According to a new study, people are generally happier when they’re older. We start out pretty pleased with ourselves at age 18, then we get increasingly unhappy until around age 50, then we start getting happy again, hitting our happiest around age 85. More things to look forward to!
You can read the full article here.
… because let’s face it. All I’m thinking about is my DEXA. When can I get it? What will it say? Let’s while away the hours looking at pictures from my garden, shall we? Playing in dirt makes me happy, and looking at the fruits of my labor makes me even happier. From top to bottom: peonies, lady’s mantle, sweet william, bearded iris, globe flower (a gorgeous bog plant), azaleas and forget-me-nots, and I don’t know what the last one is called, but it’s from a bulb.
You know what’s really sweet? Last night, I listened as my husband gave my mother-in-law a photo tour of the garden, and he remembered all the names of the plants (He had no idea what they were called last Friday when he went around taking pictures). He’s a good student!
The doctor’s office called and cancelled my appointment yesterday. Here’s the really annoying thing: I gave them my cellphone number (because we don’t keep house phone hooked up because we’re renting), but they called the house number to leave this message. On a Friday. At around 5:00. Their offices close on Friday at 5:00, and they aren’t open on the weekends, and Monday is a holiday. My appointment was supposed to be Tuesday. So there’s absolutely no way I can get in touch with them until Tuesday next week. And I’ve been on tenterhooks about this appointment and getting my next DEXA.
If I didn’t feel like I needed to have the DEXA done on the exact same machine, there’s no way I’d go see this doctor again. I didn’t like the way they pushed the meds on me. And I certainly didn’t like the way they refused to run additional tests I requested to rule out secondary causes. The nurse’s response was “The doctor can’t just be writing prescriptions willy nilly for whatever tests you want. There has to be a reason to have them.” Uh. There is. Like I have osteoporosis at 47.
… especially if it contains topical Vitamin A, according to the Environmental Working Group.
Recently available data from an FDA study indicate that a form of vitamin A, retinyl palmitate, when applied to the skin in the presence of sunlight, may speed the development of skin tumors and lesions. This evidence is troubling because the sunscreen industry adds vitamin A to 41 percent of all sunscreens.
The industry puts vitamin A in its formulations because it is an anti-oxidant that slows skin aging. That may be true for lotions and night creams used indoors, but FDA recently conducted a study of vitamin A’s photocarcinogenic properties, the possibility that it results in cancerous tumors when used on skin exposed to sunlight. Scientists have known for some time that vitamin A can spur excess skin growth (hyperplasia), and that in sunlight it can form free radicals that damage DNA.
(Sigh) I am so ready for some non-depressing news.
According to Environmental Working Group, here’s the list of the worst sunscreens out there.
Okay. Another video. It’s long because I’m trying to demonstrate several different levels of strength/proficiency on this exercise. I apologize for the quality and for how doofy I look. I can’t stand the way I curl my upper lip under. I actually asked my husband if he has to look at that all the time, and he said I only do it when I’m on camera. Geez. No wonder I couldn’t get film work when I was still acting. Another mystery solved. I also hate that I can never find the right word I’m looking for … but I think you get the general idea.
Remember, as with any exercise, run it past your doctor first. There are so many safety considerations with this stuff. There are stories of people fracturing their wrists and/or bones in their hands when working with resistance bands. [NOTE: My assumption with these horror stories is that the people who fractured their wrists or hands with resistance bands had severely compromised bone health. And I don't mean a score of -2.5, I mean a score of like -5.8.] I don’t mean to discourage you from exercising — everyone needs to exercise. But it would be awful if in the pursuit of better bones, you broke a bone. So a little caution at the beginning is always prudent.
You can click on the links above to read the article and the full study. If you need resistance bands, here’s a link to THERA-BAND’s 5ft set of all 8 Resistance Colors. Notice once you get there, you can also navigate around and just get one band for much less. Below is a chart to help you decide which strength band is right for you, but I personally would probably get all 8 because if you keep training, you’re going to very quickly (hopefully) outgrow your weenie little yellow band in terms of your strength. See this post regarding the tensile strengths of the different bands.
As promised, here’s the seated row. I will say that I highly recommend (in fact, can’t recommend it highly enough!) that you first practice the arm movements in front of a mirror. You might swear on a stack of Bibles that you are keeping your shoulders down, but upon further inspection will discover that they are up around your ears. So practice where you can see yourself.
If you have trouble locating the rhomboids and squeezing them, have a friend or loved one poke a finger between your shoulder blades so that you can then try to squeeze it. I’m not speaking figuratively here. I mean literally have someone poke you between the shoulder blades. When I first started doing this exercise, I could not find these muscles to save my life. I think a butterfly flapping it’s wings had more strength than I had in my rhomboids. With practice, I got better and so can you.
I say it in the video, but I’ll say it again here. It is helpful to do this exercise first without any weight or band at all so that you can locate the muscles. Isometric contractions (where you just hold a contraction, the muscles don’t change length — an example would be making a fist and squeezing your hand closed as tightly as you can for a few seconds, then relaxing) actually engage more muscle fibers than either concentric (where muscles grow shorter) or eccentric (where muscles grow longer) contractions. So if at the beginning, all you’re doing is squeezing your shoulder blades together and releasing; squeezing and releasing — that’s not a bad thing. It will help you perfect your form. You do have to move beyond that eventually, however, and start using some resistance.
The other thing I forgot to say in the video is that you want to think of keeping your chest somewhat lifted when you do the move.
If you want to make this more challenging for yourself, you can do this while seated on an exercise ball. If working on the a little too difficult for you, you can try extending your legs and pushing the balls of your feet against the baseboard of the wall. It will help you stay in one spot. (If you’re on a ball, when you pull the bands the ball is going to want to roll forward/move you closer to the wall. If your feet are pressing into the baseboard, it will keep you in one spot.) Ready for more of a challenge? Keep your feet flat on the floor. Your core muscles and your hamstrings will get a workout in their effort to keep you stabilized.
If you need resistance bands, here’s a link to THERA-BAND’s 5ft set of all 8 Resistance Colors
As with any new exercise regimen, check with your doctor first.
They seem fine today. Yesterday I had to take the bus back to the city for the meeting with Environmental Project Lady, and because I’m short and bus seats are deep, it put a lot of pressure on the backs of my knees (which hurt), so I’d end up crossing my legs (another entrapment site for the ol’ peroneal nerve). Long way of saying that after an even longer bus ride, I felt as if I backslide last night. Didn’t really notice it until I was doing my yoga practice. I was having a hard time picking my toes up off the floor in tree.
And that got me to thinking about this terrific floor exercise we used to do in dance class where you roll through your feet (for lack of a better term). Very difficult to describe, but an easy exercise to do. The more I thought about it; the more I realized how important it is and how I ought to be adding it to my daily repertoire. You should add it to yours too. The reason being that if you don’t pick your feet up, you could trip. And if you trip, you could break a hip. This little exercise will help you activate all the muscles and joints in your feet, keeping the tootsies supple and your movements more fluid. So I’m going to do another video.
I don’t know the name of it. Let’s just call it the foot suite, since it’s a series of moves.
As you know, spinal flexion (i.e., bending forward) is a no-no for osteoporotics. So how’s a gal (or guy) supposed to pick their dirty socks off the floor? And I know what you’re thinking, but unfortunately, no. Just because you have osteoporosis does not always mean you get out of doing housework. Luckily, there’s a safe way to pick things up. It’s called a hip hinge. Watch the video to see how it’s done.
… are not so numb today. I’ve been making a conscious effort not to cross my legs (virtually impossible). I’m hoping the numbness will be totally gone tomorrow.
Having adequate protein is important for developing bone mass. But eating meat comes with a price – high acidity. And as we get older, our bodies are not as efficient at digesting meat. Meat also comes with a lot of other things we don’t need: like cholesterol and high fat. In our quest for protein, we often overlook the non-meat variety: beans, tofu, broccoli (weird, I know), rice & grains, nuts.
The biggest problem about getting your protein from vegetables as opposed to meat is that it isn’t a complete protein. What do I mean by complete? Protein contains amino acids. There are approximately 20 of them in all, eleven of which are essential to the human body. Essential as in — you can’t live without them. Vegetables don’t contain all eleven of these amino acid; meat, poultry, fish, dairy, cheese and eggs do.
But even if you’re a vegan and consume no meat or dairy, that’s not a problem. As long as you pair up complimentary amino acids, which most of us do without even thinking about it. For example: rice and beans; cornbread and peas; pasta and tomatoes, peanut butter on bread. These pairings all are examples of incomplete proteins made complete by their partners.
You can read this article about vegetables rich in protein, which also has some nifty recipes. [NOTE: to get the recipes, you have to scroll all the way to the end of the article to the slide show, and then underneath each photo, you'll see a link to the recipe. Orange marmalade oatmeal for breakfast anyone?]
