Tips for Your Boomer Years

Get Healthy with Tasty Chia Seed Recipes

Tiny chia seeds offer a powerful nutritional addition to your diet. How much chia seed should you eat per day? About 2 to 3 teaspoons of chia seeds offers B vitamins, omega 3 fatty acids, fiber, protein and more.

How Do You Use Chia Seeds?

Chia seeds can be added to just about any food, such as yogurt, pancake or muffin batter, or sprinkled over cereals or added to your morning smoothie. Or you can try these tasty chia seed recipes:

Luscious Chia Seed Smoothie

1 Tbs Chia Seeds
3/4 cup fruit juice
1/2 banana
2 oz yogurt

Add chia seed to juice and wait for chia gel to form. This usually takes a few minutes. Add rest of ingredients and blend until smooth.

Chia gel can be made with water and kept in the frig too, ready to add to any recipe. Simply use 9 parts water to 1 part chia seed and put in a shaker bottle. Shake well several times to prevent clumping and store in the frig.

Chia Seed Guacamole

1 Avocados
1 scoop chia seeds
1/2 juiced lemon
1 TBS onion, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBS Olive oil

Mash avocados, then stir in remaining ingredients.

Chia Seed Quesadilla Recipe

1/2 scoop chia seeds
2 Flour Tortillas
Butter or Ghee
1 cups shredded cheese

Heat a skillet. Spread butter or ghee onto tortillas.

Place one tortilla in skillet, butter side down and sprinkle cheese on top.

Place second tortilla on top, butter side up.

Saute both sides of tortilla until it’s golden brown.

Serve.

Chia Seed Pancakes

2 scoops chia seeds
pancake mix
fresh blueberries or strawberries

Mix pancake batter according to directions. Add chia seeds and fruit.

Heat skillet and add batter.

When bottom side is golden brown, flip and cook other side.

Top with fresh fruit and serve.

Chia Seed Stir Fry

Chicken or beef strips
1 scoop chia seeds
cut up veggies for stir fry
Sesame oil
Soy sauce-low sodium

Mix chia seeds with soy sauce and wait one minute for gel to form.

Heat skillet with sesame oil. Add meat and saute until golden brown.

Add veggies and chia soy sauce mixture. Stir fry until veggies are tender.

Serve with rice.

Easy Banana Chia Seed Snack Recipe

1 banana
1 scoop chia seeds
2 Tbs shredded coconut
1 Tbs cocoa powder

Peel the banana and roll it in the coconut, chia seeds and cocoa powder.

Slice coated banana into pieces and serve.

As you can see by these chia seed recipes, it’s possible to add them to just about any dish.

Where to Buy Chia Seeds?

These delicious chia seed recipes came from Omega 3 Chia Seed, which is available on Amazon.com. I’ve been using this brand for about a year and find good quality for the price. Amazon also carries several other brands of chia seeds too.

Many health food stores also sell chia seeds.

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!

balance exercises

Exercises for Balance - Do These Every Day for Healthy Aging

No matter what your age, balance exercises are some of the easiest and most important exercises you can do on a daily basis. As we age, our brain “forgets” how to balance, leaving us susceptible it falls and broken hips in our senior years. It’s easy to prevent these falls by doing balance exercises daily.

Balance exercises strengthen core muscles, which in turn, hold you upright and protect you from back pain.

The easiest and least expensive balance program is simply to stand on one foot for as long as you can and then switch feet. If you have trouble at first, lightly place one hand on the counter to steady you. As time goes by, you won’t need the steadying hand anymore.

Do this balance exercise while you brush your teeth each day. Once you get really expert at this exercise, do it with your eyes closed.

Think of all your daily tasks that would allow you to do balance exercises at the same time - washing dishes, cooking, talking on the telephone.

Here are some free yoga standing poses from Yoga Journal. Any of these, done daily, will greatly improve balance.

From personal experience, I can say that yoga improves balance tremendously. Many poses involve balance and yoga strengthens core muscles. Here’s a helpful yoga DVD to get you started or find a class at your local YMCA or rec center.

The New Yoga for Healthy Aging is also a good book to get you started on using yoga for balance exercises.

Tai Chi is another great exercise for improving balance. If you don’t have a class near you, try Tai-chi Exercises for Seniors, a DVD which shows you how to practice tai chi at home.

Many people like the bosu ball for balance exercises. When I went to my chiropractor for a therapy session, however, the therapist did not recommend using the bosu ball at home as it’s been connected with many falls and injuries. If you want to try this form of balance exercise, find a certified instructor to teach you how to do it safely.

Here is a slide show of simple balance exercises from the Mayo Clinic.

Other helpful tools for balance exercises.

DVD on Senior/Elderly Balance Exercises Using a Chair

Total Body Balance Ball Kit from Gaiam.com

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.

If you’ve checked into the cost of stylish eyeglasses lately, you might think finding quality frames and lenses for a

These quality frames only $8 at Zenni Optical

great price is difficult to do. If so, check out the eyeglasses at Zenni Optical, your online optical store where you can get fashionable frames with quality workmanship, plus your prescription lenses, for under $25 in most cases.

You want your eyeglasses to be stylish and the choice of the perfect frames is a very personal fashion statement. Zenni Optical offers all styles from rimless, half rimmed and full rimmed frames, to stainless steel, titanium and aluminum.

Do you need bi-focals or progressive lenses at a discount price? Zenni Optical offers bifocals starting at $25 and progressive lenses starting at $37. Where else could you find fashionable, quality frames and lenses for that price?

Need sunglasses? Zenni Optical offers 7 different tints, starting at just $4.95, offered as an upgrade to the already low prices.

Finding well made, stylish glasses at a discount price does not have to be difficult. Check out the terrific frames at Zenni Optical and you’ll soon be ordering all your eyeglasses from them.

Read a review of Zenni Optical’s eyeglasses for more information.

After the AARP came out in support of President Obama’s health care plan, my husband and I chose to cancel our membership - which we’d had for the past 10 years. AARP has always taken a liberal stance, in our view, but this recent turn of events caused us to say, “Enough.”

Here is a quote from DickMorris.com from his article, “Day One: How Obamacare Will Alienate Americans” concerning the AARP and the health care reform bill:

“The first “no” will hit the ten million elderly who now rely on Medicare Advantage to pay for the care Medicare itself does not cover. In a payoff to AARP, Obama gutted this program in his bill, ending over $100 billion in federal premium subsidies. These ten million voters will get the grim news that their premiums are going up and their benefits dropping early in 2010. The goal, of course, is to force them to drop Medicare Advantage and sign up, instead, for Medigap insurance — offered, not coincidentally, by the AARP — which provides less coverage at higher cost.”

Read the entire article and see if you still want to be a member of AARP.