our brain health as well. And visa versa.

We die not of old age, but of the cumulative failures within our cells. These
failures are not inevitable breakdowns, but instead are the reversible elements
of aging.

Lifestyle habits accumulate, and those habits can either have a negative effect
on health or a positive one. Small daily habits can be cumulative and build up
to big things over a lifetime. The best habits to include in your day-to-day life
right now are a healthy diet, regular exercise, maintaining your steady blood
sugar level, regular social contact, and a good sleep on a regular basis.
Building on top of these foundational healthy habits are some ground breaking
scientific treatments worth mentioning, which I will discuss in a following
article. They all point towards increased health and longevity.

Many people are in search for healthy living. But what are really the essentials for health and fitness? And how do you achieve good health and overall well-being?

When we have a closer look at the concept, it all boils down to the following four components, which are crucial for healthy living:

1. Good nutrition 2. Regular exercise 3. A good night sleep 4. High-quality nutritional supplementation

Healthy living means: keeping a balanced, healthy diet Avoid smoking and excessive use of alcohol and toxic chemicals.

If we choose to make good nutrition, including supplementation, and an active lifestyle a daily habit, we could add five to fifteen healthy years to our lives.

It has been said that we are what we eat, but a more accurate definition would be: we are what we can get out of our food. Because it’s the bio-availability of the nutrients we inject, and more importantly, the cell’s ability to absorb those nutrients, which are the crucial factors that determine a person’s health and well-being. These two are often overlooked facts. These are the keys to optimal nutrition. That’s why most supplements miss the mark. They simply do not address the cellular condition of the body. Even worse, many are in a form which are unacceptable to the cells themselves. There is however, one remarkable exception to this depressing trend, and that are the supplements manufactured by USANA Health Sciences. When we age, we must eat well and adjust our eating habits. As we get older, our needs for certain nutrients will change significantly. To be healthy for life, it’s important to consume eight to ten servings of fruits and vegetables daily. And many of these should be raw, because they contain those natural digestive enzymes. But the quality of our foods has depleted, due to modern farming techniques. For example, the use of hybrids. Unfortunately, economics is the driving force behind the American agriculture, causing farmers to be more concerned about bushels per acre, than the nutrient content of the food they harvest. Physicians are biased against nutritional supplements. They learn very little about nutrition in their study on medical school. They would tell you: taking supplements is a waste of money.

But Dr. Ray Strand’s title of his book: ”What your doctor doesn’t know about Nutritional Medicine may be killing you.” Says it all. He was converted when his wife became sick. She suffered from fibromyalgia, and no drugs could cure her. As a last resource she tried nutritional supplements, and after three months she was cured. Dr. Strand learned about oxidative stress, which is the underlying cause of degenerative diseases. Oxidative stress is caused by cell damage of free radicals. It is the root cause of more than seventy chronic degenerative diseases. The same process that causes iron to rust and a cut apple to turn brown. It’s the underlying cause of diseases like: coronary artery disease, cancer, stroke, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer dementia, and macular degeneration. We are actually rusting on the inside. In fact, oxidative stress is the leading theory behind the aging process. In addition to this, our bodies are under constant attack from an army of pollutants in air food, and water. Our stress filled live styles also take a toll. If we do not counteract these processes, the result will be cell deterioration and ultimately disease. When you understand the tremendous damage that oxidative stress inflicts during normal daily life on the human body, you will realize how important it is to optimize your own natural antioxidant and immune system.

Dr Strand concluded after much study, that using nutritional supplements on patients, is not alternative medicine, but instead complementary medicine. After reviewing medical research studies, he was certain, that his patients, who take high quality nutritional supplements, have a health benefit over those who don’t. This he called: cellular nutrition. The purpose of my book is to make people aware of the factors that cause illnesses and diseases, and to learn how to adapt a healthy lifestyle. What I want readers to take away from my book is to understand that degenerative diseases are not the natural consequence of old age but can be avoided by adapting a healthy lifestyle.

My book “Recipe for a Long, Healthy Life” is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Related Articles – healthy lifestyle, good nutrition, nutritional supplements, oxidative stress, complementary medicine, cellular nutrition,