BodyForTheAges.org Blog

After a stressful day, most of us just want to relax, and getting exercise may be the last thing on our list of priorities. However, research is increasingly proving that exercise is just what we need to significantly decrease daily stress and anxiety.

From a Mayo Clinic staff study, “Exercise helps prevent and improve a number of health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes and arthritis. Research on anxiety, depression and exercise shows that the psychological and physical benefits of exercise can also help reduce anxiety and improve mood.”

How does it work? In a variety of ways:

Chemical: Exercise releases “feel good” chemicals in your brain. You may have heard of the “runner’s high”. Well, it’s not just a ploy to get you to exercise! Physical activity releases endorphins, which deliver a mood lift to your body and mind.

Healthy Choices: Beyond chemical stimulation, exercise most often makes you feel good about your choices. When you’re confident that you’re improving your health, you’ll increase your overall confidence.

Distraction: Exercise can be an opportunity to step away from the worries of the day, and spend time by yourself, focusing on your body, and letting stress take a back seat for a while. That’s a daily prescription we could all use!

Read more of what the Mayo Clinic has to say regarding exercise and anxiety here:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/depression-and-exercise/MH00043

And go here to read about how the Body For The Ages Online Wellness Program can deliver an exercise, health, and wellness program tailored to your specific needs:

www.BodyForTheAgesNonprofit.org

-Melissa Chandler, Body For The Ages Blogger

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

Turning Back the Clock

If you’ve reached middle age and your health habits are less than desirable, don’t give up hope.  Making a change at this stage of life will yield significant results, and set you on your way to an improved quality of life now, and in your senior years.

Dr. Dana King, a University of South Carolina professor of medicine, is part of a research team whose findings indicate that changing lifelong unhealthy habits in middle age may yield you a longer life.

“It’s not too late,” says Dr. King.  “If you make [healthy] changes now, it has a tremendous impact.”

Dr. King and his team colleagues looked at four healthy habits in over 16,000 people between 45 and 64 years of age.  Here are the categories they evaluated: eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day, 2.5 hours or more of exercise per week, a healthy weight level, and not smoking.

Dr. King’s research team found that the people who adhered to the four healthy habits were “40 percent less likely to die and 35 percent less likely to suffer heart problems than those who did not adopt the beneficial habits.”

Read more about the findings here: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=5314059&page=1

Body For The Ages is committed to helping you make the health changes necessary for you to enjoy a vastly improved quality of life for years to come. 

By becoming a Body For The Ages Member, and participating in the Body For The Ages Online Wellness Program, you’ll be assigned your own personal coach via the web.  Your personal coach will create a wellness program tailored to your specific needs, and walk you through workouts, nutrition, supplements, and most of all, be a knowledgeable and dependable motivating force, as you reclaim your health.

Visit http://www.bodyfortheages.org/, for details on our Wellness Program, and how to become a Team Body For The Ages Member.  Join now.  Body For The Ages is here to help you turn back the clock.

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.

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

A recent article in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/health/12heart.html?bl&ex=1227070800&en=0fd3c2f76367617a&ei=5087%0A) got me thinking.  We target the 40-60 crowd here at Body for the Ages.  Are we focusing on the wrong group?  Don’t children need the help more?

The thing is, we teach our children through our example.  If we let it be OK for us to be dangerously overweight, we demonstrate to our children that it’s OK for them too.  If we constantly reach for the cookie over the celery, we tell our children it is OK for them too.  If we spend every afternoon on the couch, we tell our children that’s OK for them too.

If we die early from heart disease, is that one lesson enough to undo all the others?  Maybe.  But why bet a child’s life on it?

The great thing about our example is that it works in all directions.  If we turn around ourselves, we show our kids that they can do.  That’s one of the great things about Pax, he shows that you can come back from nearly being dead to become National Bodybuilding Champion.  It’s one of the great things about the President-Elect, he shows that any child can grow up to be president.

And that’s what you got to be for your kids.  You got to be the example that anybody can get fit.  That anybody can achieve the body of their dreams, and reduce their heart risks in the process.

And we will help you do it.  Join us here.

You can’t make a Total Commitment - or even a good partial commitment - without the tools for proper motivation.  A good gym or fitness health center becomes a motivating playground.  Add a personal trainer or personal coach, and a transformational lifecoach, and your recipe for motivation is even richer.

Generally speaking, a personal trainer has their focus on your exercise, while a personal coach in a fitness health center can focus on your whole being.  I don’t mean a certification by the group itself.  Think in terms of the art and science of weight-resistance training, aerobics, nutrition, scientific nutritional supplements, the psychology of total commitment, legally prescribed drugs, and optionally, at the request of the client, the personal coach can relate to the client’s physician.  Thus, the benefits of a synergistic effect.

Most gyms have personal trainers.  Some are excellent, some are worse than bad.  Because regular gyms sell comfort amenities, such as whirlpools, saunas and exercise classes, there is generally less emphasis on quality control over employed personal trainers.  Most are not paid well.

An exception would be the big, locally owned, licensed gym chains like Gold’s, Powerhouse, or World, where personal trainers are usually independent business people, not employed by the gym.  These personal trainers are excellent, but bring your wallet.  Many charge over $75 per hour in major cities.

Gold’s, Powerhouse and World Gyms seem to function differently than some other big chains which have mastered the art of the hustle for memberships.  The joke is that Gold’s, Powerhouse and World Gym offer a membership hoping you will show up and train.  At some of the others, memberships are hustled, but if every member showed up there would not be enough space to accommodate everyone.  You decide.

Look under gyms and health clubs in the Yellow Pages.  Clubs that picture weight training activity, or show bodybuilders in their advertisements are the ones you want; otherwise, you could end up going to a dance studio or gymnastics center.  This is even more true when you travel in foreign countries and the language barrier is a tougher hurdle than performing a record bench press.

The psychological dilemma of weight loss is such a dynamic subject it is worth discussing, even if you are not overweight.  The story is a prime example of the market forces of our capitalistic society becoming so powerful, they subconsciously influence the very basics of our daily lives - in this case, the necessary act of eating.  We can’t seem to turn around without the billion-dollar food industry, not only trying to manipulate us, but actually succeeding to do so many times in an unhealthy direction.  Or does anyone really believe a high-cholesterol, high-fat, fast-food hamburger has merit?

Here’s a choice vignette for you.  I actually sat in the office of a CEO of a California supplement company dedicated to producing and marketing weight-loss products.  The CEO unabashedly said that he didn’t care about the dose of his product, except that it should be relatively low, so the price would be attractive to the buyer.  I asked him what the best dose was to yield successful weight loss.  He looked at me as if I didn’t get the message, then replied, “No dose works for weight loss.  Weight-loss products have a lifespan of about 24 months, and then the public gets wise that they don’t work.  By ‘don’t work’ I mean they won’t sell, because none of them cause permanent, healthy weight loss anyway.  The name of the game is to continually come up with new weight-loss products and start the promotion all over again.”

Furthermore, he acknowledged that he could only fool the public for a couple of years and then he would have to start the cycle all over again with some other song-and-dance involving another weight-loss product.  The company is now out of business, but the CEO will likely surface again.

Now here, laid out for you, are necessary simplistic planks for your platform for weight loss.  I have listed them in the order you should address them, because you are wasting your time seeking a positive lifestyle, if you are determined not to put forth effort in the right directions.

• You understand that some effort is required in an anti-aging, wellness lifestyle.
• Cope with your denial system by not blaming outside sources for your undesirable weight.
• Having committed to the above two bullet points, you are now ready to create a positive, rejuvenating lifestyle for long-term weight control success.
• Recognize that you have choices. You can choose a lifestyle for success, not a lifestyle of failure, as has likely been your modus operandi to date if you are overweight.
• The lifestyle you choose should be fun.
• The lifestyle should be easy to implement and to sustain.

There is no need trying to cope with the psychological dilemma of weight loss, unless the lifestyle you choose meets the Art of Wellness above criteria, and you are ready to make a Total Commitment.

Join the Body for the Ages Online Wellness program, and we can help you put your effort towards a weight loss program that recognizes all the above needs.

Let’s examine a core element of the Total Commitment Motivational, Wellness Philosophy concept.

The Total Commitment Motivational, Wellness Philosophy involves effort.  Effort and motivation are not as difficult to come by as most would expect.  You just have to understand how to get the maximum effort and motivation out of yourself and you are on your way.

Nature does not afford us the luxury of inactivity; to live is a series of self-sustaining actions, so inactivity spells failure and death.  Life can be maintained by meeting the challenges of existence through never-ending effort. If you want to advance the art of wellness, these principles are pivotal.

Allow me to share a true story with you involving something that seems innocuous, but shaped my life.  I hope the message can shape your life as well.

I was sort of a flop in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, and not much of a student.  Then I won the shotput championship after putting forth my first Total Commitment…a three year effort to be the best I could be.

I remember the day I won the championship.  I had won most every competition that year, so I was the favorite.  Yet I was dead last in the championship meet due to a seriously injured hand and wrist.  I had the fingers taped to hold the right hand rigid so it would not hurt.  However, it hindered my ability.  On the last throw I figured the season was over and I had nothing to lose, so I removed all the tape.  The hand and fingers had to remain in a specific plane of motion not to have excruciating pain.  I gave it my all on that last throw.  As I unloaded with all my effort, the iron ball miraculously rolled from the palm of my hand up to the end of my fingertips, where the shotput flipped forward in a perfect arc.

As soon as the shotput left my fingers, I knew I had won.  I was in the groove.  The entire movement just flowed effortlessly.  The art of the shotput is how it explodes off the end of your fingertips, so the sport is more sophisticated than it appears to be.  Previously without tape I had always lost control, and pain followed.  I guess the moral of the story is that the good ones always seem effortless, be it putting the shot, hitting a golf ball or whatever.  I found out right there that the Total Commitment Motivational, Wellness Philosophy in everything you do in life was the best tonic for psychological fulfillment!

Subsequently my grades improved.  I enjoyed the “chase” in life in both athletics and business, whether I won or lost.  I decided it was important to aim my effort towards victory, at the risk of experiencing defeat. I had friends who claimed they periodically got depressed or did not try for fear of losing, but once I experienced the Total Commitment Motivational, Wellness Philosophy, I never became depressed or had the fear of losing.  My shot put experience, combining Total Commitment over three years of effort, seemed to be a vital point in my life.

Confront your “shotput,” whatever it is.  Put forth Total Commitment, and win or lose, you are on your way to rejuvenating your psyche into a positive direction.

Lot’s of people ask how to get great abs. One of the important aspects of having great “anything” is to exercise it properly.

For your enjoyment, here’s Pax’s descripton of how to do a proper trunk curl, an exercise that targets the upper abdominals.

There is an art to the trunk curl or crunch exercise (frequently, but improperly called a sit-up). You curl your upper torso toward your feet. The full range of motion is only a short distance. You don’t keep the upper body rigid above the hip. It’s a curling action, not a bending from the hip joint. Optionally doing a slightly different curling motion, you can alternately crossover left elbow to right knee and then right elbow to left knee to target your obloquies.

Shown on the machine below is Helen Bentley, the original Ms. Romper Room, and former news anchor.

Do you want to learn more? Then visit http://www.bodyfortheages.org, and sign up for the Body for the Ages Online Wellness Program.