The Tight Belly

Because YOUR Health Matters!

Wendy

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Senior Fitness: Don’t Put It Off!

senior fitness

It’s Never Too Late

For many of us who have reached our senior years, we’re starting to find that the years we’ve spent ignoring our health and fitness are now starting to catch up with us. Senior fitness is something that we’d really like to achieve, but it seems that our bodies just won’t well enough any more to enable that goal.

Things were different when we were growing up to how they are today. There was a lot less emphasis on what is today known as a “work/life balance” and a lot more on just plain hard work. There simply wasn’t much attention paid then to organized fitness and health – they just sort of happened didn’t they?

Well, the good news is that it’s never too late to start on the fitness path! We’ve combed the interweb thingy to come up with some great senior fitness tips for you. Depending on your current levels of fitness and physical ability, you may find some of these beyond your current ability, but you’ll definitely manage at least some:

Stepping Out – The Easiest Senior Fitness Tip Of All

It sounds somewhat trite, but just the simple act of walking is one of the best and easiest fitness habits of all. The problem is that mostly we don’t organize and plan our walking, it just sort of happens.

The first thing is to buy yourself a simple pedometer so that you can properly count the number of steps you’re actually making in a day. They really aren’t expensive, you should be able to pick one up for around $10 or so, but you’ll be amazed at how much that tiny expenditure can change your life.

The ultimate goal is to do a regular 10,000 steps a day at least 3 to 4 times a week. Now that may sound quite daunting, because it really is quite a high figure – in actual fact, for an average adult that equates to about 5 miles. The thing to understand though is that this is an ultimate goal. Just take it (literally!) a few steps at a time. Aim to try 1,000 thousand steps initially and gradually work your way up. You’ll be amazed at how much difference even this small number will make to your health and fitness if done regularly.

Oh No – Not The Stairs!

Yes, I know that climbing up and down stairs is a bummer and that using the elevator is just so much easier. The fact is however that climbing up and down half a dozen flights of stairs a day is one of the best senior fitness boosters of all.

The simple act of defying gravity hugely increases the energy required to move the body from one position to another, and therefore does wonders for trimming down the belly and increasing muscle tone, strength and balance. It also means that you can burn up calories at a much quicker rate that simply by just walking.

Many of us seniors will have one bum knee. If this is the case for you then follow this advice: “up with the good and down with the bad”. What is meant by this is to lead with the good leg when walking up the stairs, and with the bad leg when going downstairs.

Add a few flights of stairs to your life each day and just see what happens with your fitness, you’ll be surprised.

Sitting Down

We all have to site down sometimes, especially true as we get older.

That doesn’t mean however that we can’t make constructive use of this time when it comes to our senior fitness program. It’s quite easy to boost your core strength – essential for muscle tone and balance – while sitting at your computer or just watching some TV. All you need to do is to follow these steps:

  • shuffle forward so that you’re sitting on the edge of the chair
  • sit tall and erect
  • slowly lean back until your shoulders or lower back touch the chair (depending on it’s back height)
  • just as slowly, come back up again, keeping you body straight at all times

You’ll feel how tight your stomach muscles are while doing this. Try 5 repetitions half a dozen times a day.

Simple Squats

Squatting is a great way to strengthen leg muscles and prevent the necessity for a walking cane.

Don’t worry, we’re not advocating the super squats that the younger gym addicts do! These squats are simple and gentle. Just follow these steps:

  • stand up straight and as tall as possible, with your feet shoulder width apart
  • drop your hips back and stick out  your butt
  • bend your knees as if you were sitting – don’t worry if you can’t bend far at first
  • hold for a couple of seconds
  • slowly straighten your knees and come back to the upright position

Make sure that your knees don’t come further forward that your toes. You’ll be dangerously unbalanced if you do.Try to work up to 10 repetitions 3 times daily.

Summary

It’s never too late to start on your senior fitness journey. So don’t put things off any longer.

All of us are ultimately responsible for our own health and well-being and all of the above tips will greatly help in this. Don’t try them all at once, just start with whatever you find easiest. The key thing is to: JUST START!

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What Is A Healthy Amount Of Sleep? Are You Getting Sufficient?

What is a healthy amount of sleep? Does it vary by gender, by age or by any other factors? In this article we’ll examine these questions and sleep in general…

Sleep is one of those things that’s so fundamental to our lives, that most of us seldom tend to take it for granted, and yet it’s absolutely essential for our good health, both physical and mental. Even though we don’t give sleep much thought, probably most of us have wondered at some point just what is a healthy amount of sleep and am I getting a sufficient amount of sleep myself?

We spend up to one third of our lives asleep, and the state of our sleep is a vital indicator to our overall health and well-being.  Unfortunately these days most of us do not get sufficient sleep, and the sleep we do get is frequently of poor quality. By poor quality, I mean that it’s shallow and disturbed, rather than being deep and restful. The modern world intrudes into our lives more and more and in doing so also intrudes into our sleep.

How Much Sleep Do We Need

The healthy amount of sleep for any one group of individuals is never going to be exact, it’s always going to be something of a rule of thumb. However, having said that, the National Sleep Foundation spent two years developing a study to determine how much sleep we really need and the overall state of the nation’s sleep health. This study superseded an earlier one and reflects the current state of medical thinking. The findings are summarized into this list:

  • Newborns (0-3 months): Sleep range narrowed to 14-17 hours each day (previously it was 12-18)
  • Infants (4-11 months): Sleep range widened two hours to 12-15 hours (previously it was 14-15)
  • Toddlers (1-2 years): Sleep range widened by one hour to 11-14 hours (previously it was 12-14)
  • Preschoolers (3-5): Sleep range widened by one hour to 10-13 hours (previously it was 11-13)
  • School age children (6-13): Sleep range widened by one hour to 9-11 hours (previously it was 10-11)
  • Teenagers (14-17): Sleep range widened by one hour to 8-10 hours (previously it was 8.5-9.5)
  • Younger adults (18-25): Sleep range is 7-9 hours (new age category)
  • Adults (26-64): Sleep range did not change and remains 7-9 hours
  • Older adults (65+): Sleep range is 7-8 hours (new age category)

Individual Variations In Sleep Requirements

As noted above though, sleep requirements vary from individual to individual. So it’s important that you also assess your own individual needs to determine what is a healthy amount of sleep for you personally. Try giving thought to some of these questions:

  • Are you feeling well rested, happy and healthy with seven hours sleep, or are you much better with something like 8-9 hours?
  • Are you overweight or obese? This is often linked to insufficient sleep or poor quality sleep?
  • Are you needing frequent cups of coffee to help get you through the day?
  • Do you ever feel sleepy while driving? This one obviously has potentially lethal implications
  • Do you often find yourself becoming irritable or angry for no real reason?

All of these can be indicators or poor sleep health, and should  help activate you into taking steps to improve it.

Make Sleep A Priority

Because we tend to give sleep little thought probably most of us assume we’re getting a healthy amount of sleep and just leave it at that. But the National Sleep Foundation says that we should be making sleep a priority in our lives and not just take it for granted, because it really is just so fundamental to our whole lives.

So if you or a family member are experiencing sleep issues such as snoring, excessive tiredness during the day, insomnia, cramps or tingling in the legs during the day or excess weight that just won’t go away then you really should be consulting your doctor or a sleep professional.

It’s also recommended to keep a “sleep diary”  for a period of at least a month, where you record the length and quality of your sleep each night and take that along to the appropriate health professional.

Here are some easy tips you can try to use to improve your sleep quality:

  • Stick to a regular sleep schedule, even at the weekends
  • Avoid things like alcohol and caffeine for at least three hours before going to bed
  • Exercise a little every day
  • Switch off any electronics in the bedroom
  • Avoid any electronic screen devices like phones, computers and tv’s for at least an hour prior to sleep
  • Male sure your room is warm but also well ventilated
  • Are your pillows and mattress comfortable? Replace them if not

Here’s something I hadn’t thought of before – sleep music. Having some soft, relaxing music playing very quietly in that background is said to greatly improve sleep quality, and there are many specialized tracks available for just this purpose. This one has been viewed on YouTube 47 million times, so they must have got something right:

I hope that you’ve found at least some of this article interesting and useful. Right now I’m heading off to bed… Zzzzzzz

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What Is The Ideal Body Weight For Women?

What is the true ideal body weight for women? Is there actually such a thing? Probably the great majority of women in the western world have asked themselves that question. Hopefully this article may help clarify things for you…

It’s fairly true to say people in Western Civilization countries are thinking about their health and weight more than ever before. This shouldn’t be surprising, because attractive though it is, our western lifestyles more obese and unhealthy than ever before. So much so in fact than children born in the last 10-15 years are now expected to have shorter lifespans than their parents – something I find quite shocking.

The desire to maintain a healthy body weight is of course spread over both sexes, but is generally more marked in females, and many wonder what the ideal body weight for women is.

The Ideal Body Weight (IBW) Concept

A concept known as the “Ideal Body Weight” (IBW from now on)  is generally what most medical practitioners focus on when determining obesity and healthy body mass. It’s used for example in determining the need for bariatric  surgery – in order to qualify a prospective patient needs to be at least 100 lbs over their IBW.

Surprisingly perhaps, the IBW theory isn’t anything new. In fact it was developed way back in 1943. Partly as a result of World War Two. The army wanted fit and trim soldiers, ones who weren’t carrying round excessive weight. The problem was that no-one could really state what an ideal body weight should be for any one particular individual. So, a committee of doctors was organised to provide answers and they eventually came up with the chart shown below.

IBW isn’t the only ideal body weight concept of course. For example over the last thirty years or so the Body Mass Index (BMI) chart was developed, and it came up with rather different figures. However it’s popularity seems to be on the wane, and mainstream medical thinking is veering back to IBW

The IBW Chart

Here is the chart first developed in 1943 and still in use today:

Factors Affecting Your Ideal Body Weight

It’s really important though that you don’t become a slave to this chart. The realistic ideal body weight for women is going to be affected by a number of different factors. Among these are

  • Age. We all tend to increase body weight as we get older, it’s quite normal and to be expected, so don’t obsess about keeping to the same weight range when you’re fifty and when you were thirty. It’s a sure-fire way to unhappiness
  • Fat to muscle ratio. With people who have higher than average muscle development such as athletes or those doing a lot of weight training, using the above chart can give false concepts of what your IBW should be
  • Gender. Women’s weight can be affected by hormonal changes to a greater degree than for men. This is especially true in pregnancy and for a period after giving birth and of course following menopause
  • Bone density. Some people really do have heavier bones than others, it’s not a myth. This is obviously going to affect what the true IBW should be for these people.
  • Pretty well all doctors agree that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is more important than focusing just on an ideal body weight. Factors such as smoking, excessive drinking and lack of exercise will ultimately have a more damaging effect than carrying a few extra pounds.

So basically the message is: use the above chart as a guide, but don’t let it run your life.

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No Time To Work Out? 10 Exercise Tips That Will Make You Think Again!

We all seem to be ultra busy these days don’t we?

It’s become almost obligatory that we have to fill every moment of our days with some sort of activity, be it our careers, family commitments or whatever, sometimes it seems that there’s just not enough time to fit everything it. When that happens we often start to put aside one vital part of our lives: getting enough exercise to keep our precious bodies fit and healthy.

If you can relate to this, then don’t despair, simply check out the following ten tips and you’ll be really surprised at how easy it can be to squeeze in more exercise each day – just by being a little bit more creative…

1.  Take The Stairs And Ignore The Elevator

If you have the option (and it’s not too much of a climb) then always aim to use the stairs rather than the elevator. Climbing stairs is an easy way to both keep the weight under control and improve general aerobic fitness. An average 185 pound male will burn up 180 calories in 15-20 minutes of stair climbing a day. And it’s not only climbing – walking downstairs also has a positive effect of muscle tone in the legs and hips.

If you work on something like the 20th floor, then consider climbing the stairs part way and using the elevator for the rest. Other easy tips:

  • Park on the top story of a parking lot and run up the stairs
  • When shopping in a multi story mall, take the stairs

Make stairs your friend and your body will love you for it!

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Weight Loss In Pregnancy – What You Need To Know

Introduction

For most women, pregnancy is one of the most awaited and happy periods in their lives. Generally if the pregnancy is planned then the mother-to-be will have taken steps beforehand to get her weight into a normal and healthy range. But not all pregnancies are planned of course, and so some women may find themselves carrying more weight than they would wish for when the conceive, so weight loss in pregnancy is something many women are concerned about.

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In this article we’ll discuss the possibly somewhat controversial subject of weight loss in pregnancy. I describe it as controversial because from the research I’ve done it’s apparent that many medical professionals have strong views on the subject – both for and against as to whether women should even try for weight loss while they’re pregnant.

So to start off with, we’ll discuss this issue from both sides and you can then make up your own mind about it and decide if it’s something you feel you want/need to do. Then, if you decide you should be looking to drop some weight during your pregnancy, I’ll list out some of the recommended methods of achieving this.

OK, lets get started…

Should You Lose Weight In Pregnancy?

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It used t be that obstetricians would offer advice to pregnant women along the lines of “eat for two and just take things easy”. The thinking was that a woman had more than enough stress in her life just by being pregnant, and she didn’t need the extra stress involved with trying to lose weight during pregnancy as well – the weight loss part would be best left until after the birth. I have to admit that I can quite relate to that!

Some doctors are concerned that certain women – especially those who tended to be very fit and slender prior to becoming pregnant – can start to obsess about their weight gains during pregnancy. The thinking is that they are so used to being trim that the idea of gaining weight is more than they  can deal with and so they’ll start cutting down on the extra calories that the baby requires to develop in a healthy way.

Recent scientific research however does tend to fly in the face of this type of advice. This is in part due to the fact that obesity is now so much more widespread than even ten years ago, and the dangers of being obese during pregnancy are now more fully understood than before.

I found this video to be very informative:

A study was recently published by the Saint Louis University which concluded:

Doctors hadn’t encouraged pregnant women who were obese to limit their weight gain or have them lose weight because they were afraid it would hurt the baby,” says Raul Artal, M.D., principal investigator and chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health at Saint Louis University.

We found that obese women do not have to gain any weight, and, in fact, can lose weight and it won’t hurt the baby. Pregnancy is an ideal time to start an exercise and fitness program, particularly for women who are obese.”

Dr. Artal is an internationally recognized expert who has conducted extensive research on exercise during pregnancy and is the lead author of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ current guidelines on exercise for pregnant women.

The new research flies in the face of the “eat for two” and “take it easy” advice that obstetricians gave to a past generation of moms-to-be.

There are so many more obese women and men. We are witnessing an epidemic of overweight and obesity,” Dr. Artal says. “Pregnancy seems to be an ideal time for behavior modification.”

Pregnant women are more likely to regularly see a doctor and tend to be highly motivated to make lifestyle changes that protect the health of their babies, he added.

So, based on the above, the general conclusions to be drawn are that carrying excess weight whilst expecting is not desirable and that weight loss in pregnancy is safe if carried out correctly.

Click “Next” below to read about Ways To Safely Lose Weight

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12 Everyday Foods That Can Be Toxic (Even Fatal)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always believed that most of the fruit and vegetables I buy from my local shops are pretty safe to eat.

But would it surprise you to learn that a large number of the foods lurking in your regular food supply are in fact poisonous (even deadly)? Here’s a list of twelve common foods with hidden toxins that you really should know about. Discover how to keep your family and yourself safe by avoiding these potential dangers:

1. Potatoes

What! Potatoes can be dangerous?

Yes, despite being one of the most widely eaten foods in the entire world, the humble spud can be seriously toxic, to the point of fatality. They can contain large quantities of solanine, which can lead to poisoning.

Before you start throwing your potatoes away, it’s important to understand that serious solanine quantities tend to be found primarily in green potatoes. Properly ripened and in reasonable quantities, potatoes are still quite safe to eat.

Remember your mom telling you that you shouldn’t eat them green? Now you know why!

Click “Next” below to read about Tomatoes

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6 Skin Health Issues That You Mustn’t Ignore

The skin is the largest organ in our bodies, and yet for some reason it’s the organ that receives the least attention from most people when it comes to health issues.

If you talk to pretty well any of your friends and relations about what health issues they’re most concerned with and you’ll probably (depending on age) get answers like heart health, gut problems, dementia and joint/skeletal health.

All of which is quite understandable as these areas of our bodies tend to receive the most publicity when it comes to health problems. However, our skin, just like any other organ or body part can develop problems, and some of these conditions can sometimes be fatal if left undetected and untreated.

Even if not fatal, the visible damage they create on the skin can have huge impacts on quality of life and general well-being. There are few things that seem to affect our self-esteem as much as visible skin conditions, and while this may just sound like vanity, it can cause serious and lasting emotional damage.

So take the time to check out these six early warning signs of relatively common skin issues that you should always take note of…

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Acid Reflux – New Theory Shows It’s A LOT Worse Than You Think

Treat Heartburn & Acid Reflux The Natural Way Find out more…

Just imagine that your acid reflux has now become so bad that you’re not able to speak. Think of what it would be like to be so scared of the inevitable agony that will ensue that you are unwilling to eat any food.

Even worse, how would you feel if you realized that your constant reflux had now progressed into terminal cancer?

Acid reflux isn’t only painful – it’s one of the most common diseases affecting people today

What this means is that around the world, tens of millions of people are at serious risk of their acid reflux developing into a serious or even fatal condition. So we need to stop thinking of it as just indigestion, in reality it’s a worldwide pandemic.

Most of us think of it being a food related issue: we’re stuffing the wrong food into our stomach and in return, our stomach takes it’s revenge on us. This type of thinking does seem to make logical sense but it ignores a lot of what is actually going on in your body. Other explanations include problems with the lower esophagus or with the composition of stomach acids.

So what is the real issue? In a recently developed clinical methodology called Heartburn No More, Jeff Martin says that in reality none of these things are the real cause of acid reflux. According to him, the true culprit is living in your stomach right now. It’s called H. Pylori—and it’s metabolism creates a hostile environment inside the gut that results in an acid reflux backlash.

So how is it that Jeff Martin figured this out and and where were the doctors in all this?

H Pylori isn’t new to science, it’s been known about for many years. It’s a bacterium that The World Health Organization (WHO) has deemed to be cancer-causing. It’s complicit with most incidence of stomach ulcers, stomach cancer, and—you guessed it—acid reflux disease. However, getting rid of H. Pylori isn’t the way that doctors go about treating acid reflux.

Like many others, Jeff Martin discovered the true dangers of H. Pylori the hard way – when he was lying flat on his back in a doctor’s surgery having cancerous cells scraped from his esophagus lining. At that point he understood the true threat that acid reflux posed, and that there had to be a better way to fight it.

Luckily, after some searching, he made contact with a university researcher named Richard Harrow who told him about H. Pylori and – most importantly – how to permanently get rid of it from the body. That last bit is significant and something the manufacturers of the common acid reflux treatments would prefer you didn’t know: You can get rid of H. Pylori, not just hide the symptoms.

That philosophy forms the backbone of Martin’s new treatment system Heartburn No More. Ditching the prescription solutions in favor of a 100% natural course of treatment that kills H. Pylori dead.  New research suggests a strong link between using anti-reflux medications and kidney damage, so Jeff’s totally natural solution seems to be more relevant  than ever before.

To find out more about the fight against H. Pylori and acid reflux, take a look at Heartburn no more for yourself.

Treat Heartburn & Acid Reflux The Natural Way Find out more…

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14 Days To A Butt You Can Be Proud Of

When is comes to the subject of losing weight, pretty well any article you read, or video you watch talks on (endlessly it sometimes seems) about how to get rid of fat around the belly, or perhaps occasionally the thighs.

But there’s one particular area that gets very little mention, and you’ll be sitting on it while you read this most likely.

Yes, I’m talking about our butts, tooshes, behinds – call it what you prefer. We tend not to talk about them much, but in reality, most of us would love to have a butt that’s perhaps just a little bit more shapely than what we currently posses – yes?

So here’s a good butt workout routine that promises to get your rear-end back in good shape in just 14 days…

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These Foods Will Help Trigger Anxiety Attacks – Avoid Them

Anxiety is something that seems to be getting more and more prevalent in our modern and hectic world.

It sometimes seems as if there’s never a quiet moment when we can just be by ourselves without any interruption, and there’s no doubt in my own mind that our increasing reliance on modern communication technology is hugely contributing to that.

So yes, we do tend to bring on anxiety attacks due to our own lifestyles and actions, which means of course that we can change that.

Modern medical research is showing that one anxiety inducing factor we can readily control relates to the foods we choose to consume. So head over the next page to see with ones you should be trying to avoid in your life…

Research has shown that some food type can help trigger anxiety attacks. So make effort to avoid these: