grow older better

Tag: walking

  • Changing My Diet, Exercising, And More

    healthy_food

    This past year I have made many changes in my both diet and my exercise habits and I thought I’d post about it.

     

    Earlier this year I started doing yoga maybe once or twice a week and then tried every other day. At some point I just knew that 20 minutes a day every day seemed to be worth aiming for.

    So that’s what I’ve been doing – with an occasional missed day – but not very frequently – and never two days in a row.

    Additionally I’d been reading bad stuff about wheat and realized that I have had what feels like an addiction to bread. I don’t get that way when I make my own bread, but this feeling happened with what is considered healthy and local, but store-bought bread. So I decided – okay – I’m eliminating much of the wheat from my diet.

    I feel so much better and I no longer have many of those cravings for bread or wheat yummies like donuts and cookies.

    I also cut back on dairy by eliminating milk. I’m now only using almond milk in my coffee but I still eat cheese and Greek yogurt.

    And I added more fruit, garden fresh vegetable, and stayed with my usual consumption of nuts.

    The upshot of all of this is that I not only lost weight but also inches around my hips and my waist.

    And having a puppy again has gotten me outside walking a LOT – no matter what the weather is.

     

    I’m not sure which of my changes was the most relevant – and as a researcher, I should be interested…but I’m happy with the results so…..

     

  • Walking for brain fitness

    walking-good-for-brains

    WALK!!

    A  study found that walking isn't just great for weight loss or for just plain old exercise –

    it's great for your memory too!

    …researchers randomly assigned 120 healthy but sedentary men and women (average age mid-60s) to one of two exercise groups. One group walked around a track three times a week, building up to 40 minutes at a stretch; the other did a variety of less aerobic exercises, including yoga and resistance training with bands.

    After a year, brain scans showed that among the walkers, the hippocampus had increased in volume by about 2 percent on average; in the others, it had declined by about 1.4 percent.

    Your hippocampus is a part of the brain that is important for memory formation and normally it starts to atrophy around age 55 or 60. 

    The fact that  it actually increased is pretty amazing..

    It makes me want to go out and walk every day…

    Join me?

     

    Comments? thoughts?

  • 10,000 Steps! Good For Me?

    Today in honor of Earth ay [and a rare sunny DRY day,] I walked to my nearest library branch.

    According to my pedometer it was 10,325 steps [or 5 plus miles!]

    In less than 2 hours, I got there and back, got some new books, took some photos, sat for a rest in the library, and stopped to shake grit out of my shoes.

    Not a bad pace for an old lady! But then I love walking and do lots of it.

    Health providers, including mine, say that one should take 10,000 steps a day to remain in good health! Duh? That would mean that I should walk to and from the library EVERY day! Or do the equivalent of this round trip.

    Not gonna happen. Not on a regular basis. Besides does it add to my health to have breathed in whatever the cars and trucks speeding by were spewing out their exhausts? And what of the “stuff” kicked up by their tires that I not only had to remove from my shoes, but also got in my eyes, nose, throat – and assume is now in my lungs!

    I’m not sure who comes up with the “you musts” for health…but this is one I shall say no thank you to. I’ll stick with my shorter cleaner walks along the levee and along my street – and the next time I am inclined to walk to the library – I’ll go by bicycle!