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Finding Time to Work Out

Getting out hiking is just one way to improve health and life.

I consider myself a gym rat. That is, if I had the time and fewer responsibilities, I would be spending maybe a couple of hours a day working out. That would include a good 35-45 minutes of aerobic work and then some strength training exercises. As it is, I manage to get to the gym 3-5 times a week for roughly an hour.
Things get complicated though when work decides to change starting times. Prior to last week, I was working out after work. This was affected by things such as having to work overtime. I could work up to a half hour of overtime and still do much of my workout. However, they changed our work schedule and now I go in an hour later. No working out after work. Now I have to get up at 5:00 and basically head straight to the gym. I'm not used to getting my body awake and moving at that time of day.
Ultimately it's a better fit if I can do it, because it tends to regiment me. They have been talking though about changing time again to coming in a half hour earlier. This would make it tough to get to the gym either before work or after.
The thing is, making time or finding time is the key to any ultimate success, and no matter what happens, I will get to the gym somehow.

Diet and Longevity

I recently had a conversation with a friend about the relative healthiness of white bread as opposed to whole grain breads. Her thought was that it that there wasn't much difference to the relative nutritional content of both breads. After researching that, I found that most "experts" agree. It appears that with the fortified flours that are used in white bread these days, there isn't much nutritional difference. The main difference appears to be in fiber content, and of course, you can get enough fiber elsewhere, and maybe we shouldn't be eating all that much bread in the first place. But what if we do? What kind of bread is best?

I like to look at real world examples for my healthy choices and one of the best examples of a healthy lifestyle was Jack Lalanne. Lalanne was prominent health guru of the 20th century. He is known for his feats of strength and vigor well into his old age. One of his favorite sayings was "if man made it, don't eat it", emphasizing eating food that were as close to nature as you could get them.

If we apply this to bread, then whole grain breads are healthier, and grains themselves, even better.

That kind of thing is emphasized over and over again in studies of the longest-lived peoples on earth. Simple foods, no preservatives or additives, lots of veggies and fruits. It's that simple.

Exercise as a Longevity Factor

Most people are aware that exercise prolongs life, or at least, prolongs how long you will live in good health. It doesn't need to be going to the gym. I recently read about a 105 year old man who spent much of his time dancing. Hiking, walking, jumping around in your yard, chasing your spouse around the room--all of these things add up to a long and healthy life, provided you don't catch some dreadful illness. However, eating right and exercise help even in the case of cancers and some other diseases. They give your body a chance to fight back. We know that not all illnesses can be helped by good nutrition and exercise, but in many cases, they can.

One Final Thought

Good relationships such as friendships and marriage are also key to longevity. Try to find good associations and get together frequently. Not only will you increase your likelihood of living longer, it will be a blessing in your life.

Thoughts on healthy lifestyles

As a self-described health nut, I'm always looking at ways to live healthier and happier--even into advanced age. Fitness has always been a big issue with me, and in fact I find myself frustrated about it way too often when the demands of my job and life as a caregiver affect my fitness plans, which they do frequently. Often also, in those fast-paced demanding days,  I find myself reaching for the easy thing to eat, instead of carefully planned and cooked meals. My lunches often end up as General Tso's Chicken along with some kind of pasta (though spinach pasta is part of the mix--or at least green pasta) with bits of broccoli in it.
That being said, I do put an immense amount of thought into doing what I can do easily to eat more healthy, and I investigate thoroughly the evidence for longevity and lifelong health that is evident in certain societies.
Which brings up something I just ran across today. I have done cursory investigation of the Paleo dieting regimen in the past and fairly recently discussed it with a fellow health enthusiast and was reminded that the Paleo diet ousts dairy products. The reason given for that is that humans eating dairy products is a relatively recent event in their eating lives. Recent meaning, only in the last 10,000 or so years have domesticated animals existed and prior to that, folks would have had to milk wild wildebeests and musk oxen--not a very pleasant sounding task.
My prior research into longevity though suggests that in one area of the world, goat's milk is a key contributor to that society's tendency toward long life. Dan Buettner's classic treatise on the subject, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest identifies goat's milk as one of the factors. This according to longevity studies of the Ikarians of Greece. Goat's milk apparently promotes healthy intestinal flora and is high in tryptophan, which is a stress-relieving hormone. See the book review here: Clickety-click
I concur with much of the Paleo dietary guidelines though. I'd add that the late exercise and diet guru Jack LaLanne believed in eating things that were as close to their natural state as possible. I firmly believe that eating that way plus having a killer exercise regimen let LaLanne live until he was over 96 and much of that very healthy--at the age of 70 he pulled seventy boats, some with people aboard, for a one mile swim.
Though I haven't yet reached LaLanne's proficiency at either fitness or dieting, I'm working hard at perfecting both. For breakfast most days of the week I make a smoothie filled with all kinds of good stuff. The mainstays include spinach, blueberries, carrots, raw eggs, bananas, and turmeric, though I occasionally throw in other greens like kale and am planning on trying beets soon. When I don't feel like making the smoothie, I have some oatmeal with blueberries, real maple syrup, and plain whole milk yogurt. When I really go off the road of my diet I will eat whole wheat toast with Crazy Richard's peanut butter (made with only peanuts) and a glass of whole milk. Whenever I miss my smoothie, I try to make it up later in the day. That doesn't mean I don't go AWOL every once in a while on my good eating habits. I do. But then I try to get back to what's good and healthy within a day or two of messing up.
That being said the second component of maximum health is a good exercise plan. I am convinced that exercise is just as key as a good diet is at helping someone maximize their potential for a long and healthy life. Right now I'm doing a variety of strength training exercises along with stair climbing for cardio. Often on my days off, I am hiking, skiing, or just getting outside and working for those stress relieving, emotional healing, life invigorating excursions that renew both body, mind, and soul. I won't be towing any boats across the bay any time soon, but I hope to lead a vigorous life well into my nineties, if not beyond.
Lastly, the keys to good healthy lifestyles include having good interpersonal relationships with family and friends, laughing a lot, and lots of hugs. That kind of thing I can get behind any day of the week.

"56"

I just turned 56 yesterday. There's one thing I can't stand about that, and that's having to plug my age in as 56 on the treadmill that I run on instead of 55. Each year I dislike that--having to increase my age by one year. I'm kind of funny that way. There was one advantage and that is that I was at the youngest I could possibly be in my age category in the recently run 5k. I was probably the oldest 55 year old, but at least I was at the bottom end of the range, which was 55-59. The only way I could have been personally one of real youngest is to have been born on July 3rd, and having just turned 55 the day before the race. As it was, I turned 55 361 days before the race. I wish my parents would have planned better for my birth...
Another thing I don't like about turning 56 is the life expectancy analysis at Blue Zones. Blue Zones is based off of a book in which unusually high populations of centenarians are examined by teams of scientists and medical professionals to find out why they live so long. They have a "How Long Will You Live?" calculator and among the other results it give is a category called "Your healthy life expectancy". Guess what my healthy life expectancy turns out to be according to their calculations? Yep. You guessed it. 56. Now, I know that's a crock, but I keep wondering why they came to that conclusion. They don't even know about my diverticulitis. They didn't even ask about my genetic history. I wonder what they base that on. Of course, my plan is to prove that wrong.
All that being said, I did something fun yesterday. I went fishing at Rockport. I didn't catch a thing, but in my book, you don't have to catch anything in order to have a good time.

The fishing was poor, but it was nice up there anyway.

 The water was really low, and where I was, there were remnants of old bottles, building foundations etc., that had once been underwater. I looked around for a few minutes, hoping to find an antique bottle still intact, but no such luck. I did find the bottom of a rectangular bottle that had to have been pretty old, and another object that was like some kind of a bottle cap marked with a  "T". I'll be posting some pics of those objects in my next blog entry to see if anyone knows what they are.