Category: fitness

Filming a Slow Beat Production

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In an instant one day the words Slow Beat Production streamed into my head.

All along I realized that slowing down was the way to go. To zhush up this philosophy I call filming and living in the video of life a Slow Beat Production.

Decades ago I coined the term of giving yourself a lifeline not a restrictive impossible deadline by which to achieve a goal. I’ve failed at creating 5-year plans. Every 5 years I was tackling the same goals onto a new 5-year plan because I failed to achieve those outcomes in the first 5 years.

It took me 13 years to publish my first book. Over 5 years to accomplish a current objective.

Our lives are going by fast enough. The older we get we don’t have the kind of time to waste beating ourselves up or expecting ourselves to be perfect and do the right things always.

I have an issue with using the word “right” to describe an action or behavior. In a coming post I’ll detail the distinction I make as to why there’s no one “right” way to think feel live act love and dress.

Living our lives in a slow beat is called for when yes we want to get the things we want to have that we’re supposed to get. I’ll refer followers to the book I reviewed in here years ago: Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions.

The guide is a 90-day action plan for replacing an unhealthy habit with a new behavior. Ninety days isn’t really a long time. It’s far more viable to embark on a 90-day practice then to fall prey to a magazine article that tells you how to: Drop One Dress Size by Tuesday.

Again the ultimate aim is to reduce the pressure we have to conform, whether that’s following along in having a societally-approved ideal weight, an acceptable lifestyle, or a standard operating procedure for how to interact with others to name a few.

It comes down to self-respect. If we can’t live with ourselves when we wake up in the morning that’s when it’s time to change. This is why I said Goodbye, Chips.

What others think of us should be of no concern. Our best lives are calling and are within reach. This life is attainable when we have the courage to think for ourselves about the kind of life we want to have.

Avanti! Forward!

Thoughts on Popping Pills

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I’m thinking of how I want to live my life when I get older. In light of a milestone birthday coming up.

The choice a person makes to take pills to be well is a personal choice. No one should attack you or me for taking pills.

The conundrum faced in old age is the advent of taking medication. I read that ninety percent of old people are in poor health.

Could it be the luck of the draw that ninety percent of old people—nearly one hundred percent—has health problems. How could only ten percent of Americans be well when we reach retirement age at 65. What accounted for who was in this minority.

Googling the ninety percent statistic brought up an American Psychological Association article that verified this fact. Ninety-two percent of old people had one chronic condition. Seventy-seven percent had two medical conditions.

I have experience seeing a person who is 87 take 5 or 6 pills every day for heart, cholesterol, high blood pressure and other ailments.

This is not how I want to live should I be lucky to get to my eighties. I’m not keen to rely on pharmaceutical intervention for health issues I’m creating via my lifestyle choices.

This is the real deal: If you want to buy half gallons of ice cream every week and polish them off in that time you’ll likely be required to take a pill to be able to do so.

In my life I’m going to have the affogato 2x per month as a treat. I would rather not take any extra pills. The fact that lifestyle choices require a person to take medication is hard for me to swallow.

This was why the MD author wrote the book Metabolical that I reviewed here a while ago. About how the current U.S. medical model is predicated on treating disease not preventing illness in the first place.

Today you and I must act as our own healers. Take pills if it will keep us healthy.

Yet I say: Consider scaling back on sugar, trans fat, saturated fat, high fructose corn syrup, natural flavor, and the other ingredients in food or drink that ARE making us ill.

We cannot control external factors like an inherited risk for disease. We often cannot prevent getting ill should we have any kind of breakdown either mental physical or emotional.

What is within our power is how we respond to what happens to us. The enormity or severity of a setback doesn’t determine our fate. How we respond to this obstacle is what matters.

I call creating a baseline of health “establishing the floor.” So that if we’re treating ourselves right and taking care of ourselves as a matter of course it will be easier to thrive after we get ill.

I say: each of us has the choice. A person might want to have ice cream every week. They’re likely OK with popping a pill to do so.

Th ex-governor of Tennessee easily 15 years ago wrote a book titled Fresh Medicine about what’s ailing the healthcare system in America. The governor’s primary care MD told him: You can either eat healthy or choose to have the cheeseburger. You can eat the cheeseburger when you take a statin.

What kind of credible advice is that? This is what’s not right with medical care in America. It’s almost like healthcare professionals are in collusion with pharmaceutical companies.

Food is making us sick. I want no part of making myself sick.

In no way am I going to take an extra pill just so that I can eat food that would make me ill otherwise.

In the future I’m going to post a blog entry about Acting As Our Own Healers.

Coming up new recipes that are quick and easy to create. With the weather getting warmer day by day I’m going to share no-oven required recipes that are tasty.

Wait Lifting

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I learned everything about health fitness and nutrition by checking books out of the library, talking to a health coach, and trainers at a gym.

Decades ago, I was appalled to see on the cover of a women’s magazine the come-on: Drop One Dress Size by Tuesday.

Why is this kind of advice given to women and not men? Why aren’t men scared to weigh 200 pounds?

Either way if a person is not willing to invest 4 years to get healthy when they have the rest of their life to live, they’re setting themselves up with unrealistic expectations for how quick they should see results.

It’s possible that most of us will live to be 65–retirement age if we’re lucky. Why the fixation on quick results if you’re 30 or 42 or 50? Far better to give ourselves 4 years to see lasting change not the typical 2 months then quitting with a yo-yo outcome.

The waiting is the hardest part. Only nothing worth having comes without effort. The goal is not to set the bar high for our health. We simply must set the bar. Reaching higher takes time.

In the coming blog entry I’m going to write in more detail about what I originally wrote about in 2007 when I was the Health Guide at a website: My idea of formulating a 10-Year Plan for achieving a goal.

Change and Motivation

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I was known as the Salad Girl at my job because I consistently had salads for lunch in the staff kitchen.

Suddenly after 23 years of having salads for lunch I was done with having salads at noon time. The buying of the lettuce and other food, schlepping it to work, and preparing the salad nearly every day took its toll.

I remembered what my trainer at the gym told me a year ago after I lamented to him that I wondered what particular kinds of food I should eat to be healthy.

He responded to my granular ethic thus: “Eat food. You just have to eat food. Whatever kind of food it is just eat.”

That said it got easier when I changed up my weekly routine this winter. Buying organic lettuce and organic salad toppings in my weekly grocery order. Prepping salads for DINNER three or four days a week. Having the salad with a side of steamed shrimp one night or a can of Cento tuna in olive oil with the salad on another night. With slices of avocado.

The curious improvement was that when I started having salads for dinner I felt good in the evening. The food you eat can improve your mood. Feeling good was the motivation I had for continuing this new dinnertime habit.

In keeping with what my trainer told me I found other food to have for lunch at my job. Though I’m not a vegetarian and I have chicken I eat chicken only once or twice a week. Buying organic chicken to have as a meal for one dinner with an organic vegetable from a frozen bag.

My old friend the deli counter is where I buy a baked salmon filet to heat up on one other night. With regular Brussel sprouts or a beet salad from the friendly deli counter offerings.

Like I said it’s often when we decide “Enough is enough!” that we’re motivated to change our habits or our routine.

Turning 60 in the spring I’m going to create a 20-year plan in which to achieve my goals and resolutions. A person like me isn’t supposed to live to 80. We die 20 years earlier than the regular population according to naysayers who parrot this claim.

This simply isn’t true when you take care of your health the best you can with what you were given. Any of us with a disadvantage–popping pills we need to take to be well; having a genetic medical issue; whatever it is–we can choose to do what’s in our control to improve.

The things we can’t control we should accept. Focus instead on what’s in our power to change. Know that there’s no shame regardless of our fitness level or lack of fitness.

Perfection is a myth because it implies there can be no growth. What I’ve learned and have come to accept is that I can have other food and maintain my health.

In coming blog entries I’ll talk about the epiphanies that hit me in recent weeks re: achieving and sustaining wellness.

The Joy of Ritual

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In this blog entry I want to inspire followers to make a positive shift when our life has been derailed on the old track. It was synchronicity not an accident that I checked the above book out of the library. Liking it so well that I bought a new copy from an Amazon reseller as it’s out of print.

The guide The Joy of Ritual teaches readers how to create and use these rites. The subtitle is Spiritual Recipes to Celebrate Milestones, Ease Transitions, and Make Every Day Sacred.

Struck I was by how a workout can be a ritual. An exercise routine is a sacred act not just an expression of physical prowess. Creating a new weightlifting ritual eased my transition into working out again after the arm injury.

As a form of prayer, I wear a cross around my neck while lifting. Not a Catholic cross–I think it’s a Celtic cross. Saying an actual prayer before I lift the first dumbbell. To invoke the ministration of God to “Bless my body. Give me the energy to go about my daily routine and the health to achieve my goals.”

Intertwining the sacred and the spiritual into everyday life with the commercial and material aspects of living our lives benefits us. Though this kind of daily devotion can seem “woo-woo” it’s a dose of positive mental medicine.

Creating a ritual or two can help us heal and recover. This I found out when I started to lift weights again. Redesigning how I exercised was the gateway to better health.

The idea of using a ritual appeals to me as a form of practicing mindfulness. To enjoy each moment before it goes by.

In fact going in a slow and steady rhythm is called for. Rushing around engaging in nonstop busywork every hour of every day is not the way to live.

It can be hard to change what’s not working even when the change would be positive. My goal in here is to encourage and motivate followers to try. Simply try. See what happens. Like me you might be surprised at how well things turn out.

The Champion’s Comeback

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I checked out of the library years ago the book The Champion’s Comeback.

A setback is not the end of the world or of your life. It’s the end of the end of the world and life as you used to know it. The benefit of living through a trial is that afterward we have the ability to create a better routine than the one we had that no longer serves us.

While we can’t predict when a setback will occur we can expect that setbacks will occur. It’s how we respond to a challenge that determines the outcome not how severe the obstacle was to begin with. Resilience is called for.

I happen to think that everyone is a champion simply because we’ve gotten in the ring. It doesn’t matter whether we win or lose; the fact is each of us is a champion because we risked fighting to get what we want.

Coming back after a setback as said takes time patience hard work and determination. The playing field is truly level when you compete against yourself–the person you were yesterday–and no one else.

The healthier you are to begin with I believe a fitness setback will not be as severe as it was for a person in ill health. I call achieving a baseline of health “establishing the floor” of what you’re capable of. It’s the solid ground on which each of us stands.

Often the old life has ended because it’s become unlivable. Cheers to having the courage to risk making positive changes.

Coming up how I redesigned my approach to lifting weights.

My Fitness Plan Revisited

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I’m sorry to report that in using the search bar I found a blog entry recommending eating a Kind bar in a pinch. A Kind bar as I found out after I posted that has chemical additives called natural flavor. Even the Bulletproof power bars that I used to get now have natural flavor. They didn’t used to.

In the blog entry I’m giving the link to here I list what I’ve been doing to be well as an older woman. One update is that today I have Fage 0 fat plain yogurt nearly every day not just 2 or 3 days a week.

Soon I will be talking with my Health Coach. After I do I will post here the answers to questions I’m going to ask her then.

This is the link to the original blog entry about the habits I adopted courtesy of reading the Dr. Frank Lipman, MD book How to Age Well his companion to How to Be Well:

Using My Experience to Empower Readers

Real Talk About Health

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We need to have an honest talk that centers on the idea of how much a person “should” weigh:

NOT 103 pounds for 90 percent of us.

A talk about how much exercise a person really needs to do each week:

NOT 2 hours a day every day in the gym.

A talk about why people are looking in our plates and judging what we’re eating.

Instead each of us should be enjoying the food on our plates guilt-free.

In the coming blog entry, I will revisit a topic I’ve touched on in here before: The use of unnatural ingredients in food products.

I don’t want to live to be 80 if I’m in poor health and need 5 or 6 pills to swallow each day for health issues.

After I talk about food I will delve into how I’m changing my eating plan and firing up the kettlebell again. To regain my health and fitness after the freak accident with my arm.

My hope is to encourage and motivate readers to create a SMART goal this year. One that is Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Time-Focused.

It’s not realistic to want to weigh 127 pounds when you weigh 205 pounds. It’s not smart to mindlessly consume food and drink products.

I’ve studied nutrition and fitness for decades by checking books out of the library to read for free. What I’m writing about is not a gimmick or sensational so I’m not going to get a book contract to peddle that pablum.

I’m an ordinary person who’s figured out how and what to eat by reading a book like How to Be Well by Dr. Frank Lipman, MD. I’m reading my copy again for a refresher.

Can we really believe the Medical Medium who allegedly channeled an Angel or Spirit to get and give health information? I don’t think so.

Common sense is not common today. Expecting quick easy results to our health and fitness goals sets us up to feel poorly when we can’t meet this strict restrictive deadline.

That’s why I’m giving myself one whole year in 2025 to reboot.

I also don’t think we should frame a goal as engaging in self-improvement. I happen to think the majority of us are OK the way we are. Instead, I use the term self-development project to talk about a goal. Striving to learn a new skill or adopt a better habit over time. Not because we’re deficient or inferior in anything. Only because we want to “level up” from where we are today.

We don’t need “fixing.” Even though people like the media darlings given column space on the internet and book contracts judge and attack us for a myriad of sins.

Each of us should start where we are. Chances are we have what it takes. Even though we could feel ashamed and buy into the myths out there that say we’re not good enough. That if only we buy a product an influencer is selling we’ll magically become worthy lovable have a better life or whatever.

Read on for the topic I’m going to resurrect in here: the use of unnatural ingredients in food products. This has been my wheelhouse in terms of nutrition and what I think is the biggest culprit holding us back from optimal health.

Flexing Our Muscle at Any Age

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The book above received a ton of one- and two-star reviews on Amazon.

To be honest I checked the book out of the library and didn’t buy it. I thought it was an OK book and will read it again in my spare time to get inspired.

The reviewers who trashed Flex Your Age didn’t like that the guide offered no exercise routines and no eating plans.

In my humble blog here I’ve been reposting my workout routines for readers to use if you want.

What impressed me about Joan MacDonald the author is that she didn’t start lifting weights until she turned 70. By 71 she was lifting 175 pounds with a fully loaded barbell.

And I thought it was remarkable that I didn’t start lifting weights until I was 46. 3 years later I could lift 205 pounds with the trap bar at the gym.

Joan has me beat! Though this is not a competition. Nor should the two of us and what we’ve done intimidate readers or make you feel poorly if you can’t do these things.

The point to our stories is that change is possible at any age. Incremental change is always better to effect if you ask me.

Soon I will post my 2023 Fall Upper Body and Lower Body routines.

The Science of Fitness

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Funny how a magazine with an article about how you can be Healthy at Every Size does not feature a full-bodied person on the cover? Cue the sarcasm emoji.

Regardless. There are key takeaways in the featured articles that make buying the issue justified.

In the special edition magazine above an expert advanced what I’ve always thought: a 200-pound woman can be fit. An R.D. in New York City counsels with a HAES (healthy at every size) and intuitive eating approach.

The goal should not be to diet yourself down to skin-and-bones. Food should be viewed as “fuel and fun” as The Pleasure of Food article states.

Another article focuses on the Body Neutral movement which upholds what a person’s body can do not your body’s appearance.

To keep healthy at every size the central tenet of the special edition should be taken to heart: reframe your perception of the habit of keeping fit. Calling it “exercise” can repel a person when they think it’s something you have to do and is not enjoyable.

Seeing a workout routine as the gateway to achieving a goal is the difference. Maybe you want to walk up the subway stairs without huffing and puffing. Or you want to be able to walk your dog around the block.

Why not call it a play-out instead of a workout when what you’re doing is a fun fitness habit?

Sadly, feeling fit is hard when you buy into the impossible idea that you need to exercise to lose weight. In a research study women who exercised felt better even when they didn’t lose weight.

Feeling great is the goal.

My purpose in lifting weights is to maintain “functional fitness” as I get older. What I hope to be able to do is continue to carry 25-pound tote bags of groceries in my sixties and beyond.

The Science of Fitness special edition is the one special edition magazine I will refer to over and over.

In this book there’s also recipes for Smoothies that Taste like Milkshakes.

Well worth the $12.99.