Many women focus on cardiovascular exercise but strength training exercise is also important for your health. As people age they tend to lose large amounts of strength if they don’t continue participating in strength building activities. By maintaining your strength as you get older you can decrease your chances of injuries. And by maintaining more muscle mass you are also less likely to become overweight, as muscles use more calories.
Strength training exercise can also help to prevent or delay osteoporosis. As strength training exercise makes muscles stronger, it also cause bones to increase in mass and become stronger. So weight bearing exercise that builds muscle strength is essential to keeping your bones strong too.
And don’t forget the WOMAN Challenge:
As I mentioned in previous posts the goal of the challenge is to walk 10,000 steps or exercise for 30 minutes each day.
Its been 3 days into the Challenge and I don’t know if I’m doing ok or not with it. I walked on my treadmill for 40 minutes today, but according to my pedometer I’ve only walked 3763 or so steps on Tuesday. It seems I would have taken more steps than that on the treadmill. I wonder if the pedometer is working right. According to the treadmill I walked 1.53 miles, but less than one mile on the pedometer.
At any rate, I’m going to continue with it. The Challenge has virtual teams so people can encourage and support each other - if you want to join my team follow these instructions:
First you have to register at the site, then go to ‘Find a Team to Join‘ , then scroll down to Missouri, click and then choose the “Ideas For Women .com” team.
Really. Is this real? Could there really be people this stupid? Are there really women this stupid? If so, we still have a really long ways to go!
If you can’t see the video - a brief summary: the woman thinks Europe is a country, is not sure if France is a country or not. Never mind that she doesn’t know what country Budapest is the capitol of.
For National Women’s Health Week I want to focus on things you can do to prevent illness and stay healthy - or even reverse some health problems you already have. Today - the topic is cardiovascular exercise.
Cardiovascular exercise - also known as aerobic exercise - is important for heart health. It is exercise that uses your large muscles like your legs and makes your heart and lungs stronger and can help to lower your blood pressure and cholesterol levels
Walking, running, jogging, bicycling, jump-roping, and swimming are all examples of cardiovascular exercises you can do outside. If you want (or have to) exercise inside using a treadmill, stationary bicycles or elliptical trainer are some options.
To give your heart a good workout you need to make sure that you do your cardiovacular exercise with a certain amount of intensity, but you don’t want to overdo it. One way measure the amount of exertion while exercising is by monitoring your heart rate. Some people check their heart rate manually and some people use a heart rate monitor. I use a heart rate monitor while using a treadmill when I exercise.
At any rate research has shown that people who are in general more active throughout their life tend to be healthier and live longer. The Surgeon General recommends that people should get 30 minutes of activity most days of the week. And for most people that is around 10,000 steps.
The WOMAN Challenge (Women and girls Out Moving Across the Nation) is a program coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health. As I mentioned in previous posts the goal of the challenge is to walk 10,000 steps or exercise for 30 minutes each day. The Challenge is an 8 week thing that started on Mother’s Day.
I decided to take the challenge! Its only been 2 days so far though - and I have been away from home so I have not done so well yet! Monday, for example, I only did about 1800 steps. But then I spend part of the day in a car driving so I should be able to do better tomorrow!
The Challenge has virtual teams so people can encourage and support each other - if you want to join my team follow these instructions:
First you have to register at the site, then go to ‘Find a Team to Join‘ , then scroll down to Missouri, click and then choose the “Ideas For Women .com” team.
For more information about walking 10,000 steps a day here are a few good links I found:
Since this is National Women’s Health Week I’m going to make some of my posts related to it this week.
I decided to try the ‘WOMAN Challenge’ too! I mentioned this in my last post. The goal or ‘challenge’ is to try to walk 10,000 steps or get 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day. It lasts for 8 weeks. And you ‘walk’ a virtual path across the U.S. as you do it.
It was supposed to start Sunday, on Mother’s Day, but since I was out of town visiting I wasn’t able to walk much. I did get out my pedometer and got it working right (I hadn’t really used it yet although I’ve had it for a while). As it was later in the day I was only able to get about 800 steps counted on it. That should make it easier to improve over the next 8 weeks!
The Challenge has teams that people can join for support and encourage each other. I started a team and if you want to join it either contact me and I will add you or here are the instructions to join it yourself:
First you have to register at the site, then go to ‘Find a Team to Join‘ , then scroll down to Missouri, click and then choose the “Ideas For Women .com” team.
I’ll be posting my progress with it here too. Hopefully I won’t embarrass myself too much!
Today is also the start of National Women’s Health Week! This is a “nationwide initiative, coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health (OWH) to encourage women to make their health a top priority and take simple steps for a longer, healthier and happier life”.
Some of the steps the initiative encourages women to take are:
Engaging in physical activity most days of the week
Making healthy food choices
Visiting a healthcare provider to receive regular check-ups and preventive screenings
Avoiding risky behaviors, like smoking and not wearing a seatbelt
If I have the time I will focus my blog posts this week around National Women’s Health Week, but I will be busy the next couple days and may not be able to all week.
Also, there is a ‘WOMAN Challenge’, which is a virtual walk across the country (U.S.) as part of an eight-week physical activity challenge. Basically you are supposed to try to walk 10,000 steps or get 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day.
They have sort of virtual teams to participate in it together. Do any women bloggers out there have a team? I went ahead and started my own, but if someone else has one I could join I might do that instead. Or - if anyone wants to join my team - please let me know!
Update: Here’s the instructions for joining my team: First you have to register at the site, then go to ‘Find a Team to Join‘ , then scroll down to Missouri, click and then choose the “Ideas For Women .com” team.
Elderly lack strong thirst signal - I’ve heard this before, but its really important to spread around. Apparently as people get older they “become easily dehydrated because their thirst signal can be diminished”. I need to print that out and show it to my mom, I don’t know if she drinks enough and I worry about her.
However, I have to raise one point. The word “elderly” implies weakness and frailty, the proper word here would have been “elders”, I believe. Read here to learn more from Time Goes By: Are You Elderly?.
Real Costs?
Costs of Allergy Treatment - Ruth raises some interesting points here. I have really bad allergies, and the costs of allergy medications can certainly add up. For many people allergy shots would probably cost less and be more effective. I wonder though if doctors tend to discourage them? I see all the free samples from drug companies that allergists have around. I’m sure the drug companies would rather see prescriptions written than allergy shots given.
And then there are the hidden costs. For me, I don’t sleep as well, can’t see or breathe well, I’m less productive, irritable, etc. Of course there are people with worse health problems. But I think allergies definitely cost society as a whole too - lost productivity, etc.
Missed Calling?
Dr. Val interviewed Mike Huckabee recently: Governor Mike Huckabee On Losing Weight and Staying Fit. Now please don’t misunderstand me - I don’t support Huckabee positions on I think anything. And I can’t believe I’m actually going to say something positive about him. But based on that interview, he seems he understands weight loss pretty well. Maybe Huckabee missed his calling and should have stayed out of politics altogether?
People as Garbage
Read this quote: “Ethically, what is the correct thing to do when medicine encounters a difficult problem? Stablize the patient until a solution can be found? Or throw people away like garbage?“.
He’s right isn’t he? Yet we really don’t put that principle in practice. Currently we let people die and then, well, ‘throw them away like garbage’. He goes on: “Centuries from now, historians may marvel at the shortsightedness and rationalizations used to sanction the unnecessary death of millions.”. He’s most likely right there too. Read the rest at Fight Aging.
This week I had time to read chapter one, which is still kind of introductory. She talks a bit about having ‘financial independence‘ - I’d sure like that! But who wouldn’t?
Then we (the reader) are supposed to think about what it is we want. Or what our goal is. Since the book is part workbook - there is a space there to write your goals in. She then tells us the goals she had in mind for us (again, the reader) when she wrote the book. I won’t list them all here. What stood out to me though was “replace a bake-sale mentality with a grander vision” and to explore what is blocking you from being more successful.
Those are two things I definitely need help with. On one hand I do have a ‘grand vision’ but its kind of buried beneath the ‘bake-sale mentality’. I don’t know why that is.
She suggests having one or more people to do the exercises with. I don’t have anyone - except you people reading this! I don’t know if I want to share everything in a blog - but maybe I can share bits and pieces.
She talks a bit about inner voices. Both the negative ones you shouldn’t listen to and your “authentic voice” you should listen to.
The chapter ends with a quiz to determine if you are or are not an underearner. I knew I was before even taking it, but the quiz confirmed it.
I noticed the book has lots of really good quotes interspersed on the pages. My favorite from this chapter was:
“Life is not about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.”
Over at Bluezones, which I mentioned in a previous post: Longevity around the world, they have a Vitality Compass quiz that you can take. It asks various questions and then tells you your:
Biological Age
- Your body’s age given your habits
Life Expectancy
- The age you are expected to live to
Healthy Life Expectancy
- The age you are expected to be healthy to
Blue Zone Years
- years your life has accrued
So how did I do?
Biological Age - well, I’m always kind of shy about my age (although if a person cared to dig around a bit they could figure it out) so I’ll say this much, its 5.2 years less than my chronological age! I guess that’s not too bad.
Life Expectancy- 94. I was kind of hoping for 100. I noticed one thing they didn’t ask was how long close relatives lived. It seems most women in my family have made it to at least 80, so I figured I probably had that much anyway. Still, 94’s not bad.
Healthy Life Expectancy - 85. I wonder how they calculate that?
Blue Zone Years - 11.6
Some issues/concerns with the quiz:
- I don’t remember how much I weighed 2 years ago, I guessed.
- the part about how many days I felt sad or worried. That’s hard to answer, honestly most days I might feel a twinge of sadness or worry about something, but I don’t know if that really counts. I wish they were more specific.
- the angry thing too. How angry is angry? I hardly ever get so angry I yell. I was pretty upset last week when one of our cats broke my glasses. But I got over it.
- mild physical activities (they don’t give a choice of 1-3 days either) and rigorous exercise were hard to answer accurately. I try to use a treadmill 4 times a week though.
When I retook it and changed eating to 4 servings each of fruits and vegetables, 0 to sweets and fast food (I haven’t had fast food in ages, but I now and then eat something sweet), and increased my nut consumption to the maximum I gained a little more time. Not as much as I would have thought though.
I was told I should eat more fish. I can’t eat fish high in omega 3’s like salmon very often anymore, I feel kind of sick when I do. And to engage in more group social activities. I don’t really have time or people to do that with. Does online interaction count? Maybe they should have asked if we blogged - and knocked 10 years off our lives if we say ‘yes’!
In Afghanistan there are no cars or real roads available to women in rural areas. And clinics are hours or days away. Even if women manage to get to one before its too late - many clinics don’t have doctors or the necessary medical equipment to save these women’s lives.
This is a country where many girls marry and give birth as young as 13. Many are malnourished and anemic.
“Among the prime complications of childbirth in Afghanistan are bleeding, infection, hypertension and obstructed labour.”
There are few women doctors, nurses and midwifes, as many young women get very little if any education. And many men don’t want “their women” to be examined by male doctors.
Overall “about 1,600 Afghan women die in childbirth out of every 100,000 live births. In some of the most remote areas, the death rate is as high as 6,500″.
Yet most of these death could be prevented with access to basic medical care.
See video from Reuters:
You might have noticed the woman at the clinic who looked like she could have been in her seventies, and yet was young enough to be having a baby. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in conditions that would cause a person to age that quickly.
