BodyForTheAges.org Blog

While most of us mean well when it comes to eating a good breakfast, it’s often easier said than done. Tight schedules, kids, and even exercise can end up taking priority over the most important meal of the day. Add a vegetarian diet to the mix, and finding the perfect combination of protein and carbohydrates your body needs, is even more of a challenging task.

Morning is the time when your body needs a major kickstart, and if you deny your body the nutrients it needs to begin the day, you’ll experience significantly lower energy, decreased mental function, and most likely your mood will suffer as well.

We’ve all heard the above advice time and again, but let’s take a look at what we can do about making it as simple as possible to follow.

CNN.com’s diet and fitness expert, Dr. Melina Jampolis has a tasty tip:

“I sometimes find that my patients get hungry if they eat oatmeal alone so I recommend making it with a little extra water and adding a scoop of protein powder to protein fortify the oatmeal. I prefer whey protein but other types of protein work well, too. If you want to boost the healthy value even more, add a tablespoon or two of chopped nuts for extra nutrients, fiber and heart healthy monounsaturated fat.” Read more at: www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/expert.q.a/12/18/nutritious.breakfast.jampolis/index.html

Protein powders, like Body For The Ages’ CardioSoy (check it out here: http://www.bodyfortheages.com/cardio-soy.php) can be perfectly partnered with your morning carbs, to bring you the complete set of nutrients your body needs. (Many people assume that a banana alone is a healthy breakfast, but a banana is only half of what you need. A banana is a burst of carbs, good for short-term energy, but your body needs protein combined with the carbs, especially early on in the day. This brings you the all the nutrition you need, and also insures that you’ll be satisfied until your next meal, and won’t be tempted to snack.

For added protection in your wellness and fitness pursuits, check out the Pyruvate that allowed Body For The Ages founder Pax Beale to beat his heart disease and live to become a Bay Area wellness guru: http://www.bodyfortheages.com/cardio-makeover.php

CardioSoy’s ease and convenience is especially helpful to vegetarians, who often have to spend extra time finding ways to satisfy their body’s protein requirements. However, it’s also essential for those who are putting in more training hours than usual during the week. If you’re too lax about your protein intake, or find that you’ve let yourself become distracted from delivering your body the protein it needs, you’ll see the direct effects of this deficiency: Low energy, muscle weakness, and even shortness of breath.

Body For The Ages’ CardioSoy can be used as a spread over pancakes and toast, blended into a shake, or stirred into a pudding-like consistency. It’s not the only way for you to fulfill your body’s daily protein requirements, but without a doubt, it’s a quick, healthy, easy, and delicious way!

Eating Your Way to a Lower Blood Pressure

Dr. Maoshing Ni (Dr. Mao), a Yahoo.com health expert for alternative medicine has tips for what to eat (and what not to eat), when it comes to maintaining a healthy blood pressure level.

It just may turn out that your favorite foods are working wonders for your health and wellness, in more ways than you realize. 

Dr. Mao’s cuisine recommendations include fish, cucumbers, and olive oil, for their valuable effects on your circulatory and heart health.

Foods that may raise your blood pressure include salt, refined sugar, and alcohol.  Though it’s okay to enjoy these items in moderation, it’s smart to get in the habit of substituting with spices, honey, and plenty of hydrating beverages, such as sparkling water.

Read more of Dr. Mao’s insights here: http://health.yahoo.com/experts/drmao/19535/10-best-and-worst-foods-for-blood-pressure/

Enjoy your favorites, and try some new recipes, but keep in mind that eating healthy is one of the surest paths to increased health and wellness.

As a Member of the Body For The Ages Online Wellness Program, you’ll receive a personalized nutrition plan, based on your unique lifestyle preferences and dietary needs.

Learn more about your personalized Online Wellness Program here:

www.BodyForTheAgesNonprofit.org

Have you been meaning to drop those extra pounds?

Whatever your reason, be it aesthetics, athleticism, or heart health, health problem prevention, there’s never been a better time to do it than now.

According to a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, two thirds of adults in the United States are overweight, and about one third are obese. http://win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/

Extra weight plays a contributing factor in numerous health problems.  A report recently released from our nation’s capital states that more than 100,000 cases of cancer each year are caused by excess body fat.  Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/05/obesity.cancer.link/index.html

Weight Loss is not easy, and it takes commitment.  But we all know that commitment will pay off, when we see that we’re increasing our extra energy and self-esteem, along with decreasing our health concerns.

Your time is valuable, and the Body For The Ages Online Wellness Program will show you how to make it count, with fun workouts, wellness tips and anti-aging tips, valuable advice from our very own Panel of Experts, and an online personal trainer available for guidance 365 days a year.

Are you ready to commit to your health and happiness?  It’s the best investment you’ll ever make.

Go to www.BodyForTheAgesNonprofit.org, get your four free gifts, and become part of the Body For The Ages Team.

Are you self-conscious about going to the gym? 

Check out this quote from the Apria Healthcare website:

“In today’s weight room, you’re as likely to see a grandmother working her glutes as a quarterback working his quads, now that resistance exercise is recognized as vital to building strong muscles and bones.” 

Read more here: http://www.apria.com/channels/1,2748,94-193,00.html

Pax’s Prescription Method of Training will show you how weight-resistance training will not only strengthen your muscles, but your heart as well. 

Pax didn’t just treat his heart disease – he reversed it.  Now his passion is to show others how to do the same.  Why?  Because it’s completely unnecessary that 50% of people die from Heart Disease or heart related illnesses.  Body For The Ages seeks to eliminate this insidious statistic. 

Read Pax’s story at www.BodyForTheAges.com.  He’s living proof that you can take control of your health, beat heart risks, and have fun in the process.

Until Next Time,

Hey there Folks,

This is pretty helpful for anyone looking for some background information on the practice of anti-aging and exceeding the average human lifespan: Wiki - Anti-Aging.

We at BODY FOR THE AGES place an emphasis on anti-aging through preventative and rehabilitative Heart Health. We do this utilizing a more holistic / fitness regiment [concentrating on Heart Health and fighting Heart Disease], as opposed to some of the more scientific perspectives that are discussed in this Wiki page.

However we do implement the power of Pyruvate and Protein supplementation, found as a portion of our Online Wellness Program, you may visit us there to learn more about our Nonprofit mission or for direct access visit us at our retail Online Store now offering a 2 for 1 special on Pyruvate and 2 for 1Protein !! Visit and learn how Pyruvate can help you prevent Heart Risks.

until next time,

Team Body For the Ages

Weight training is more art than science.  Aerobics is no more than putting one foot in front of the other to make certain you don’t fall on your face.  To ensure maximum exposure to the art of building a body of your dreams, change trainers periodically.  No one trainer has all the knowledge of the sport’s infinite number of techniques.

Having been active in the field of medicine for a third of a century, I can tell you the art of weight training is not commonly known to medical professionals.  To exacerbate the problem, most know not, that they know not.

If you are rehabilitating from a medical condition or physical injury, consider the following.  You are not interested so much in how a muscle works, but how to work the muscle.  At BackPax (”peaceful backs” in Latin) Medical Center, the medically-oriented back rehabilitation clinic I founded, we gave up on physical therapists and instead hired registered nurses and nurse practitioners.  Not only were these nurse professionals more open to creative ideas about rehabilitation, they were generally more involved in their own back health and general fitness programs.

The nursing profession couldn’t be better represented by anyone other than my colleague, best friend, tower of power, and wife, Sophie “Super Soph” Taggart…Ms. America, Ms. World and Ms. Universe.  I think if you looked up “commitment” in the dictionary you would see her picture.  Yeah, I’m biased, but the credentials and the body warrants it.  Actually, “Super Soph” is a step above the level of a registered nurse, as she is a registered nurse practitioner.  The latter in many cases can prescribe drugs and diagnose medical problems, just like a licensed medical doctor, while the more common registered nurse does not have those options.

The typical physical therapists’ inherent deficiency, besides not knowing the art of the game, was that they wanted to control you, rather than train you.  This is a sensitive area with me.  When I scanned client results at BackPax I found, without exception, that individuals who were allowed to take responsibility for their own rehabilitation garnered infinitely superior results.

For some inexplicable reason, in my vast travels from one gym to another throughout the world, rarely do I see registered physical therapists as members, but the gyms always seem to be loaded with registered nurses and nurse practitioners

Some credentialed exercise physiologists and kinesiologists in licensed medical environments are quite knowledgeable about rehabilitation through weight-resistance training, but currently their work in this field is not routinely reimbursed by insurance companies.  They are frequently regulated to monitoring treadmill stress tests, while weight-resistance training authority reverts back to the ill trained physical therapist.  Nevertheless, given the option, I would choose an exercise physiologist or a kinesiologist with weight-resistance training experience over a physical therapist or medical doctor any day.

The best personal trainers are those that are independent business professionals (not employed) in the gyms, and the best personal coaches are likewise independent contractors in fitness-oriented health centers, not the hospitals.  Period.  End of report. Many personal trainers are not even college graduates, but a lot of them are so dedicated they have taken any one of a host of available educational weight-resistance training programs and become certified trainers.  A registered physical therapist degree or a medical shingle hung on an office wall does not represent a person qualified to teach the art of weight-resistance training.  I can’t say it with enough emphasis: If you are a stabilized heart rehab patient, and are allowed to exercise, get out of the hospital rehab center as fast as you are medically able. (Note: I emphasize only if you are a stabilized heart patient).

Find yourself, a personal trainer, or personal coach, and turn your rehabilitation into a fun wellness lifestyle…and yes, even an anti-aging lifestyle.  Stop feeling sorry for yourself.  Don’t think you are going to find a medical professional who will solve your rehab problem, once you have stabilized from surgery.  Don’t think the solution is only a prescription for a drug.  Don’t think of every breath as your last.  Ultimately, we all have a last breath.  Move on.  Get yourself a personal trainer, or preferably the more broad-based, multi-faceted personal coach, who knows the art even better than the science of weight-resistance training, and who will coach and encourage you. Understand results are your responsibility and involve your practicing the Total Commitment Motivational, Wellness Philosophy, then you will experience a real anti-aging, rejuvenating lifestyle.

So I was surfing the internet, like one does, when I came across this article:

Being skinny is no guarantee of a healthy heart
Serious health risks are found equally in fat and thin folks, study shows
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26143255/

Certainly, got my attention.  The article references a recent study that demonstrates that ones weight does not indicate heart risks.  Better indicators of heart risks are age, smoking, and especially inactivity.

“The results underscore how important exercise is for staying healthy, even for people of healthy weight” said Judith Wylie-Rosett, an author of the study.

This is something that Pax has been advocating for years.  As he puts it, a healthy body is not imancipated.  It’s fit.  You don’t want to be merely skin and bones.  You want to have muscle as well as little fat.  You don’t want to look like a skeleton with skin stretched over it.

Hopefully, this study will help move the thinking in the health and wellness fields away from weight loss to exercise.

I know that when I’m implementing Pax’s nutrition system, I lose weight. And I miss pasta.

So, I was excited to find this morning a recipes for zucchini pasta as a substitute in the New York Times.

Here you go:

2 pounds zucchini (or a combination of yellow and green zucchini)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

3/4 cup tomato sauce(optional)

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan, for serving (more to taste)

1. Using a vegetable peeler, cut the zucchini into lengthwise ribbons. Peel off several from one side, then turn the zucchini and peel off more. Continue to turn and peel away ribbons until you get to the seeds at the core of the zucchini. Discard the core. You can also do this on a mandolin, adjusted to a very thin slice.

2. Cook the zucchini strips in two batches. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When it is hot, add the zucchini ribbons and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Cook, tossing and stirring the zucchini, for two to three minutes, until softened and beginning to turn translucent. Adjust salt and add freshly ground pepper to taste, and transfer to a serving dish. Repeat with the remaining olive oil and zucchini. Serve, topping with tomato sauce and freshly grated Parmesan if desired.

Serves four

Here in the Bay Area we have some of the best restaurants in the world. Add this to a hectic schedule, and for most of us, it’s hard to resist the allure of dining out.

In Pax’s Delectable Basic Nutrition Program, Step Three of the Body for the Ages Wellness Philosophy, he tells us to “eat clean”. Pax reminds us that we don’t need to burden ourselves with the prospect of being “on a diet” for life. Rather, we should educate ourselves on what the food we eat contains. This way, we know how to avoid the bad and seek out the good. After we’ve learned how to do that, we can eat more, not less, because the foods we choose nourish our body, and don’t add unnecessary fat and calories.

This is easy enough when we’re shopping for our own groceries, but how can we make healthy choices when dining at restaurants?

The National Restaurant Association has provided us with a few tips on how to eat clean, even when eating out.

• Even before going out to eat, identify healthier choices at all kinds of restaurants and view corresponding nutrition information at HealthyDiningFinder.com.

• Order salad dressings and other sauces on the side. This way, you have control over how much or how little you add.

• When ordering grilled fish or vegetables, ask that the food either be grilled without butter or oil, or prepared “light,” with little oil or butter.

• When ordering pasta dishes, look for tomato-based sauces rather than cream-based sauces. Tomato-based sauces are much lower in fat and calories. In addition, the tomato sauce (or marinara sauce) can count as a vegetable!

• Drink water, diet soda, or unsweetened tea or coffee instead of regular soda or alcoholic beverages. This will save a lot of calories each day.

• Share a dessert with a friend. Half the dessert equals half the calories.

• Order steamed vegetables as a side dish instead of starch.

• Stop eating when you are full — listen to the cues your body gives you.

• Order sandwiches with mustard rather than mayonnaise or “special sauce.” Mustard adds flavor with virtually no calories.

• Don’t be afraid to ask for special low-calorie or low-fat preparation of a menu item. The restaurant industry is one of hospitality and customer choice. We aim to please.

• Remember, don’t deprive yourself of the foods you love. All foods can fit into a well-balanced diet.

• Take half of your meal home. The second half can serve as a second meal! (Two meals for the price of one: What a deal!)

Source: National Restaurant Association, Tableservice Restaurant Trends