EXERCISES TO RELIEVE KNEE PAIN If you’re an active older adult, you’ve probably had knee pain at one time or another. I sure have. When I was younger and did a lot of mountain climbing I used to hop from boulder to boulder coming downhill. It was extreme fun—and extremely hard on my knees. With the help of a personal trainer I was able to regain full use of my knees (Finally stopping boulder hopping helped too!) That was years ago. Over the past decade, I’ve periodically had knee pain while jogging. I’ve usually “run through it” but this didn’t...
CHOLESTEROL & RED MEAT, WHITE MEAT OR NO MEAT It seems that we seniors are continually being reminded to watch our cholesterol levels. I’m sure you know about high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or “good cholesterol, which picks up excess cholesterol & takes it back to your liver. And about low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or “bad” cholesterol, which transports cholesterol particles throughout your body. LDL builds up in the walls of your arteries, making them hard & narrow—which increases your heart disease risk. Factors that can increase your risk of bad cholesterol include: poor diet, excess weight, lack of exercise, smoking, diabetes and...
SEAFOOD—ALL ITS BENEFITS We keep hearing that we should be eating more fish and other seafood—especially as we age. But why? Well, it’s loaded with good stuff important for healthy aging. The most important is it’s the best source of omega-3 fatty acids. But it also has loads of high-quality protein, minerals and vitamins B-12 and D for our brain, bone & muscle health. The American Heart Association tells us that eating seafood can not only help prevent heart disease, but also stroke, heart failure, sudden cardiac death and congestive heart failure. To get the health benefits of omega-3s, the...
VITAMIN K—ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH? I’ve heard that Vitamin K is vital to our health. But I didn’t know much about it, so began a bit of research. I found that vitamin K is important because of its involvement in blood clotting and production of proteins in bones. In addition, some research shows that too little vitamin K can also affect us older adults in cognitive function, heart health and mobility. I’d like to share more information that I gained from a Harvard School of Public Health (The Nutrition Source), article, Vitamin K. Here are excerpts: Vitamin K is a...
A LEAD TO A POSSIBLE ALZHEIMER’S CURE Just in: A new target for drugs to potentially slow or even possibly cure Alzheimer’s. I periodically post on Alzheimer’s disease because the risk is forever looming for us seniors; By age 85, half of us will have developed it! These posts include: Exercise Might be the Best Medicine for Avoiding Alzheimer’s, The Herpes-Alzheimer’s Connection & Reduce your Alzheimer’s Risk with the MIND Diet. Now, here are excerpts from the November 27, 2019 Harvard Health Blog article by Andrew E. Budson, MD: A clue to a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. I’m writing today...
SURMOUNTING FITNESS OBSTACLES Some 20 years ago, completely out of shape, I decided it was time to get fit. Yet, I kept finding reasons to not begin exercising: I was too busy, I thought the workout routines would be boring, I didn’t want to join a health club. But I finally conquered my fitness obstacles after I realized what was my biggest challenge: I didn’t want to exercise cooped up indoors. So I went outside and began to jog a little, starting off at a mile twice a week. Next, I tightened and oiled the chain and pumped air...
THE TOP 14 FITNESS TRENDS FOR 2020 The most popular fitness trends change every year as you can see comparing this survey with last year’s post The Top 12 Fitness Trends for 2019 and the post two years ago The Top 10 Fitness Trends for 2018. Here are excerpts from the new 14th annual survey from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) published in its Health & Fitness Journal, Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends for 2020. For the survey, the authors identified 38 possible fitness trends for 2020 and received responses from more than 3,000 fitness professionals who ranked...
START EXERCISING AT ANY AGE Here’s a New Year’s resolution I think we can all subscribe to: Get fitter. As we grow older, we need to keep active more than ever. But perhaps you haven’t worked out for years—or maybe never—and don’t especially know how to start exercising. If this is you, I’m giving you excerpts from two Cleveland Clinic online articles. The first is a February 2016 piece titled You Can Start Exercising After Age 60—Here’s How. Here are six practical tips to get you going. Get the go-ahead If you haven’t seen a doctor lately, that’s your first stop. He...
REDUCE YOUR ALZHEIMER’S RISK WITH THE MIND DIET The holiday season would seem like a lousy time to talk about diets. Yet, you can start following the MIND Diet and still enjoy those fantastic Christmas-time feasts. You’ve probably heard of the DASH diet (the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) for reducing blood pressure and the Mediterranean diet for heart health. Well, the MIND diet is a hybrid of these two. (MIND is the acronym for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay.) Its goal is to reduce Alzheimer’s disease, other types of dementia, and the decline in brain health that normally occurs...
TO STAY SURE-FOOTED—KEEP UP YOUR MOBILITY I’m sure you, like me, have noticed your muscles getting a little stiffer over the years. And you probably don’t feel as flexible as you did when you were younger. However, not being flexible directly affects our mobility. Mobility can be looked at in a couple of ways: There is joint mobility, which is moving a joint or a group of joints—such as your hips or shoulder—through a full range of motion. And then there’s total-body mobility or how your body moves as a unit. For that you need multiple body parts to work...
