A Great New Way to Exercise at Home

If you don't go to a health club regularly, one of the best things you can do is buy an exercise video that you can follow along with at home.  The problem with most senior exercise videos is that most were made many years ago by somewhat unqualified people.

But there's a new series of videos I found called Take 5 to Exercise. I checked out the instructor's credentials, and she is definately highly qualified.

The idea behind these videos is that you have five days and you do certain kinds of exercises on each day.

Day 1 - Flexibility

Day 2 - Strength

Day 3 - Posture

Day 4 - Strength

Day 5 - Maintenance

This five-day plan looks like a great idea to me, and all of the exercises are done in a chair so they're very safe. To watch preview clips or to order, go to www.seniorexercisevideos.net

Give it a try!

Have a Healthy Thanksgiving

Between family, turkey, and football, Thanksgiving is always a fun day.  But I would bet the average person eats twice as many calories on Thanksgiving as they do on a normal day.

Here's some tips to help you eat healthier this Thanksgiving:

1. Don't have seconds. It's OK to have a big plate of turkey, potatoes, and other stuff(ing).  But it's the 2nd and 3rd plate that you should avoid.

2. Easy on the gravy. You don't have to drown your food in gravy just to make it taste good.  You can get all the taste you need by thinly spreading a little over your food. 

3. Choose a smart drink. Water is best. If you're going to eat 1000 calories, why drink another couple hundred?

4. One piece of dessert! I know there may be a couple things to choose from, but that doesn' t mean you should have one of each.

My final advice is to not judge the quality of your meal based on the amount of food you eat, which is what most people do. Instead, focus on the kind of food.  

Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, etc. That should be what defines Thanksgiving for you. It's a day where you eat certain foods that you may not eat the rest of the year, foods that have been eaten on this day for many years. But please do not define Thanksgiving as the day where you eat as much as possible. Have a good one.

How to Control Your Eating

I had an idea the other day about how to control your eating when you're at a restaurant.

The problem with restaurants is that they give you way too much food.  So you say to yourself, "I'm only going to eat this much."  Then you get to that point and you stop eating.  Nice job.

But wait.  Five minutes later that food is still sitting in front of you.  So you take a nibble.  And another nibble.

Then the person you're dining with asks if you want to taste their food.  Sure!

Or someone you're with doesn't finish their food and you help them finish it.  Can't let if go to waste, right?

All the sudden you've eaten 200 calories more than you wanted to.  How can we prevent this?

Try this out.  Bring some gum with you and place a stick of gum next to your plate when your meal comes. Decide how much of that food you should eat.  After you finish that much food, immediately put the gum in your mouth.

Now you can't nibble anymore.  No more french fries.   No more samples from someone else's plate.  This way you can leave the restaurant without feeling stuffed.

Are you going to give this a try or what?  It may sound ridiculous, but a lot of these little diet tips do sound ridiculous until you try them and they work.

Avocados and Guacamole

Avocados get a bad rap because they are quite fatty, but that fat is actually the good kind. They're also a good source of potassium, folate, and antioxidants.

Maybe you should try to eat one per week. You can cut up avocados and put them in a salad or use them in guacamole.

Here's my simple guacamole recipe:

1 Avocado
1 small plum tomato (or any tomato)
Corn chips

Scoop out the avocado, put it in a bowl, and mash it. Dice the tomato and stir it in with the avocado. Shake some garlic salt and add a spritz of lime juice and it's ready to eat! Makes a hearty snack for two.

Don't be surprised if you feel quite full after eating some guacamole. Fat is known for producing a feeling of satiety. It's pretty much a small meal more than a snack. I like to eat it as a meal on a day where I'm not that hungry or if I had a big lunch earlier.

Senior Strength Training Tip

Here's a common strength training mistake I see a lot of people making. Let's say you're lifting weights, and you're doing a set of 15 reps, and you find it's too easy, what do you do next time?

A). Increase the weight.

B). Increase the reps.

Let's go over choice A. Let's say you increase the reps and do 20 reps. But eventually that's too easy.

Now what. 30 reps? If you continue on this road, you might be doing 50 reps or more in a couple months.

I actually see this a lot. People tell me they're doing 3 sets of 50!

If you're doing that many reps, you probably aren't even using your strength muscle fibers, you're using your endurance fibers.

But you already work your endurance fibers plenty when you're doing your cardiovascular exercise (you are doing cardio, right?).

Your strength fibers will only be used if the weight is heavy enough that the brain thinks they're needed. If you're using a weight that you can do 30 reps with, it will be too light to recruit your strength fibers.

The solution, of course, is to go with choice A - increase the weight. You should be doing sets of 20 or less reps if possible. Choose a weight that fatigues the muscle by the time you get to 20 reps.

Three Reasons to Eat Dark Chocolate

If you're not already eating dark chocolate on a regular basis, you're missing out. Here's three reasons you should start today:

1. Dark chocolate is packed with antioxidants that can help prevent heart disease, Alzheimer's, and arthritis.

2. It improves your mood because it contains serotonin and stimulates endorphin (your body's natural pain killer) release.

3. You can use it as a substitute for junk food. Instead of a candy bar or a cookie, have a few squares of dark chocolate. It tastes good, but it's low in sugar.

Try Ghirardelli Twilight Delight, which is delicious.

To learn more about dark chocolate click here.

Senior Exercise Video

Check out this senior exercise video.  It talks about 4 major components of senior exercise - cardiovascular training, strength training, balance training, and flexibility.  It also covers the basic parameters for each aspect, like how often and how much.