Fun Fitness After 50

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Perspectives on Nutritional Supplements to Stay Healthy at Any Age

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Putting malnutrition in perspective

Do you know the story about Captain Cook making his crew eat sauerkraut on voyages to prevent scurvy?  It turns out the commonly told story might not be quite right. First, there was the ever present trouble of how illness was reported. Second, Captain Cook was apparently very good at advocating his opinion. Thirdly, the ship stopped to get other food a lot. And fourthly, the Captain may very well have died as a result of other malnutrition.

In the case of ship related malnutrition, even though no one knew the exact cause, people who ate a variety of fresh foods on land rarely had these issues. Such is still the case with malnutrition. A variety of fresh food usually provides very adequate nutrition.

Just as importantly in the story is that once foods that helped keep scurvy at bay were discovered, it wasn’t because someone had isolated vitamin C. It was because they ate whole citrus fruits or real juice. Part of the challenge was that it was not well understood how preservation or storage affects the nutritional value of food. And the ship’s doctor who seems to have made the original discovery wasn’t completely clear on what he had found.

A little panic goes a long way

We live in a time where we have access to a huge variety of foods grown all over the world. This means we are much less likely to have malnutrition due to limitations of our local soil. However, it is still pretty easy to get people panicked about their diet. Plus, supposed quick and easy fixes are more alluring than the harder work of exercise and good eating habits.

While it is true that additional isolated nutritional supplements have been shown to help people with certain health issues, it is not so clear that everyone needs to take extra vitamins. There is some evidence that a body adjusts to greater amounts of a nutrient and stops absorbing it as efficiently.

There are reasons that taking dietary supplements could be not only wasted money, but detrimental to your health. How can it be detrimental to your health? Here is a summary that you can feel free to investigate further:

  • excess of one nutrient can inhibit the absorption of another
  • excess nutrients, particularly in non-food form may be bad for your body
  • by taking a nutrient artificially you may not be eating enough of the food that also provides other important nutrients
  • many supplements are processed and preserved in ways that affect how ingredients affect the body
  • shelf life of packaged supplements may lead to rancid or contaminated products
  • it is very hard to identify what is actually in an encapsulated or dried supplement
  • molecules produced in laboratories are sometimes not the same as those produced in natural processes.

How do you know it is an apple?

You may be surprised to hear that the FDA does not monitory dietary supplements. Not that they really keep anyone safe, but that is another story that you can check out here – Death by Regulation, by Mary Ruwart. I’m not a fan of most medication anyway, but the FDA does more to inhibit drugs getting on the market and keeping prices high than anything else.

Regarding supplements, here is a private organization that has done a lot of work to help people evaluate supplements. You can listen to an interview of Neil Thanedar, the CEO of Labdoor.com on the Tom Woods Podcast episode 1196, A Market Alternative to the FDA.

I’m not saying we need to eat everything raw. Some processing can be useful for digestion or short term storage, which I cover in Simple Nutrition for the Barefoot Runner. Still there comes a point at which you can’t recognize or identify what you are being asked to believe is food. Plus, if you are not eating the nutrient in its natural food form, you may not be getting other nutrients that are necessary for it to work.

The best supplements to your diet are real food

Sometimes the body needs extra support in the way of specific nutrition or in energy needed to perform. I know when I am running more, I crave more protein. It is weird how I just know what sounds good. It doesn’t have to be expensive protein. And since sometimes different proteins sound better, I have to suppose that there may also be something else in them that makes a difference, too.

When I’ve been low on vegetable or fruit intake, my body begins to crave those things. When I give in to eating too much nutritionally deficient food, my body doesn’t feel good. It can take some practice and honesty to figure out what your body is craving versus what your bad habits are craving, but it can be done.

Alternatives to supplements

If you really feel you need to make sure you are getting more of a certain nutrient, stock up on foods that will provide that. Think about what you are craving and ask yourself why that might be? Sometimes I find myself craving salt due to having perspired a lot. There are good and less good ways to get my salt!

Have easy snacks that satisfy cravings in a healthy way. No, your diet doesn’t have to be picture perfect, but a little planning will leave you with good options at crucial times. Then you will find yourself feeling better from overall good nutrition.

Be aware that diet fads often suggest avoiding healthy foods that may be just what your body needs at a given moment. Not everyone needs the same proportions of nutrients as everyone else or even themselves across time. It can depend on things such as age, type of physical activities, personal digestive needs, and other stresses in your life. Don’t let the latest hype keep you from eating basic healthy foods as part of an overall varied diet.

Monitoring the affect of your diet or supplements

We constantly have a lot of variables in our lives. It can be difficult to narrow it down to what is helping and what is not. Sometimes we just feel better if we know we are doing something!

But if you want to do a better job of evaluating how your diet or supplements are affecting you, try to keep a journal about it. To be thorough, such a journal would really need to include all of these variables:

  • sleep, when, where, how long, other factors that may affect it
  • how much change is going on in your life
  • events and relationships that might affect your emotional and mental attitudes
  • your diet, including proportions, how prepared, time of day
  • physical activity
  • illness
  • variations in digestion and elimination

If you do this, you have to be careful of two things. First, do not obsess about your choices. Maybe tweak things here and there based on observations, but don’t change a lot at once and don’t stress yourself out over them. Just observe yourself for long term patterns.

Secondly, be aware of being consistent in how and when you record things. There is a tendency in all of us to selectively notice and record things to fit our own biases or preferences.

The supplement of happiness

Sometimes people are looking for a drug or supplement to make them feel better when an attitude adjustment would probably do just as well, if not better. It is pretty well established that attitude affects our body. Our bodies physically responds to mental messages about stress by preparing it physically for stress. This is harmful if it is constant.

Its like trying to live our lives at a sprint. Not even the best sprinters can sprint all the time. In fact, they can only sprint a short way once in a while. The human body just isn’t designed to be functioning at peak stress for very much of the time.

Oddly, this means that just eating something fun can be a good *supplement*. If it makes you happy, it may be what you need at the moment. Give yourself permission to be happy!

When supplements are okay

Supplements are probably okay if:

  • you are not neglecting the rest of your nutrition
  • you verify there actually contain what they say they do
  • they have been stored in a way that retains their intended value
  • you can afford them
  • you have a particular disease or illness that inhibits getting nutrition through normal digestion

This is not an all or none list. These are just suggestions about how to wisely decide whether or not to take supplements, as well as how to decide which ones you might take. Don’t be pressured by advertising or the latest *scientific* study. But remember, no matter what, food is more enjoyable than any supplement could be.

 

 

 

How to Eat and Not Gain Weight Through the Holidays

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[Week 4 of 12 Weeks to a Healthy New Year]

How to think about eating

How you eat will affect how you feel. This, in turn, will affect how you continue to eat. It will also affect how active you are. I have four basic rules for eating:

  1. Eat things that taste good.
  2. Eat things that make me feel satisfied without feeling stuffed
  3. Eat things that make me feel good in between meals.
  4. Have a basic daily plan

Eating is meant to be fun, but like anything it can get out of balance. We can make it out balance by eating carelessly. This might take the form of eating haphazardly, or excessively, or even excessively depriving ourselves.

This doesn’t mean we need to be rigid, but just like we are healthier and make better use of our time with regular sleep patterns, some regularity to our eating can help us on multiple levels. And just like was discussed in this post about habits, it will help your perspective and motivation if this regularity is thought of in positive terms.

What tastes good to you?

When first asked what tastes good to you, what do you think of? Is it food that you feel guilty about eating? Is it food that is part of your regular meal plan? Chances are you really enjoy more food that you immediately think of. It is helpful to take note of the variety of foods you like, in all categories.

Then, make these foods the backbone of your meal plan. Don’t avoid them because they taste good. If you do, you will never quite enjoy your meals and always be fighting the urge to eat something that tastes good.

Stretch your evaluation by trying to figure out why you don’t like other foods. For instance, I thought I didn’t like fruit when I was growing up, but it was because I didn’t have access to appropriately ripened food. I didn’t like meat because I have always had a very hard time chewing things.

Once you have pin-pointed the exact dislike, you might be able to broaden your choices by adjusting how you buy or prepare some foods. This will help with overall enjoyment of food since variety tends to keep all food tasting better.

What foods will leave you feeling satisfied?

This question builds on finding what tastes good, but goes beyond that. I can enjoy a few M&M’s, but they never satisfy my taste buds the way dark chocolate with sea salt does. After a few bits of the right kind of chocolate, my brain lingers on the flavors. Similarly, I could eat dry toast, but the right amount of butter not only leaves my taste buds more satisfied, but gives my body the kind of fat that keeps a natural check on my appetite. Another example for me is a couple tablespoons of nuts for a quick between main meals snack usually hits the spot better than potato chips.

Feeling satisfied is not the same thing as feeling crammed full. In fact, feeling stuffed often detracts from feeling satisfied with the meal or snack. When I get done eating, I like a sense that I am not hungry and can get on with life without being overcome with digestive issues.

What foods keep me feeling good throughout the day?

We all know what it feels like to eat something that doesn’t sit well in our system. This could be from a particular food, a combination of foods, or, as mentioned above, from the wrong amount of food.

This might be dependent on time of day or what activities we need to engage in. I know that I need to avoid certain types of foods before I swim even though they are fine otherwise. I also know that the more pre-processed and packaged food is, the more I have to moderate amounts.

Sometimes it makes a difference how a food is prepared or what it is served with. I need my broccoli cooked quite thoroughly to avoid problems. It is always good if I have some fruit with my lunch. My body just senses the nutritional balance and feels better.

What is your basic daily plan?

A good basic plan will include a plan for sizes of meals, types of foods, and time of day. There is an advantage to having both a basic template for your eating and having a specific plan for each day. This helps to avoid impulsive eating or waiting too long, both of which tend to lead to bad decisions.

My basic template for a day is two light meals, a snack between each meal, a main meal, and some dessert. My main meal tends to alternate most between lunch and dinner, particularly depending on the left-over menu. On Sundays breakfast is often my main meal. I know from experience that more than one main meal a day leaves me feeling bloated and lethargic.

Regular menu items help a lot with a basic plan. I have a handful of breakfast options to rotate, partly depending on whether I am going for a morning run. I also have a few favorite lunch ideas, which is important because I don’t like a lot of traditional lunch things, such as sandwiches. Give me yogurt and crackers or soup, please.

Having regular menus still allows for variety in the menu. Variety bolsters nutrition and satisfies the appetite, as mentioned. It can also help you decide how to deal with social eating or traveling. A basic plan helps when thinking through adjustments, making it more likely that you end up feeling good physically and mentally about your eating.

What about counting calories?

Becoming aware of the energy value of food can be useful. It can even be helpful to monitor or limit energy intake sometimes. However, it is my observation that it is still best to find a general way of eating the foods that your will be inclined to eat in the long term.

Overall, it is the gently slope of change that is longest lasting. It doesn’t take as much mental energy, it doesn’t take as much time, and it will fit best with normal life. Small adjustments with how much or when you eat may not be as dramatic, but they will often give better health results than semi-starvation tactics.

How to come up with your own eating plan

I have put together a worksheet to help you evaluate your eating. You can use it multiple ways. You can begin by just sitting down and brainstorming. It might also be useful to use it to make some notes throughout the week as you notice patterns and issues.

Whether you want to keep holiday eating from being a runaway train or you want to make some changes to slim down, it is key to be honest with yourself about what you are doing and why. However, don’t use the information to beat yourself up. Use it as a tool to both enjoy your food and be in control of it.

 

 

 

 

12 Steps to Staying Fit Through the Holiday Season

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Week 0 of 12 Weeks to a Healthy New Year

Awareness is half the battle. Not just awareness that there is a problem, but also awareness of what is causing the problem. This time of year in the northern hemisphere, we face the triple threat:

  • inclement weather
  • lack of daylight hours
  • feasting

Not only that, but as we age, we tend to get colder more easily, need more sleep, and don’t burn calories as efficiently. What to do?

This is definitely a situation where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, if you will pardon the pun. For instance, putting on extra pounds makes us feel lethargic. Instead of feeling like holiday weight gain is inevitable or even possibly fun for the moment, we need to think how much more fun we will have and how much better we will feel if we don’t binge eat during this season.

Here are 12 steps to help stay fit during this time of year. I will explore each of them in the coming weeks.

  1. Have a few different activity options for staying active.
  2.  Invest in gear that will make activity possible in spite of the weather.
  3.  Monitor the weather ahead of time for activity opportunities.
  4.  Have a plan for balanced eating on a daily basis.
  5.  Have specific long term activity goals.
  6.  Be creative about mixing social events and activities.
  7.  Plan for good things to listen to or companionship while exercising.
  8.  Have a specific plan for each activity/workout.
  9.  Keep routines fresh and creative.
  10. Have at least a semi-dedicated workout area.
  11. Have a reasonably consistent sleep and rest schedule.
  12. Focus on the positive.

Our bodies are designed to be active. We feel better if we can move, plus we are less prone to injury if we move regularly. All of our body systems benefit if we move.

  • we breathe more deeply, clearing out our lungs
  • we strengthen muscles that support our joints
  • we circulate our blood more, providing what our cells need and moving away waste products
  • we apply force to our skeletal system, stimulating it to be more dense
  • we get stronger overall, enabling us to respond better to unexpected physical demands
  • we feel less stress because physical activity helps dissipate tension
  • we sleep better, because a physically used body rests better

It is not just vanity to want to stay fit, although there is nothing wrong with using the motivation of wanting to look as nice as you can. As pointed out in the examples above, it is deeply practical to stay fit.

Besides that, you will have a choice of whether or not you want to sit on the sidelines while other people are having active fun. You will be better able to keep up with any children in your life. You will be better able to help those in need.

Join me as we delve into each of these areas more thoroughly in the coming weeks. Even if you know all of these basics, you will be encouraged and you can offer encouragement in the comments.

Drop me a line if there is another step you would suggest or have a preference about which order we address this steps.

 

 

 

 

 

26 Attitudes and Actions to Help You Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

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If you want to avoid weight gain over the holidays, you need three things:

  • a philosophy
  • a goal
  • a plan

It might sound highfalutin, as an old cowboy might say, to speak of a philosophy about holiday weight gain, but it really just means thinking about what is important to you and why. If you’ve read my past posts on weight, you know I’m not talking about an exact weight on the scale or a magazine image. However, most of us know not only what a healthy weight is for ourselves and that it would be good to fit into the same clothes, but also can see the advantage of not setting ourselves up for undoing past progress.

Just having a goal can be the start of a trajectory for good decisions related to eating and activity during the holidays. Start with a broad goal, then break it down into smaller goals until it all begins to suggest a plan. Be honest about what is important, both long and short term; then, admit that it is within your power to move in that direction. Much like a relationship with a friend, you can watch opportunity pass you by or you can act to build something worthwhile.

In the case of weight, we are building health. We are working toward an overall, balanced sense of satisfaction. I’m not saying “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” because part of the plan has to also be satisfaction with eating. Eating is part of life, as sustenance, as personal enjoyment, and as fun social interaction. Still, it can be kept in balance with other areas we want to be satisfied with. Even with eating, we don’t just indulge in one favorite food. For one thing, it would get boring. For another, we would start to feel icky after a while.

We can use this perspective of balanced satisfaction to guide our thinking about eating at any given time. Framing goals and plans in more positive terms will tend to be more motivating and more rewarding. Here are 26 attitudes and actions to help you form a plan that will work for you:

26-attitudes-and-actions-to-help-you-avoid-holiday-weight-gain

  1. Make food priorities. If you take just a moment to think before indulging, you may very well realize you don’t really want that particular food very much.
  2. Review what calorie and nutritional values foods have. Not all fun foods are junk and not all are high calorie.
  3. Don’t avoid high fat all the time, because it might be the most satisfying and even the most nutritious. Just have an idea of what you are eating.
  4. Avoid eating until you feel stuffed. Most of us will eat again tomorrow. There is no need to eat everything today.
  5. Consider that you will enjoy a meal more and longer afterward if you are not suffering from the bodily discomfort of excess.
  6. Similarly, remember to look forward to leftovers.
  7. Don’t make excuses, especially based on what you think everyone else is eating.
  8. Remember that special beverages can be deceptively calorie-full.
  9. Don’t feel pressure to finish what you have taken or what others have served you. There is not some child starving in Africa because you don’t finish your chips and dip.
  10. Eat good food regularly to avoid binging.
  11. Have a healthy snack before a party.
  12. When you really feel hungry, go ahead and have a healthy snack.
  13. Anticipate changes in the eating schedule. If you know you are having a special meal for dinner, you can be more motivated to skip a treat during the day.
  14. Make regular sleep a priority. We are weakest about goals when we are tired, plus being over-tired makes it harder to get the activity that we need.
  15. Take your own water and snacks with you when out and about, like when shopping.
  16. Plan on continuing a moderate exercise routine. Don’t stress yourself out trying to do more than is really possible, but don’t give up either.
  17. Choose social events that keep you active. Dancing is always good, but sometimes just keeping hands and mind busy can make it less likely that you will mindlessly eat.
  18. Don’t snack out of containers; rather, serve portions. It will remind you of how much you are eating.
  19. Don’t stringently deprive yourself. If you feel like you are always missing out, it will be harder to be moderate throughout the holiday season.
  20. Don’t tell yourself you *deserve* something. No one deserves special food. Talk to yourself in the honest vocabulary of what you want and don’t want.
  21. Don’t just wear loose clothing. Wear what you want to fit later.
  22. Wear clothing that makes you feel like you look good. If you feel like you look good, you are more inspired to keep working on how you look and feel.
  23. Remember that it is easier to not eat calories in the first place, when you don’t actually feel hungry, than to cut back on consumption and really feel hungry later.
  24. Don’t chide yourself for enjoying a treat. If you chose to eat it, enjoy it without guilt. Then, move on to your next choice in keeping with your priorities and goals.
  25. Find someone for mutual encouragement in keeping eating in perspective and under control.
  26. Know that you may very well be encouraging others as they see you making good eating and activity choices without making excuses and not being ruled by social pressure.

In summary, the holidays are not some unstoppable force. You are still you and food is still food. If you can make it to the New Year without feeling bloated and sluggish, you will feel happy. Make yourself happy.

What Does It Mean to Love Your Body

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What Does It Mean to Love Your BodyPeople should be content to some degree, yet it is discontent that often motivates us to do good things. It may be things other people notice, but the real importance of it is whether or not it is good for us and in our perspective. Most people would agree that it is good when discontent with feeling dirty motivates bathing. Or when discontent with being lonely leads us to be friendly. A discontent with regular lethargy may motivate to better eating. Similarly, being discontent with how we look could reasonably motivate us to exercise.

It has been popular to talk about loving our own body, which seems like a headline way to say to “be content with our own body.” There have been complaints of pressure from media to look a certain way. The thing is, media is basically making money appealing to the general cultural perception of beauty. Everyone knows the models are touched up 2 dimensional images captured in a moment of time. They are paid to look a certain way and then they are photoshopped. If we are feeling pressured by these images, we are allowing them too much power over us.

On the other hand, there is nothing inherently wrong with being discontent with how we look as long as we keep it in perspective. We may need to come to terms with features and shapes that are unchangeable. It is a waste of energy, and probably demotivating, to be mad or depressed about how tall we are or how large our feet are. It is also possible that we need to be patient with life stages, like pregnancy or recovering from an injury. For any of these things, it is best to reach a synthesis of working with them and working around them.

However, there are bodily characteristics that are under our control. We can cut our hair to a pleasing style, manage our weight to a range that is desirable, and brush our teeth. It is up to us to decide just how much effort we want to put into any of these things. The trick then is to be content with the choices we have made.

Sometimes, we don’t follow through with our stated choices and priorities the way we would ideally like to. If that is happening very much, we should be honest with ourselves about evaluating them. Are those priorities realistic with our current situation in life? Have we tried to claim priorities we don’t really have? Do we need to figure out a different approach to attain results? Those are a few questions I can think of to help problem solve. Possibly you can come up with more.

Any change or progress takes effort. It is a fact of life. But often we complicate the effort by adding unnecessary baggage to it. If we want to loose weight, we don’t need to also enter a beauty contest to validate it. If we want to lift weights, we don’t need to enter competitions. While it is true that a bit of competition and/or social involvement with people doing similar things may be a source of learning and fun, it doesn’t need to take over your whole life. In fact, if you associate good changes with an all-consuming schedule of events, you might be more inclined to drop those good changes. And that wouldn’t be good!

Another aspect of being content with our own bodies is admitting that we live in an imperfect world. In a world where time ravages our hair in a moment and our skin turgor over decades, we must learn to see the beauty of our living bodies in the midst of these imperfections. We can give beauty to our less than perfect bodies by just engaging in life.

Part of the problem can be pride. Truth be told, we don’t need to look at our own bodies as much as other people do. It is often concern with how we look to others that drags us down. We compare all the things we think we lack with all the things we think others have. Might it not be better to concentrate on pleasing those in our lives who love us and have to look at us the most? Then, we can find a balance between what is already appreciated, what can be adjusted, and what no one who is important really cares about.

Personally, I don’t like to think in terms of loving my own body. I don’t want to put that much emotion into how I feel about my temporary physical module, so-to-speak. I find it more helpful to think about being content with what I cannot change and being realistically creative about what I can change.

All pictures and content including the name and logo “Fun Fitness After 50” are Copyright (c) 2019 by Laura Blodgett, unless otherwise noted. Please contact the author with any questions or comments.

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