If Your Lifestyle Does Not Control Your Body, .......

Then Your Body Will Control Your Lifestyle!

 Living independently is not something we ever think about until we are faced with losing it...then it becomes a monstrous problem!

 You know what you think when you see or hear about someone being moved into a seniors home? Or having to give up their drivers license?

 That's not going to happen to me!

 Keeping your independence means if you take care of your body, you will maintain control and enjoy the benefit of living independently as long as possible. That is what you get from exercising and eating well. This site is intended for baby boomers and seniors, that is people born between 1946 and 1964. I was born in 1946 and I know that exercising is different now than when I was younger.

 Just being able to do the normal daily tasks becomes harder. Keeping your ability to function on your own becomes quite a challenge. Energy levels are nowhere near the same.

 Reaching up in the ki...

 

This is an illustration I developed over several years.

The Aging Curve is a graph showing our lifeline from independence in our early years through the acquisition of functional abilities and the loss of these same functional abilities later in life. 

The black arrows (rising from birth on the left in the graph and declining on the right) show a normal Aging Curve and how it may sink below the dependency threshold later in life. 

We age in two ways: Primary Aging, which is the number of years lived and Secondary Aging, which is the impact of diseases, accidents, injuries and our environment. These secondary impacts all push downward on our Aging Curve. I work hard to push back upward. I want my Aging Curve to remain as high as possible, as long as possible. 

I am doing that with my Lifestyle. My tools are exercise 🏃🏻‍♂️and nutrition🍓. These are the two components of Fitness.  I insist on my lifestyle controlling my body; I will not let a body, that I am able  control, take c...

My Background

How fast can you lose your fitness level?  What? Not me! That could happen to other people...but not me!

Exercise and heart disease were always mutually exclusive in my mind! It never occurred to me that I would have to learn to exercise with heart disease.

Although I was born with a slight heart murmur I never once thought I had heart disease. In my case it was a leaky Mitral Valve. It was never a problem nor was it serious, but in January 2016 I had a bad lung infection which turned into my third bout of pneumonia. This dragged on and on and seemed to last for months. My energy levels dropped so low I pretty much stopped doing any significant work outs.

Sleep became something I used to do. My shortness of breath and my cough had become extremely bad, and I had less than zero energy.

Fitness routines were always a part of my life so working out had always been part of who I am. When I couldn't exercise and didn't even want to, I knew something serious was wrong. I h...

Fitness components are just as important as we age as when we were 30 years old. As we age our attitudes often change and we become more concerned with 'just getting through the day' and forget that each of the fitness components below add critical value to our day to day lives.

Each of the fitness components listed below contributes to overall fitness and health. As a result, if we want to be healthy we need to work on all of them. Most activities will have you working on one or more of the components at the same time. The more active you are, and the more varied your activities, the better off you will be. The one component usually ignored is 'nutrition'.  

• Cardio -getting the energy needed from your heart and lungs. Ever see someone get winded from going up a flight of stairs, or just walking a bit? 
• Strength - maintaining your muscle mass and the ability to open a jar, pick up a bag groceries or your grandchild.
• Flexibility - being able to easily move through a full range of
...

There are millions of people that have heart disease, and millions who die from this each year. If they knew they had been exercising with heart disease many of them might still be alive. Many of these people are extremely obese and many look perfectly healthy! On the outside. I know I looked perfectly healthy! I have been pushing up my Aging Curve.

Many people said they were completely surprised that I needed open heart surgery on September 15, 2016. More about this in my blog, How To Exercise With Heart Disease.

Cancer and heart disease are the leading causes of death in Canada and the United States. You can check this out at the Canadian Cancer Society and the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.

They have many articles talking about risk factors and the most common ones are:

1. high blood pressure
2. high cholesterol
3. smoking

   High blood pressure and high cholesterol can be influenced by lifestyle. That means exercising with heart disease and nutrition are the keys. Where have y...

The biological Markers of Aging appear in our bodies in a very logical order and we all experience them. The markers of aging are the things we see changing in our bodies as we get older.  Logic says you and I cannot stop these Aging signs. But I will show you how to slow them down. Then you can join me and age gracefully and well. The list below has things we see and feel happening every day of our lives. I think you will agree they are like dominos.

Top 10 Biological Markers of Aging

1. Decrease in Muscle Mass
   
    If you are less active than you used to be, you’re probably experiencing a loss of muscle mass. This does not happen because you are getting older. It happens due to lack of activity. Remember the expression..."If you don't use it, you lose it!
   
   
2. Decrease in Strength
   
    Less muscle mass will lead you to experience a decrease in your strength. I lost most of my strength in few short months just prior to having open heart surgery due to a lack of activity.
   
   
3. Slowing of Metabolic Rate...

Knowing your exercise intensity is the difference between accomplishing your goals or just reading a magazine while you are on a treadmill. If you are trying to improve your fitness, you need to work a little harder than you normally do over a period of time.

We are all very unique in this and we need to have a method of measuring our exercise intensity that suits each one of us. The fitness industry tries to fit everyone into the same category.

Almost every major piece of fitness equipment has a heart range set according to age. It tells you that if you are 60 years old, then you should exercise at a certain heart rate depending on what you are trying to do.

Well, not every 60 or 70 year-old fits in the same mold. At 73 years old today, I know I exercise at rates far above where the ranges say I should be. 

 So, we need to know our own bodies a bit better. Check your own exercise intensity below and then get yourself a heart monitor or a Fitbit. You need something to measure your ...