Fitness After Fifty

Fitness: Power Your Workouts With Adequate Nutrition

NW Health, a magazine put out by my local HMO (winter 2011 ghc.org) featured an article by Elizabeth M. Economou about foods to pump you up before, during and after a workout session. I find that eating before a workout makes me quite uncomfortable so I read her article with great interest.  You may think that exercising on an empty stomach is the way to go for optimal calorie burn, but your body needs fuel in order to power you through a successful workout.

Whether you are training for a marathon or just going out for a brisk walk you need to eat something, so why not make it the right thing.  Carbohydrates provide energy for your workout.  Nutritionist recommends combining them with a small amount of lean protein.  If it is too much work to make calculations first thing in the morning, just stick with a whole-wheat bagel with peanut butter, or sprinkle you low fat granola on a cup of yogurt.  If you exercise in the evening you can have a protein such as chicken, with rice as the carbohydrate along with salad and vegetables.  Stay away from fatty foods and carbonated beverages or you will feel like you are exercising with a huge lump in your stomach.  Knowing how much or how soon you can exercise is an individual determination so trial and error is going to be the only way for you to figure this one out.

Nancy Clark (American Fitness: Jan/Feb 2011)) reinforces the idea that each person has a different tolerance for pre-exercise foods.  You don’t necessarily have to wait around for the pre-exercise food to digest.  You might not want to eat very much 5 minutes before a track workout, but you could enjoy a banana on the way out the door for a jog.  Research shows that you could eat an energy bar 15 minutes before moderate exercise with good results.

Whether you should eat during your exercise program will depend on how long you are going to workout, and of course the intensity of your workout.  If you are in a for a long session of an hour or more, you may need to nibble on something  like dried fruits or an energy bar every 60-90 minutes.  If you do much hiking or long distance biking you know that your stomach is not going to let you forget.  If you plan to exercise for longer than 90 minutes you should consume not only a pre-exercise snack but additional carbs to maintain a normal blood sugar.

Hydration is important.   You should be drinking 14-22 ounces of water 2-3 hours before exercising; probably not just your morning coffee.  You probably aren’t going to be doing this if you lace your shoes on as soon as you get up.  Take a water bottle with you.  For modern exercise a sip or two to quench your thirst may be enough but for a more intense outing 6 -12 ounces every 15 minutes is a good plan.

What about after your exercise session?  I am usually starving and my stomach doesn’t buy into the theory that exercise decreases the appetite.  I was happy to read that it is good to eat something to help your body recover.  I like the idea of the recommended chocolate milk, but yogurt, fruit, cheese, lean meat, or an English muffing with peanut butter sounds pretty good too. Your muscles are most receptive to refueling within an hour after a hard workout, so the sooner you refuel the sooner you will be ready to get on with things.  You will feel better, have more energy and curb your appetite for less than ideal temptations. Don’t get too carried away though or you will unravel your good intentions.  To avoid over-indulging in recovery calories, plan to back your training into a meal.  Have a good workout and don’t forget to eat something!

 

 

Fitness For A Lifetime: The Need For Exercise Never Goes Away

Aging can’t be stopped, but exercise can slow it down and help you manage your quest for independent living in the process.  Too many people have the attitude that if you failed to engage in healthy habits when you were younger that it is too late now.

Of course, deep down you know that isn’t true.  Getting older does not mean that you have to become fat or weak or suffer from age related changes.  Yes, there are some factors such as hormones, heredity, nutrition and disease processes that play a part in how well you age, but if you exercise you can put up a good fight.

Vince Faust (Philadelphia Tribune. November 2, 2010) offered up a good case for why every age group should exercise.  Heredity can’t be changed.  You are who you are genetically, but studies show that the influences of a healthy lifestyle can make a bigger difference that you might have imagined.  Do not use “bad genes” as an excuse for not taking responsibility for your own health.

Strengthening your muscles, tendons and ligaments will make you stronger and will help support an aging skeletal system and joints.  We all want to do kicky fun aerobic exercises but your bones and joints need to be strong enough to withstand the rigors of a hearty workout.

Always get a complete physical and the go-ahead from your doctor before embarking on a fitness program (they never say no, but chronic conditions aggravated by slothful habits will need to be dealt with first).  It is important to have a Physical Therapist or a Trained Fitness Professional introduce you to the “why’s and how’s” before you embark on a major lifestyle shift.  Lifting weights can be dangerous if you don’t do it correctly.  A complete workout needs to include exercises for each body part.  This includes chest, shoulders, triceps, back, biceps, forearm, thighs, calves and abdominals.

Strengthening programs are recommended for people well into their senior years to help them perform everyday living activities such as walking, grooming, and dressing, climbing stairs and getting in and out of chairs.  Balance and coordination will keep you safely on your feet.  When added together we are talking about independence.  Do not wait until you are 70 or 80 to start an exercise program.  The habits developed at 50 can keep you in tip top shape for a lifetime.

Aging starts when you are born and is progressive.  You don’t think about it when you are younger because you are always in a hurry to get to the next step.  That next step arrives faster than you think it will, and you need to plan accordingly.   Life is precious. Good nutrition and daily exercise are important.  Many of the physical problems associated with aging are due to lack of exercise and poor nutritional habits.  Every age group should exercise.

Fitness: Getting In Shape Without The Pain

Fitness without pain!  Now that sounds like a good idea.  I figure you can call yourself an athlete whether you run three times a week in the neighborhood or are training for a marathon.  Sometimes I wonder if the word athlete is synonymous with pain.  Athletes over 50 are not strangers to injuries or to physical therapists, but their first exposure to a therapy based program is usually after they have injured themselves.

 If you are serious about sports or fitness, you have very likely had a trainer at one time or the other.  You want to get stronger and fitter faster. Nevertheless, if you are the person levering your body out of a chair or you are the one hobbling down the hall, you have a sports related injury.

I actually love exercising and have been a fitness buff for 20 or 30 years now, but I am always the one complaining of pain in one or more of my extremities.  Sometimes I envy my couch-potato co-workers and friends.  With my history it   isn’t any wonder that the article by Kevin Helliker (The Wall Street Journal: September 28, 2010) caught my eye.  It was called “Getting in shape but without the pain,” and it discussed how more and more older people are hiring a Physical Therapist before they get injured, rather than signing on with a personal trainer.

 A Physical Therapist, especially one tuned into sports injuries, focuses on preserving, restoring and improving function.  A Physical Therapist is trained to identify barriers to exercise and to building programs around personal physical limitations.  After receiving a fitness program from a Physical Therapist, most people will hire a personal trainer to help them implement it.

Half of the people who start an exercise program drop it after a few months, partially because of fear, partly because of discomfort, and partly because of lack of confidence.  You can feel confident that a Physical Therapist will develop an efficient and well balanced program for you.  Seeing a therapist before you hurt yourself is a novel idea. The Therapist can assess and often reveal muscle imbalances and inefficient movement patterns that often set you up for an injury.  They can then provide a regime that will correct these problems before honing in on endurance, balance, strength training, and weight control.

Proactive programs are most likely not covered by your insurance, but if you are tired of always being in pain the cost might certainly be worthwhile.

Fitness: Are You Really Fit?

You may look great for all of your efforts but when push comes to shove, is your body in good enough shape to run, reach, lift or lunge during your activities of daily living?

Nancy Stedman wrote an article for New Women (September 1999) that touched on this interesting subject.  Peddling madly away on a stationary bike, for example, may not actually prepare you everyday occurrences like climbing stairs if the elevator conks out.  Does lifting weights help you out if you have to carry multiple bags of groceries across a parking lot?  The author’s article addressed real life fitness challenges to determine if you are in as good of shape as you think you are.

If you are truly fit, you can do everything better, especially the routine tasks that you undertake every day.  Unfortunately, many fitness addicts aren’t clued in to this and when tested, some very obvious deficiencies surfaced.  This is partially due to the fact that we tend to do the things that we are good at and skip the rest.  We focus on the muscles that make us look good when we look in the mirror.  Trainers want to us be happy so if we want to do 200 crunches for “fabulous abs,” that is what we will be working on.  The problem is that you don’t realize that you are ignoring the muscles that play a supporting role (like the muscles in the shoulders or back). 

New Women decided to test this theory.  They used four fit-looking women and put them through a series of fitness tests.  They choose a gym rat, a speed walker, a Tae Bo enthusiast and a Yoga student.  Their workouts were evaluated to determine how well these women were equipped to handle real life situations.

They learned that you didn’t have to run a marathon to get in shape.  They learned that overall, the yoga student was the fittest person in the group.  They learned that even professional routines designed by a trainer could have holes.

Because Yoga incorporates balance, flexibility and strength into its routines, the muscles needed for everyday tasks were well incorporated.   All exercise is good, but the moral of the story is that you need to exercise all parts of the body.

Is your exercise program giving you the strength, endurance and energy that you need?  If shopping or any other routine activity such as running for a bus exhausts you, you are not in good enough shape.

Exercise And Weight Loss: What Is Your Goal For The New Year?

Is this going to be the year for you to finally get a handle on weight or health issues?  I am really tired of magazine covers talking about six pack abs, and sexy butts when “truth be known”, there is more to the health and fitness story than meets the eye.  The hardest part is facing that same 10-20 pounds that you gain and lose every single year.  Why is this happening to us?

We like to eat, and it seems that exercise can’t entirely offset the damage done by our impromptu dieting and sedentary lifestyles.  Ultimately exercise, according to Rachel Giese. (Flare: Toronto: January 2011), is the smartest way to shed fat but the success of a workout shouldn’t be measured in numbers. 

What about exercise?  Experts tell us that we don’t push ourselves hard enough.   Fitness fads come and go but the need for regular workouts remain a constant.  The discouraging news is that while a moderate amount of exercise is good for you overall, it isn’t enough to actually make you lose weight.  You may have noticed that the number of minutes and the number of recommended times a week to workout are going up instead of down.  In order to shed pounds you have to work out longer and harder than you bargained for.  It all boils down to your bodies desire to conserve energy.  Your body wants you to hold on to a certain amount of fat and it compensates for your efforts by increasing your appetite.

It doesn’t surprise me to read that we overestimate how hard we are working out, and our delightful habit of rewarding ourselves for a hard workout with food puts us back to zero.  A half hour walk can be completely undone by a tall caramel macchiato.  Not fair.  Weight loss still comes down to using up more calories than you take in.

That doesn’t mean that you are genetically doomed to be plump.  There will always be room to change your body and your health, but the success should be measured by something other than numbers.  Improving your fitness is more than the numbers on the scale.  Any kind of movement is better than none at all.  Modest tweaks aren’t going to change your shape overnight but the health benefits kick in with that first step.  If you keep it up the benefits add up.  Your weight may not change but your body composition will.  Your metabolism will be faster and you will burn away that stored fat.  Don’t stop working out because you think you are doomed to failure.  Exercise is the key to being healthy and strong.  If you compare people who lose weight through dieting and those from working out, the exercisers will winds hands down.  The exercisers will lose fat, while the dieters lose muscle.  Forget about a dress size in single digits and focus on living longer and healthier.