Tips for Your Boomer Years

Anti-Aging Workout Video Is Fun to do at Home

Carol Argo’s anti-aging workout video Anti-Aging Method with Carol Argo offers a unique total body

The Anti-Aging Method with Carol Argo

workout that blends the best of Yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates and dance that is suitable for beginners to the experienced fitness expert. As we age, our workouts should include these aspects so we can remain flexible and to keep our bodies youthful and free of pain from stiff joints, and help us improve balance to prevent falls. These exercises offer a great anti-aging program that you can do at home to accomplish all these goals.

This anti-aging workout video features three different workout options - a comprehensive total workout which lasts 50 minutes, a brief energize & dance workout with is 20 minutes, an all-floor Yoga & Pilates session of 27 minutes and bonus six minute program of Chair Yoga. Carol Argo’s Anti Aging Method
is easy to fit into any type of schedule and received the highest viewer ratings on Amazon.com.

Exercise as we get older, or exercising to keep us young, is absolutely essential to improving our senior years. The earlier you begin, the better you will feel and the better you will age. Aches and pains are common as we age, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Yoga, Tai Chi and Pilates keep us flexible and pain free. If you’re free of pain from stiff joints, an aching back or knees, your quality of life is so much better. Balance exercises are essential as we age as well, to keep us from breaking hips and other bones.

All it takes is getting into the habit of exercising several times a week. You’ll notice the difference in the way you feel in just a week or two.

If you’re new to fitness and want to improve flexibility, reduce stress and feel more energetic, The Anti-Aging Method is a terrific place to begin. If you’ve been doing fitness workouts for a while, or are looking for a workout you can do conveniently at home, The Anti-Aging Method is an essential addition to your fitness video library.

Free Better Balance Exercise Program E-Course

Would you like to improve your balance with a simple balance exercise program? BetterBalance.com is offering a free 6 part e-course to help you improve your balance. As we get older, having good balance helps prevent falls and increases our independence.

Click Here! to read more about this free balance exercise program and sign up for the free e-course.

You can do a balance exercise program without any special, expensive equipment and you don’t even have to work up a sweat! Balance exercises are not about doing cardio or building muscle, they are about improving your brain’s ability to “remember” how to balance you upright so you don’t fall.

This free balance exercise program e-course offers six parts covering:

Part 1 – Explains why our balance gets worse as we age
Part 2 – The wrong way to deal with poor balance
Part 3 – Free video on how to do balance exercises
Part 4 – Improve these important muscles for preventing falls (video)
Part 5 – Video all about balance and posture
Part 6 – Where falls occur most often and how to reduce these falls

One in 3 adults over age 60 experience falls, which can break hips or other bones and put an otherwise healthy senior in a nursing home or assisted living facility. This won’t happen to you if you follow a simple balance exercise program.

Click Here!

Raising Chickens in the City - Have Your Own Backyard Flock

For those of us who were raised on farm fresh eggs, the newest health trend of raising chickens in the city

Learn to raise chickens in the city.

may seem funny at first, but then it makes sense. Why not raise chickens in your backyard and have all the farm fresh eggs you can eat?

My grandfather was a chicken farmer during the depression and I grew up on my dad’s stories of living on an Iowa farm in the 1930’s. One time a flash flood came through and killed nearly every chicken. My dad said, “At the time, I never realized how devastating that must have been.” Chicken farming had it’s ups and downs, that’s for sure.

I guess raising chickens is in my blood because I’ve always loved them. When we lived on three acres in Oregon, one of my first farming efforts was to built a small coop with a sturdy fence and get a dozen chicks to raise. By the time we left there 6 years later, I had two dozen hens.

Raising chickens in your own backyard makes sense, even if you live in the city. Eggs from free ranging chickens provide higher levels of omega 3 fatty acids than conventional eggs raised on commercial chicken farms. You can also feed your backyard flock flax seed meal to increase the omega 3’s even more.

Chickens in the city need very little to be happy. Each chicken lays about one egg per day in the spring and summer. My chickens were very consistent layers, even in winter. We always had enough eggs to supply our family, plus my extended family. I also supplied other people in the community. When I got my hair cut, I “tipped” my hair stylist with two dozen eggs and she loved it!

To raise chickens you need a small coop to shut them up at night and provide them a clean, dry place to lay their eggs. Chickens are smart. Every evening at dusk, they “go to bed” and you just need to shut the door to lock out predators. Even the city has raccoons or other animals that might love to have a chicken dinner.

In your litle back yard coop, you need a couple straw filled boxes for the chickens to lay eggs and a small roost of some kind for them to sleep on. I made my own with wood and dowels going across for them to get their claws around.

You’ll probably also need a fenced area for your backyard chickens. It’s nice to think of them running free, but chickens are very hard on landscaping! They dig and scratch for bugs until your entire yard is torn up.

You can also feed your chickens veggie scraps instead of throwing them in the trash. On cold days, I even made hot oatmeal for my chickens (yes, they were spoiled). On hot days, I ran the hose for them too so they could play in the water and cool off.

You probably won’t save money raising chickens in the city. Your first expenses will be building a coop of some sort, buying a feeder and waterer and some straw for the laying boxes. You need to buy chicken feed and continue to get straw to refresh the laying area and keep it clean.

Still, aside from the money you spend raising chickens, you have the wonderful knowledge of knowing you’re raising your own food and, if you have kids or grandkids, they can see first hand where food comes from. Chickens are friendly creatures too and they will come running when they see you.

If you’d like to raise chickens in the city, I suggest finding out first is your city allows backyard flocks and if so, how many chickens you could have. Then read up on the subject of chicken raising. Here are a few books to get you started:

Raising Chickens for Dummies

Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens: Care / Feeding / Facilities

City Chicks

If you’d like to raise chickens and other animals in the city, try this book:

Barnyard in Your Backyard: A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, and Cows

All of these books on raising chickens in the city are available on Amazon.com and got 5 star ratings from readers.

Further reading:

Mad City Chickens - a great website with lots of chicken info.

Are You at Risk for Heart Disease - 2 Simple Ways to Find Out

Are you at risk of getting heart disease? Many baby boomers face this serious health problem but there are two simple tests you can do at home to see if you are at risk.

Test Number One:

If you are over 40 years of age, have you kept your body limber? Adults over that age who have kept their flexibility also 30% less stiffness in their arteries, than those adults who are less flexible.

Remedy: Stretch just 10 to 15 minutes a day to keep your body’s flexibility and help prevent heart disease and hardening of the arteries.  Just these few minutes of stretching daily may help keep your arteries more elastic, as well as the muscles and tissues surrounding them.

Measure Your Waist to see if you are at Risk of Heart Disease

What is your waist to height ratio? The size of the fat cells in your stomach may be one of the best indicators as to whether or not you are at risk for type II diabetes, which in turn increases your risk for stroke and heart disease by two to four times.

How tall are you in inches? Take that measurement and cut it in half. For instance, I am 66 inches tall. So the number I am looking for is 33 inches.

Next measure the size of your waistline. Your waist measurement should be equal to or less than, half your height. If your waistline measures more than half your height, consider losing some weight and reducing dangerous belly fat.

Here are some useful tips for reducing belly fat

More Great Weightloss Tools and Tips

Need help finding an exersise program for seniors? Try these:

Fabulous Forever - Easy Aerobics Video: Beginners Exercise for Baby Boomers, Reduce Risk For Heart Disease, Build Stamina, Burn Calories and Become Cardio Fit by Mirabai Holland, MFA [VHS]

Yoga for Seniors to Improve Flexibility:

Lilias! AM & PM Yoga Workouts for Seniors

Baby boomer’s health and wellenss is in their own hands. Proper diet, exercise and losing a little weight can help with health aging and help you avoid the degenerative diseases common to seniors and older people.

Why We Need a High Fiber Diet

As we get older, eating a high fiber diet can solve many of our health issues and baby boomers want to stay in good health as they age. Gaining weight as you get older? Eating 40 grams of fiber a day can help you lose weight, especially that stubborn belly fat. Having troubles with your bowels - either constipation or irregularity? A high fiber diet, along with drinking plenty of water, can help your digestive system work properly and help reduce the risk of heart disease, colon cancer, high cholesterol and more.

High fiber foods not only keep your digestive system functioning in a healthy way, it also keeps you filled up so you don’t overeat or get hungry.

Women should get 21 to 25 gms of fiber daily and men should get 30 to 38 grams of fiber daily. How do you know if you’re getting enough fiber? Read labels. Grams of fiber are listed on every label.

There are two type of fiber, soluable and insoluable fiber. Water soluable fibers are found in fruits and veggies and insoluable fiber is found in whole grains, like oats, wheat and flaxseed. Avoid “fiber added” food products because today you can even find fiber in ice cream. These are usually isolated fiber products which are synthetic and don’t really have the same health benefits as eating whole grain cereal, like All Bran, or eating veggies and fruit.

Fiber Content in Common Foods

• A bowl of whole grain cereal should have about 5 to 7 grams of fiber. Check the label to be sure.
• whole wheat cooked spagetti has about 6.2 grams of fiber per cup.
• One apple has about 4.4 grams of fiber.
• Cooked black beans has a whopping 15 grams of fiber per cup. Beans are a terrific source of fiber and also contain muscle building protein if you’re trying to lose weight too.
• Cooked peas have 8.8 grams of fiber per cup.

You can see just from this listing of high fiber foods, that it shouldn’t be hard to get your recommended daily fiber intake.

Here are some high fiber snacks to keep you filled:

• Popcorn has 3.5 grams of fiber for 3 cups
• Raisins have 1 gram of fiber for 2 TBS
• One banana has 3.3 grams of fiber
• Sunflower seed kernels have 3.3 grams of fiber for 1/4 cup and
• Almonds have 3.5 grams of fiber for about 23 nuts.

Use your daily snacks to increase your fiber intake and over time, the weight will come off and your colon will be much healthier!

Read more about the health benefits of a high fiber diet.

Check out this list of high fiber foods from the Mayo Clinic.

Anti Aging Review - Younger Next Year

I bought the book, Younger Next Year for Women Live Like You’re 50 - Strong, Fit, Sexy - Until You’re 80 and Beyond -

Younger Next Year

about 3 years ago and it is by far the most motivating book on diet and exercise that I’ve ever read. I read it cover to cover in a few sittings and made some antiaging fitness changes to my life.

After reading Younger Next Year, I joined the YMCA and started taking fitness classes and I increased my daily walk to one hour, using a wrist watch heart monitor to track my heart rate. I lost 15 pounds and went from a size 10 to a size 8. I was thrilled!

However, like anything else, I found myself slipping. I still go to the Y and have started taking yoga classes too but I decided to get out Younger Next Year and re-read it for more anti aging motivation.

Authors Chris Crowley and Dr. Henry S. Lodge, MD, advocate exercise and lots of it to ward off the effects of aging and decay. As they say, aging is mandatory in life but decaying is not! Seventy percent (or even more according to some experts) of how well we age is due to our own lifestyle choices! Think of that! Would you like to be energetic, mentally alert and healthy until you die? Even if you die at 100 years of age? I believe if you follow the Younger Next Year program, you can achieve that goal of a healthy old age.

If you’re over age 50, then fitness after 50 is essential! Either move or rot, as the authors tell us. There is lots of great advice in this book too on how to eat - not dieting to lose weight either - that gives lots of motivation to drop the “crap” that is not good for us and our health.

This book really changed many things in my life - changes I’ve stuck with, like the exercise classes. I have to admit I did let a few pounds creep up over the past year so I’m back to the program. I truly believe that eating a good diet and exercising are the key to anti-aging health. I am approaching 60 this year and my heart, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar are ultra-healthy. I feel energetic and mentally alert.

To keep me motivated to do a little more, I purchased a pedometer to count my 10,000 steps a day. If you hit the treadmill for about 45 minutes a day, you have no trouble getting your steps in either.

If you’re looking for motivation on your quest for fitness after 50, then I highly recommend Younger Next Year to help you along.

There is also a Younger Next Year for Men and a Younger Next Year Journal: Start Now and Live the Promise Day-by-Day too.

More information on the Younger Next Year program and to join their community.

I watched Wayne Dyer on the PBS station talking about his new book, Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits. This 3 hour presentation was a perfect way to begin my new year. Manyu Baby Boomers have excuses for not achieving their goals based on age. Are you using any of these excuses for not creating a better life:

• It will take too long - At my age, I don’t have time!
• It will be too late to change now
• I’ve always been this way
• It’s too risky to try at may age

Louise Hay wrote her first inspirational book at age 61. Wayne Dyer himself is in his late 60’s and still speaking, writing and motivating people. What is too old anyway? As for being too late - do you plan to die tomorrow? If you don’t, then it’s never too late to live a better life for whatever years you have left?

I think seniors especially need to read Excuses Begone. You may have spent your entire life making excuses for not achieving what you want in life and by now, after multiple failures in life, you believe it’s not possible to change now and live a better life.

What do you want to achieve in the new year? Do you have a medical issue you want to heal? Do you want to retire? Do you want to volunteer more and work less? Would you like to lose weight, write a book, have a more loving relationship with your family? All these things are possible if you get rid of the excuses that have been holding you back.

In his book, Wayne Dyer goes over the 18 most common excuses, sent to him by his readers, people like you. He goes over each one and helps you look at the excuse, and your thoughts about it, in an entirely new way. Using this new perspective, Dyer offers a plan for you to over come the excuses and achieve whatever goals you may have.

One of Wayne Dyer’s books, 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, literally changed my life, helping me to be happier and have more loving relationships in my life. That was the first of his books that I read and since then, I’ve read all the others. They’ve helped me to set out a plan for my life and achieve what I think is important for my happiness.

The Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Make your first step reading Excuses Begone and you can then lay out a blueprint for the rest of your journey to the life you’d really like to live. At our age, we don’t have a single day to waste on excuses!

I started drinking lots of green tea about 10 years ago and I feel it really gives my health and immune system a boost. Recently I started drinking more white tea, which is higher in antioxidants and lower in caffeine than other teas. It has a light delicate flavor which lends itself nicely to flavored ice tea drinks too.

White tea is made by picking the young buds and leaves of the tea, while green tea is made by picking the more mature leaves.

I found a useful website dedicated to white tea. White Tea.com has articles about brewing white tea, plus articles on the types of white tea and all the benefits of drinking it. Plus, you can order a white tea sampler, white peony tea and silver needle white tea.

Since white tea has a milder flavor than green or black tea, you can use it in fruity drinks. Mix 2 cups of white tea with equal parts pomegranate juice or berry juice, like blueberry. Add ice and you have a beautiful party drink that your guests will love.

Recently, I was visiting my parents in Oregon and I came across this great resource on aging well from Oregon State University. There are 5 free online modules to watch, which include a self-paced slide show presentation on topics especially for seniors. The topics include memory and medication problems, depression, what to eat and how to exercise.

I’ve been reading Sharon Johnson’s column in the Medford Mail Tribune for several years and she always offers great information for seniors. The is an Associate Professor at OSU Associate Professor in Family and Community Health.

Most of the 5 aging well modules take less than 1 hour to watch. Learn more about the instructor here or check out her blog Mastery of Aging Well.

If you’d like to know more about aging well, You also have the option of taking an online course or ordering 5 courses in a DVD learning package which cost money. However, the original 5 modules are totally free to watch.

This presentation started out as an audio book club for seniors. I especially enjoyed the presentation on food and aging how to know if your memory difficulties are a problem or not. We all suffer from memory lapses as we get older but is it something we should worry about or not?

In the newspaper article, Sharon Johnson said her site was getting about 23 hits per day. I am hoping that by posting information on it here, we can increase her readership of both the Mastery of Aging Well blog and the great presentations by OSU. The blog offers lots of current news for seniors and on aging and links to info from the AARP, the state of Oregon and Sharon Johnson’s past columns on healthy aging in the Mail Tribune.