Protect Yourself From A Serious Illnesses

Surprisingly Simple Longevity Tests

No one can predict exactly how long you'll live, but researchers have devised some surprisingly simple tests that are strongly correlated with a risk of early death - or a longer life - in the years to come.  Here's a look at some basic ways scientists are attempting to assess your physical capability and the associated chances of living longer. Being in good shape doesn't have anything to do with "how strong you are". Being fit and healthy is what keeps us from have a serious illness. We can get a head cold and it never slows us down but if we get some type of bronchial infection that's serious. Take the simple test below and see how fit you are. 

1.   Sitting-Rising Test:  Developed in the late 1990s by Brazilian scientist Claudio Gil Soares de Araujo at Gama Filho University in Rio de Janeiro, this test simply involves going from a standing position in a small (2 meters by 2 meters) area, to a sitting position on the floor, and then rising again.

Subjects are scored according to how many supports they require to perform the cycle: a point lost for using a hand, forearm, or knee, for example, to either sit or stand.  Another half-point is deducted for generally unstable execution.  A total of 10 points can be achieved for each full cycle.

In a 2014 paper published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, Araujo and others discovered that older adults had a 5-6 times greater risk of mortality during the 6.3-year follow-up period, if they scored only 0-3 points on the test, relative to the top-performers scoring between 8-10 points.  A total of 2002 adults between the ages of 51 and 80 years participated in the study.

Araujo's team writes that the Sitting-Rising Test (SRT) is a simple gauge of musculoskeletal fitness, with the capacity to predict mortality among community-dwelling adults in this age range.

2.    Grip Strength:   The strength of your hand grip is typically measured using an electronic dynamometer.  In numerous studies, a stronger grip has been linked with lower all-cause mortality, especially among older adults. In the 2014 UK study of adults aged 53, women's grip strength ranged from 21kg (46lb) to almost 34kg (75lb), while the men squeezed from 36kg (79lb) to 54.5kg (120lb).  Averaged across both sexes, and taking other risk factors like body mass index, smoking status and physical activity levels into account, the 53-year olds with the poorest grip strength had anywhere from a 29% to 98% greater risk of death from any cause during the 13 years of follow-up.

3.    Standing Balance Time:  The same 2014 BMJ paper examined how long its subjects could stand on one foot with their eyes closed.

 The resulting times were short, with a maximum average of just 19 seconds for men, and 10 seconds for women.  The good news: achieving simply those brief standing balance times was linked with lower mortality.  Poor performers of the standing balance test -  clocking in at just 3 seconds for both women and men - had a 2.5 greater chance of dying from any cause, during the 13-year study.

4.    Sitting Height:  If you think your overall height is the only tallness measure researchers are interested in, you're wrong.  Sitting height, an anthropometric measurement which compares the relative proportions of the torso and legs, has been linked in Western populations to the incidence of heart disease. Greater leg length (and less relative sitting height) has been viewed as an indicator of better childhood health, which may protect against age-related illnesses like heart disease and diabetes in adulthood.  

5.    Gait Speed:  Can how fast you naturally walk say anything about your longevity?  Yes - according to epidemiologists from the University of Pittsburgh and elsewhere, in their 2011 paper published in JAMA. The researchers examined 9 separate studies involving a total of 34,485 participants and found that among both sexes, gait speed was linked with survival at all ages. A natural gait speed of 0.8 metres/second (about 1.8 miles/hour) corresponded with average life expectancy for each age; walking faster than that as a natural pace was linked with better than average longevity.

Since walking requires energy, balance, and engages multiple organ systems to work together, the researchers suggest slower speed may indicate hidden illness or poor overall conditioning.

6.    Waist to Height Ratio:  Some researchers believe that waist to height ratio - calculated by dividing the waist circumference in centimetres by a person's height (also measured in centimetres) is a better predictor of disease than weight or body mass index.  The advice is simple: keep your abdominal fat down, and make sure your waist measurement is not greater than half your height.

Bottom line:  These tests are simple tools to measure the statistical probability of an early death, as indictors of overall health and conditioning.  You can improve your own odds of living a long, healthy life by staying physically active, eating an anti-aging diet, staying active within your social circle, keeping stress at bay, not smoking, and drinking only in moderation.

I like the Waist to Height Ratio as being the best way you have to know that you have too much fat. Some woman become very concerned with fat arms or fat legs but the only fat that's important is belly fat. Once you lose your belly fat the fat in other places will also drop off. 

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

The Problem With Being Overweight

Good question, several people ask this same one. So here is the facts the way I understand it.

When you remember yourself as being healthy and fit you might have been in school and playing sports or training for your next sport. You were somewhere between 18 and 22 years old and probably thinner than you are now. I'm using this as an example because most people fall into this

senerio.  When you are at a proper weight for your height and, you can find this out on several websites like WebMD, you might have a BMI or Body Mass Index of about 20 or a couple points higher. This is considered very good, you can ask your doctor, So what is "Body Mass"? It's the soft tissue in your body, muscle, fat, and any other soft tissue and 20 means that about 20% of this soft tissue is body fat.

That's a good number, but in general as we get more involved in making money, getting married, raising a family, we start to slow down our activity level and that's a normal part of life, but the mistake we make is slowing down on our calorie intake. We get use to consuming the same three meals a day, snacking on the same things and drinking the same things.

When we finally see our pants are too tight we decide it's time to lose some weight. Most people just start skipping meals to cut calories and that might work for a couple of weeks, but then you stop losing. You gained this extra weight by eating too much of the wrong foods, and you're not going to lose weight by eating less of those same foods.

The problem with gaining body fat is that you are slowing down your normal body functions. Your body has to keep all your body parts working properly and all your body tissue alive and that includes stored body fat. So if you have a BMI of 30 today instead of your normal BMI of 20, you're working your body overtime trying to feed blood to all parts of your oversize body. And when some of that body fat can no longer survive and that tissue dies, Cancer cells start to appear. Usually this happens over a long period of time and by correcting your diet you will feed the body more nutrients and stop any type of disease from spreading. Losing weight and changing to a health diet can prevent many different health problems. Start as soon as possible. By losing weight and giving your body more nutrients you will slow down aging, you'll have more energy, and be much happier.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

It's Easter Sunday

We were hoping the isolation would be over by this time but in reality it might be a few more weeks. In Texas, our Governor wants to sign a bill this week to send people back to work. I don't know about that, we still don't have any test kits available for the public.

On the news a few days ago doctors said that they tested 1500 people at random and that 80% of all those who test positive didn't show any symptoms. That's why the virus is spreading so fast. Eight out of ten people who have the virus don't even know they have it. I think we might be wearing our masks for several more weeks maybe months.

Let's put all of that aside and remember it's Easter Sunday, a religious holiday. It's a time to come together with friends and relatives even if it's on the internet or phone. Dinner today will be a little different, a little lonely, and that's why we should spend time outside and meet up with friends and relatives even if it's at a distance.

I know that this post is much different then my other posts but this is a difficult time for all of us. The isolation will come to an end soon, but the precautions we are taking will last for months.
I know it's hard to think about your diet or losing weight when we have so many other pressing problems. There will definitely be a new normal and it might be harder for kids at first but kids will adjust to this quicker than adults do. We are basically very social creatures. Even birds and fish are social, we all need that connection with others to complete are lives. So getting back to work again might not be a bad thing even with all these precautions that are now necessary.

I don't think we need to worry about our weight as much as "being healthy". Staying healthy will become part of the new normal. So we might have to walk more to avoid public transportation, we might have to eat different foods because some foods might not be available  when we want them. Just because people are going back to work doesn't mean that everyone will return to the same job. Ten percent unemployment might be part of the new normal.

We can deal with all that stuff later, for now stay healthy and fit and you can avoid most diseases. Healthy people who eat a balanced, nutritious diet have less medical problems. People with less body
fat and have a healthy diet will live a longer, healthier life

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Now Is The Time?

Right now we all have too much time on our hands. Isolation is hard on all of us, so this is the time to exercise more. Isolation is stressful and we can relieve that stress with exercise. Even walking will relieve stress.

Yes, your diet is important, but don’t forget the exercise. Exercise is not the same for everyone; it depends on your age and physical condition. If you’re under doctor’s care, talk to your doctor about exercise for you. If you’re a beginner, the best way to begin is to walk. You don’t need any fancy equipment or a gym membership. Just get a good pair of walking shoes. That’s really important if you’re walking on a hard surface. You need a regular athletic shoe for walking, they’re not really expensive. Don’t spend a lot of money, just get some that are comfortable.

Then start walking every day. At least 30 minutes to start and then build on that. The important thing is to walk the 30 minutes; it’s not how fast you walk. It’s not a race. If you have a weight problem, your doctor will probably say the same thing. You see at the beginning you’re only trying to condition your heart for exercise and that takes time, a different amount of time for everyone. You want to excerpt energy walking but you must be careful to watch your heart rate or heart beats per minute. Your heart should not exceed the amount of beats per minute recommended by your doctor. That’s your Max.Heart Rate. For those of you not under a doctor’s care, in order to build strength in your heart, the strength you need to actually workout, you want to estimate your “target heart rate” which is approximately 220 minus your age = target heart rate. Then plan to walk 5 minutes at a slower warm-up speed, 20 minutes at your target heart rate and 5 minutes at a slow speed to cool-down. It’s that 20 minutes at your target heart rate that’s important. Less than 20 minutes and you’re not doing any good.

Now, if you have trouble walking 20 minutes at your target heart rate then slow down and walk slower and build-up to that target rate. If you’re walking every day it should only take 7 or 10 days to get your heart rate up to your target.

As weeks go by, hopefully, you will be walking 1 hour a day. And again isn’t not a race. Yes, people in good condition will walk much faster, but speed takes months to build up to. And remember not to exceed the recommended beats per minute. Exercising can cause permanent damage to your heart if but done properly. Once your gaining strength and your heart can handle regular exercise then you’ll want to speed up the walk still doing 1 hour a day. This can be the proper amount of exercise to lose weight. After a time, it may be difficult to get your heart rate up to the target rate so swinging hand weights may be necessary.

If you’ve advanced enough to use hand weights, you might want to alternate walking with a day of free weights to build muscle. As a person ages, they lose muscle and to keep that from happening you should do some weight training. Weight training will benefit people of any age. If you’re new at weight training you might want to use a “trainer”. Personal trainers will help you tailor exercises just for your body and condition. If you’ve used a “Physical Therapist”, they can help you with exercises that are just for you. Try and get recommendations from friends or your doctor.

If you're still having trouble losing weight, then it’s time to look at your diet.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Do You Want To Be Thin?

Some people believe "if I just lose a little weight, I can be thin too". Well, I never found it that easy. I guess I learned the hard way. I was always a little heavy. Even back in High School, I was what my family called chubby. After I finished school I worked as a truck driver unloading the truck by hand at every stop I made, usually about 40 stops a day. After about 5 years I changed to a construction worker. I did heavy construction, steel, and concrete for bridges and tunnels, the money was better and I had a family to think about.

Both the jobs were hard work and I lost about 10 pounds without trying. I was just burning several thousand calories a day. I was 6 foot tall and weighed about 172. After I left construction and bought a small business, I started to gain weight. I was 32 years old and the next 5 years following I gained about 30 pounds, and before I was 40, I weighed about 220 pounds.

Everyone I knew had noticed and I started to feel self-conscious.  I knew I had to lose weight. I had settled into a lifestyle of self-indulgence. Finally, I joined a Health Club. It was a complete gym with machines, running track, aerobics classes, a separate room for weight lifters, a pool, jacuzzi, steam room and expansive locker room with towels provided.

I did get plenty of exercise but I didn't lose much weight and after a few years, I stopped going. Like most people I was pretty discouraged throughout my 40's and then after I sold my business, I finally got serious about losing weight.

So the reason I'm writing about myself is because I want you to know that my battle with my weight went on for more than 20 years. But I did win the battle because I never quit. I weight 165 today after more than 30 years of trying to lose weight. I reached my goal now and just work on maintaining my weight. And even maintaining is a battle, an everyday battle of watching my calories and exercising. I have no regrets, the exercise has made me a healthier person and staying thin in my senior years lets me be active. I ride a bike, swim, walk a lot, I do yoga and weight train twice a week.

Being thin can be challenging, for some people it comes easy. They're born with the right genes and they can process food without absorbing the fat. Others like me have to work at it. But if I would have taken some advice when I was younger it might have been easier.

I always thought I could do it the easy way. "I'll diet for a few weeks and I'll be thin and ready for the summer." That was a pipe dream, it never happened. Sure, it's easy to drop 5 or 10 pounds, but in a couple weeks, it comes right back. I wasn't serious about my weight, oh sure I wanted to lose weight, but doing what was necessary never happened.

I didn't get serious until I started to feel sluggish, I was tired in the afternoon, my joints started to ache and walking became a chore. My whole adult life I was in denial about my weight and maybe that was because it didn't bother me to be overweight. Then you get older and you start to feel the effects of carrying around the extra pounds, but your still in denial and think the aches and pains are because you're getting older but it's not, it's from carrying around the extra weight and because you aren't active enough it's getting harder to carry the extra weight and your heart is starting to strain under the extra work it has to do.

I think I wrote about this before, but being a little overweight isn't going to keep you from living a healthy life. You can be just as healthy as a thin person if you do regular exercise. If you're not exercising your heart will wear down from the extra strain. Extra weight causes extra strain on your heart and at the later years of middle age your heart can start to give you trouble. So actually, if you're an overweight person, exercise is more important.

Carrying extra fat especially in the waistline is the hardest fat to lose,  and it's the most dangerous to your heart. I don't really understand why, but most of us start to put on the extra pounds in our thirties and forties. Like me, though, we don't work at losing it until it starts to cause problems. By that time, you can lose the ambition to lose fat and that's probably why you see so many seniors overweight.

If you truly want to be thin, you want to do something about it when you're young enough to have the motivation to make the hard choices and get into the exercise routine before it becomes too hard on your body. It's only recently that studies have shown us that extra inches around your waist will shorten your life. The bigger your waist, the shorter your life. Do something about your weight now, while you still have the motivation.

I know I wrote mostly about exercise today but the mistake I made was the diet. I thought exercise was all I had to do. If you don't eat the foods to lose weight, you can exercise half a day every day and nothing will happen. You can't exercise away a bad diet.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Is It Time To Start Exercising?

Yes, your diet is important, but don’t forget the exercise. Exercise is not the same for everyone; it depends on your age and physical condition. If you’re under doctor’s care, talk to your doctor about exercise for you. If you’re a beginner, the best way to begin is to walk. You don’t need any fancy equipment or a gym membership. Just get a good pair of walking shoes. That’s really important if you’re walking on a hard surface. You need a regular athletic shoe for walking, they’re not really expensive. Don’t spend a lot of money, just get some that are comfortable.

Then start walking every day. At least 30 minutes to start and then build on that. The important thing is to walk the 30 minutes; it’s not how fast you walk. It’s not a race. If you have a weight problem, your doctor will probably say the same thing. You see at the beginning you’re only trying to condition your heart for exercise and that takes time, a different amount of time for everyone. You want to excerpt energy walking but you must be careful to watch your heart rate or heart beats per minute. Your heart should not exceed the amount of beats per minute recommended by your doctor. That’s your Max.Heart Rate. For those of you not under a doctor’s care, in order to build strength in your heart, the strength you need to actually workout, you want to estimate your “target heart rate” which is approximately 220 minus your age = target heart rate. Then plan to walk 5 minutes at a slower warm-up speed, 20 minutes at your target heart rate and 5 minutes at a slow speed to cool-down. It’s that 20 minutes at your target heart rate that’s important. Less than 20 minutes and you’re not doing any good.

Now, if you have trouble walking 20 minutes at your target heart rate then slow down and walk slower and build-up to that target rate. If you’re walking every day it should only take 7 or 10 days to get your heart rate up to your target.

As weeks go by, hopefully, you will be walking 1 hour a day. And again isn’t not a race. Yes, people in good condition will walk much faster, but speed takes months to build up to. And remember not to exceed the recommended beats per minute. Exercising can cause permanent damage to your heart if but done properly. Once your gaining strength and your heart can handle regular exercise then you’ll want to speed up the walk still doing 1 hour a day. This can be the proper amount of exercise to lose weight. After a time, it may be difficult to get your heart rate up to the target rate so swinging hand weights may be necessary.

If you’ve advanced enough to use hand weights, you might want to alternate walking with a day of free weights to build muscle. As a person ages, they lose muscle and to keep that from happening you should do some weight training. Weight training will benefit people of any age. If you’re new at weight training you might want to use a “trainer”. Personal trainers will help you tailor exercises just for your body and condition. If you’ve used a “Physical Therapist”, they can help you with exercises that are just for you. Try and get recommendations from friends or your doctor.

If you're still having trouble losing weight, then it’s time to look at your diet.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

This Is The Time

Normally, we all have reasons not to exercise and not to follow our diets. But now with this virus pandemic keeping us from our normal routine we need to take time to make the changes necessary for a healthier lifestyle. We don't have to put this off any longer. Now is the time to stop those old habits of eating the wrong things. Eating out too much and never have enough time to exercise.

You Tube has hundreds of exercise videos all free to help you get moving. You don't need money to exercise. You don't need to buy anything. There are exercise programs for everyone no matter what physical condition or age. Believe me, that even those people who live in an assisted living facility all exercise every day.

The internet has all the help anyone needs. Sites like WebMD, Medicinenet.com, health.gov, and several others, just do a search with your browser, extensive information is available on anything "health".This is the time to get in shape.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book.

This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.