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.

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. 

Are You Staying Home?

I'm one of those staying home and for me it's tuff staying away from the kitchen. I'm on a maintaining diet and while it's pretty easy for me because my wife and I both eat the same thing. When there's only two in the house we just don't buy the wrong things.

Many of our neighbors and several of my readers are not in the same situation. When there's 3 or 4 people living under the same roof, maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your parents, the diets will vary. I understand that cooking a meal will be challenging. I you're staying at home now because of the virus, this is the time to concentrate on making the changes in the household's diet to accommodate everyone.

Use your time wisely and by using the internet you should be able to create a menu that is healthy for everyone and for those weight loss people, you don't have to eat some of every dish on the table. You know what you should be eating and those foods like meat and vegetables should always be on the table. Have a variety of vegetables prepared so there's something for everyone. And if your the one on a diet, half your plate should be vegetables, one quarter meat, and one quarter rice or something similar.

Because my wife and I are pretty much house bound, we only eat one meal a day. I start the day with plain Greek Yogurt with frozen blueberries. We eat our main meal about 2 pm. At 6 pm I usually eat something lite like a protein shake or an apple.

One of the big challenges now is finding food that you want to buy. Most of the things on the shelves are the things other people don't want. Looking for the right foods can be a real time consuming and here's where it will take some work on your part to try and create healthy meals with the food you can find. 

If you're feeding kids remember peanut butter, milk (any milk ever chocolate milk), tuna fish, bread, and fruit (fresh or frozen). Kids love sandwiches and for a hot meal, hamburgers and chips. I wouldn't buy ice cream. Make jello if they want something sweet. You can add a can of pineapple or dice up an apple.

I would try and keep everyones diet as simple as possible using the least amount of money possible. Being house bound might last a while. Good Luck, try and stay busy and stay out of the kitchen as much as possible.

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.