Archive for the ‘Exercise’ Category

Think of What You WANT, Not What You Don’t Want

Friday, February 19th, 2010

I think a key to living a life of joy is to notice our thoughts, especially as we get older. There are so many cultural group-thoughts that are fired at us all day long through the media, other people and our old unexamined beliefs.

In this culture aging is not respected at all and is seen as a downhill path from which there is no escape. Yes, we will get old and die, I’m not arguing with that. What I’m arguing with is the additional piece we’ve added. Now it’s get old, DETERIORATE, and die.

To me that part is unnecessary and can be easily avoided. The trick, according to the Law of Attraction, is to focus on what we DO want and not on what we DON’T want.

In the matter of bones it is entirely clear what the medical emphasis on measuring bones is about. It’s about selling drugs, that don’t help, through fear of the numbers. I can’t tell you how many women call me with their numbers, imagining a catastrophic ending as their bones erode out from under them.

So, it’s a little hard to convince them to turn their backs on the numbers, not to live in fear, and not to push against that negative future. But the real trick, as I said, is to look forward to what we DO WANT.

So how do you want your aging to look? What vision do you have for your future? To have an exciting present we have to have an exciting future to look forward to. When I was 55 and I got sick, I know it was partly because I couldn’t see a way to an exciting future. My second marriage was over and I wasn’t feeling engaged by my work and I couldn’t see anything ahead that was bright and alluring.

Now I have earned my way back to health and I am finally as healthy as I dreamed of being, I am inventing new dreams. Not of finally meeting my soulmate or becoming a millionaire, but of fulfilling my own potential in this lifetime. I have many skills and talents, as do we all, and I want to know when I die that I have used ALL of them to the MAX - and then learned MORE!

So, when I was thinking of what I DO WANT in specifics, I asked my Inner Wisdom to bring me something exciting to do, besides my business and my grandchildren. It brought me this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgfiwVaqNSs  I watched that and I was hooked! Just look at all those powerful older women! I knew immediately that I wanted to go out of this life dancing.

So I found a local group and I went for the third time last night and it was heaven, like coming home. In May I will go for White Belt training and then I will work up through the years ahead to Black Belt. All the women in the video were Black Belts.

So, this is my path, my exciting future. What will yours be? If you are stuck in boring relationships, boring jobs and boring lives then it is time to invent a better future. Start talking with your Inner Being, your connection to Source, and ask for some suggestions. She knows you best, she’s been with you forever and totally loves, accepts and adores you. Ask her for help and then just watch your thoughts during the day. Drop negative thoughts as if they were burning coals and think of your wonderful future instead. That’s the way you can, thought by thought, reinvent yourself.

If you are interested in learning more about the Law of Attraction you can find really good information here - http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/index.php Or buy the latest book, “The Vortex” by Jerry and Esther Hicks.

I’ll keep you posted on my journey to Black Belt because it has everything to do with strong bones and a joyful life.

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Try Rebounding to Improve Bones

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

The health news today is that the experts have spoken and found that sitting is dangerous for your health. I actually said that in my last blog post. I’m ahead of the experts once again. :-)

They say that sitting for four hours or more tells your genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body to shut down. If you have to sit at a desk or computer for any length of time then get up and walk a little bit every hour or so.

I have long advised people to set the timer so they get up every hour to bounce on a rebounder. Even one minute will get your lymph system flowing and remind your body you are still alive. Two minutes is even better. If you rebounded for two minutes every hour you would be on the way to great health.

In a group of articles, published as a special section of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, in the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, Dr. Daniel W. Barry, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, at Denver said “There was a time, not so long ago,” when most researchers assumed “that any and all activity would be beneficial for bone health.”  He is a researcher who has studied the bones of the elderly and of athletes. He had to readjust his research when a group of unexpected findings, some showing that competitive swimmers had lower-than-anticipated bone density, competitive cyclists sometimes had fragile bones and, finally, that weight lifting did not necessarily strengthen bones much. In one representative study from a few years ago, researchers found no significant differences in the spine or neckbone densities of young women who did resistance-style exercise training and a similar group who did not.

“If you stretch bone cells” in a Petri dish, says Alexander G. Robling, an assistant professor in the department of anatomy and cell biology at Indiana University School of Medicine and the author of one of the articles in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, “you have to stretch them so far to get a response that the bone would break.”  So he and many other researchers now maintain that bone receives the message to strengthen itself in response to exercise by a different means. He says that during certain types of exercise, the bone bends, but this doesn’t stretch cells; it squeezes fluids from one part of the bone matrix to another. The extra fluid inspires the cells bathed with it to respond by adding denser bone.

Professor Robling and others say, only certain types of exercise adequately bend bones and move the fluid to the necessary bone cells. An emerging scientific consensus seems to be, he says, that “large forces released in a relatively big burst” like landing on a rebounder are probably crucial. The bone, he says, “needs a loud signal, coming fast.”   For most of us, weight lifting isn’t explosive enough to stimulate such bone bending. Neither is swimming.  Running can be, but the runner has to put up with the continuous shock of the feet hitting a hard surface which could be very damaging.  Although for unknown reasons, running doesn’t seem to stimulate bone building in some people.

Also, as I’ve said in previous posts, too much endurance exercise may reduce bone density.  There are ongoing studies to try to determine why this is but some researchers think it is losing calcium in sweat that robs the bones.

In the meantime, the current state-of-the-science message about exercise and bone building may be, as I’ve said for years, that the best exercise is to simply jump up and down on a rebounder. Rebounding increases the G-Force loading on every cell of the entire body about one hundred times a minute.  That means that every cell; skin, muscle cells, ligaments, cells of vital organs and even the bone cells have to adjust to an increased G-Force.  “Jumping is great and you probably don’t need to do a lot either.”

According to articles on the Reboundair site, where I found a lot of this information, you only have to rebound for twenty minutes a day to get the benefit to your bones. If you did that in small increments throughout the day you would also get your butt out of a chair long enough to prevent giving your body the message that you need a little more personal padding on your seat.

Also rebounding will improve your balance. Most of the time, Dr. Barry says, “fragile bones don’t matter, from a clinical standpoint, if because of better balance you don’t fall down.”

It’s raining like crazy here in California. No walks on the beach this week. If I didn’t have my rebounder I would be going stir-crazy.

Roll up, roll up, get your fresh rebounders here and now. Anyone who buys a rebounder after seeing this article will get a free bottle of pH strips as well (mention the article in the comment section of the shopping cart).

Pam

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Drink Water, Breathe and Stay Alkaline

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

I am doing so well healthwise but I realized that I am not drinking as much water now because it is winter.  A lot of warm or hot drinks like black tea or coffee don’t count for hydration so water is still necessary to keep you healthy. You can have hot water with a squeeze of lemon and then you are getting a little pH correction at the same time.

It’s great how many people are putting out the news about keeping your pH balanced with baking soda now. Dr Mercola had a whole article on it in his newsletter recently. Apparently you can use it to stave off colds or flu by taking half a teaspoon of baking soda in water up to 6 times a day.  Especially the days you go to holiday parties or are around kids who have colds.

Don’t take that quantity for too long, less than a week is best. I have been recommending up to a tablespoon with lemon juice at night before bed to protect your bones for five years now. It seems to work for most people and it is such an easy solution.

One thing that Dr Mercola said is that Arm and Hammer baking soda has aluminum added so buy a brand from the health food store. When I googled this I found a lot of disagreement and the word from the makers of Arm and Hammer is that there is NO aluminum added. However they say that they have not tested their product for aluminum. It seems to me that they would have tested it, don’tcha think!! I would like to find some actual lab tests but there don’t seem to be any. I think that some of the baking soda sources are from aluminum smelters so there may be residual aluminum from that. I will probably continue to use the A and H myself because I hardly ever need to alkalize with my diet but you can buy the aluminum-free baking soda from the health food store.

So, the other thing that would be good to keep in mind at this time of the year is to keep breathing. If you are sitting around on a comfy chair and breathing shallowly most of the day then you will surely get old before your time. That reminds me of my mum saying that if I kept scowling my face would stay like that forever! 

People ask me often if the weight vest compresses the spine but Moshe Feldenkrais said that the spine is in more severe compression while sitting than in any other position. So, no, walking with your spine in it’s natural curve with a vest will not compress your spine but slouching around on a chair will.

Can you tell I’m working up to some good New Year’s Resolutions already? I will have my end of the year report soon as well and I’m doing GREAT!

So have the best holiday season ever and start thinking of what will really bring you JOY in 2010. Whatever it is, you can make it happen.

Blessings,

Pam

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#1 Best All-round Exercise

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

You may know that I hate gyms and I do bodyweight exercises and rebounding to keep fit. So I want you to know the absolute best exercise you can do for all around fitness - the king of exercises. It is squats. On my exercise list I use door squats for beginners so that they are safe for older sedentary women. But you can soon graduate up to regular freestanding squats and then go on to more powerful Hindu squats.

Squats will strengthen your legs but also your back and give you better balance. You will feel more powerful from your core.  An exercise program I subscribed to recently said that if there was only one exercise you had time to do then it should be hindu squats.

Back in the day, when I was a Feldenkrais practitioner, I was taught that a person’s ability to squat was the best reflection of their overall fitness. Most people over the world squat every day. It is the way they sit, and certainly the way they use the toilet.

But westerners have lost that easy ability to settle down comfortably close to the ground. I think that loss has a lot to do with our lack of balance as we get older. Moshe Feldenkrais always taught that a person should be able to leap in any direction at any moment to be safe. Squats, repeated daily, give you this power in your legs and spine to move quickly when necessary.

Since it has been proven that it is actually not the thickness of your bones that prevents fractures in your older years, but the ability to avoid falling, it is worth a few minutes a day to brush up on the skill of squatting.

I was showing a neighbor the way to practise hindu squats the other day and she immediately discounted it by saying she had never been able to squat, even as a child. ANYONE can learn this. It is a natural thing for any body to do. It may be hard at first, your thighs may hate you, but persist. When you can do 25 squats in a row you are on the way to true power in your body.

The exercise program I was talking about wants you to do 200 a day. I think that is excessive and boring. But you could do 25 twice a day and then three times a day, before meals perhaps, and see your vitality and power soar.

Hindu squats are the best for doing the 25 in a row because you use your breath and arms to help build momentum. If you want to learn these go to youtube and put hindu squats in the search engine. The breath is out on the way down and in on the way up and you move fast enough to get a breath exercise at the same time.

These are a real life-changer. If you are in fear of your bones giving out on you then commit to doing  this and see how much better you will feel in 30 days.

Enjoy,
Pam

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Successful Bone Building Program

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

I got some great news last week from a customer and her testimonial has an interesting point that I’ll go over later. Here it is:

Last year I purchased your weight vest after receiving negative results on my bone density test which showed rapid bone loss over 2 years. I began wearing the vest on walks, taking “muscle pump” classes at YMCA, supplements (calcium, magnesium, Vit D, multi-minerals, multiple vit, K, C), bio-identical progesterone cream [Emerita], and diet.

In one year (from Feb-08 to Feb-09) my scores improved significantly. My doctor said 2-3% doubles bone strength–I exceeded 3% in both locations!
 
T-Score Test results below:
Date            Age            T Scores
                                   Hip       Spine
10/06          54          -1.4         -2.3
*2/08          56          -2.3        -2.9      *started wearing vest Mar-08
2/09            57          -2.2        -2.8

1-yr improvement      4.34%     3.45%
 
My physician, Dr. Kochumian, was extremely sceptical last year when I refused to take Fosomax, and previously when he prescribed Boniva, but agreed to see what would happen in 1 year. He was amazed at my results!
Carol

What I didn’t realize before was that 2-3% improvement equals doubled bone strength. Some women have been disappointed when their T-scores have only gone up one or two points, but according to this doctor they are doing very well with that improvement.

As Carol said later in her email, it wasn’t easy to get the bone gain. She had to work at it, but the working gave her many other gains in her life as well. You can exercise and eat right because of your bones but your whole body is affected. That’s why I call our post-menopausal bone thinning a great wake-up call for women. It tells us it’s time to stop the downward slide into ignominous old age and bounce back.

Have an active life,
Pam

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Exercise - A Delicate Subject

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

This is a delicate subject for two groups of women - those who need to get up off their tush and move around more, and those who exercise like it’s a drug they can’t give up.

We all need exercise to keep us strong and healthy into old age, everyone will acknowledge that. But I have been amazed at how many younger women are calling me with bone loss and fears about osteopenia and osteoporosis. Most of them eat relatively healthy, don’t drink sodas and workout regularly, and can’t understand why this is happening to them.

Now I find that the conclusion I had come to, that they are overexercising, is becoming more widespread. If you google ‘over-exercising’ you will find a lot of information and opinions. The trouble is that it is mostly opinion.

My opinion is that if you are exercising enough to kick in endorphins, that is in length of time or intensity, you are probably not doing your bones, or longterm health, too much good. Our bodies like moderation, they like balance. The reason we have endorphin release upon exercise is to give us strength to get away from tigers and bears and disasters. We were never designed to use that release on a daily basis. That’s why marathoners are no longer lived than the general population. Our own endorphins are as powerful as heroin and most women who exercise to excess wouldn’t dream of using that.

These women don’t want to hear about lowering their exercise levels even to benefit their bones. They definitely are addicted to exercise. Some have body image issues, some are using exercise in the same way many women use food, to suppress emotions.

What is true is that our bodies can do one of three things at one time; move, digest food, or feel our emotions. That is why many emotional release programs have you dance and move around vigorously to get to another emotional place. That works, but, in the long run, we have to feel our emotions fully or they will come back to haunt us.

If I feel and acknowledge every emotion as it occurs then it doesn’t get stuck in my body and need to be covered up with cookies or a jog. One good technique is to notice where in your body you are feeling the emotion and put your hands right there. Then feel it fully. Then exaggerate it. If someone said you need to lose weight you say whatever is in your mind - she hates me, I’m obese, I’m useless, etc… whatever comes up. Keep on exaggerating until you finally have to come to a place where it’s funny, it’s hilarious.

We can’t stop people we love or people we work with inflicting their opinions on us. Many people would much rather look at someone else’s perceived problems than deal with their own. But it becomes hilarious when someone who can barely move tells us that we are too skinny or working too hard. I’ve had both comments a lot since starting the rawfood diet because I have lost weight and have so much energy that I am creating new things all day.

Just bless people and know that they think they are speaking out of love and concern, then get back to giving your body what it really needs - fresh, clean food, sunshine, plenty of rest, appreciation, love and the right amount of exercise.

Next post will be about my progress on the rawfood diet. Pam

 

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Fruits and Veggies Can Strengthen Bones

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

Well, what a coincidence! Just as I am starting on a rawfood diet there was a study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism saying that fruits and veggies can strengthen your bones.
The study, done by Tufts University, explored the connection between the acid diets that are common in the US and bone loss. Grains, meats and dairy, plus processed food in general, tend to make our systems more acid.
The study included 171 men and women aged 50 and older who were randomly assigned to receive a placebo or doses of either potassium bicarbonate, sodium bicarbonate, or potassium chloride for three months. The people who took bicarbonate showed significant reductions in calcium excretion and bone resorption. I have been telling women for many years to take a drink of sodium bicarb with lemon juice at night before bed to cut down on bone loss and to add to the alkalinity of the body. You’ll find that info on my pH balance page.
So the study didn’t actually test any veggies or fruits because it is already well known that they will also add to the alkalinity of the body in a more natural way. Your body will create sodium bicarb out of them itself.
I heard about Dr Douglas Graham and his “80-10-10 Diet” several weeks ago when I read an interview he had done on a raw food site.I have been using more raw foods lately because I am unhappy with the long-term results I was getting with my low-carb diet.
There are two doctors who I have been listening to, via books, to keep the diabetes under control, Dr Rosedale and Dr Bernstein. They both say we don’t need any carbs at all and should take as little as possible so our blood sugar numbers stay stable. Well, when you cut down on carbs then the only thing you are adding is fat and protein.Long term, that is a nightmare for the body. The liver and kidneys can’t deal with all that fat, even the good fats. And too much protein is just as toxic to the system.
So I have been longing for fruit for the two years I have been trying to stick to this diet. As with all new diets, in the beginning you always feel better, and I did. But for the last 6 months I have been feeling increasingly toxic and sluggish. I found out that my blood was in a rouleau pattern typical of people who eat too much fat. The blood cannot do it’s job of oxygenating the body from that pattern so I was increasingly tired and weak.
So when I read what Dr Graham said about fruit and diabetes and fruit and candida, I was very intrigued. He says that fruit has gotten a bad rap, that it is fat that causes diabetes and candida. The fat eaten along with the fruit coats the sugar in your intestines and prevents the insulin you take or make from being able to react with the sugar and push it into the cells. So I was convinced enough to give it a good try.
This diet is considered radical even in raw food circles because he says that 80% of our diet should come from carbohydrates, 10% from protein and 10% from fat. Interestingly these numbers are supported by the World Health Organization. Since leafy greens and fruit actually have about that much protein and fat in them, it means you rarely have to eat anything else at all, a few nuts a week maybe. Most rawfooders eat huge quantities of nuts.
People who do not like fruit would have a hard time on this lifestyle because you can’t get enough calories from greens. I love fruit but you have to eat an awful lot of it. I am actually eating 5 times a day because I can’t eat too much at once. Some athletes are eating a dozen bananas at one sitting, or a half gallon of fresh orange juice. Dr Graham has coached Olympic level athletes and is an amazing athlete himself so he has a lot of credentials for superior performance on this lifestyle.
My immediate reaction to the diet - one month -has been profound.

  • I’ve got my energy back to where it was before I got sick so many years ago.
  • I’m sleeping less, wide awake at 5 and ready to go.
  • I’ve cut down on the thyroid and adrenal meds.
  • I am calmer, my mental chatter seems to have gone away.

One last interesting thing - I have never been athletic in my life. Work has always been my exercise. Now that my work takes place on a computer a lot of the time that is not good for my body. So I am actually starting to look forward to my rebounding and walking and even considered running or jogging!
Have a wonderful Holiday Season and don’t worry about 2009. Depression starts in the mind, don’t let it take root in yours.
Live in Abundance and Joy, Pam

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Too Much Weight in Weight Vest is Not Good

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

A woman called yesterday and was disappointed that it was only possible to put 16 lbs of weight in my weight vest - weightvest4osteoporosis.com  She really wanted to carry 40 lbs. She felt fit and healthy and just wanted to fix her bones as fast as possible.

I told her that even the trainers for Olympic athletes recommended only 10% of body weight for the vest, which in her case would have been 15 lbs. She wasn’t convinced. She talked about making an extra collar of weights to put on top of the vest.

My reaction was an immediate "No" and I trust my intuition almost completely. So I asked myself what the problem was. I got a picture in my mind of our discs, those jelly-like little blobs that keep the vertebrae in our spine from rubbing up against each other. As we get older these little blobs become less bouncy, less elastic, less full, they can even collapse down to nothing like a spent balloon. Then we can experience severe back pain because our cushioning is gone.

There are many women who exercise a lot, perhaps too much from the research I am reading, who think that more is better. These women are very upset, when their exercising, careful diet and lack of common vices, are not enough to prevent osteopenia or osteoporosis. I know the feeling! But I think the answer is twofold.

First the numbers have been invented and lowered to make the disease seem more common in order to prescribe more bone drugs. Second, we are doing so many untested experiments on ourselves now, with thousands of new chemicals in the diet and environment,  cell phones emissions, genetically modified food that is actually feeding us pesticides. All of this is affecting our bones.

So, don’t overdo it with the weights. Think of your body as the most incredible miracle, with zillions of interacting pieces, a dance of light within your skin, a magical inner land where one thought can change everything in an instant. We are so blessed to be doing this dance.

Enjoy your day,
Pam

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Hello Bone-Builders

Monday, October 16th, 2006

I am starting this blog to keep you posted on any new developments in the bone-strengthening arena.
I will also post links here to articles in the press about the drug companies and their attempts to get us all taking multiple prescription drugs. It is one of my strongest intentions to keep women off unnecessary drugs as we age.    

I am 62 now and feeling good, but I did not exercise hardly at all for about two months so I want to get back on my program. I was in India for one month and then recovering from the trip and taking care of business when I got back ate up another month.
I think this is a good test to see how fast my body can recover from inactivity and regain strength and muscle tone.

I am doing the rebounding series twice a day with my vest at 4lbs and a walk in the afternoon with my vest at 8lbs. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
I think I am not quite back to beginner level because I can still do the complete workout without fatigue, probably I’m an advanced beginner in strength.

Remember, if you haven’t exercised today, your body is not having a great day,

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