Exercise is One of THE Best Remedies for Stress.

Exercise may not be your favorite word or activity, but there is no denying its benefits to every aspect of your health. Moving your body every day will not only make you healthier in general, but it can also diminish the effects of stress on your body.

Have you ever gone to see a doctor for something non-specific and been told, “It’s stress related”?  You might have laughed it off and thought, “That’s what doctors say when they don’t know the real answers or diagnosis.” 

The truth is that too much stress can play a role in many diseases.

Exercise is a safe and effective way to help boost your immune system function and decrease your stress level.  And it doesn’t have to be complicated.  All movement is good movement and it all counts as exercise. Stretch, walk, dance, lift weights, it all counts.

Here are some simple ways to get started:

• Walk. Get outside or...

Imagine boarding a train in Zurich, Switzerland, bound for France. You have a medium-sized backpack with you…it probably weighs 28 pounds…not heavy by backpacking standards.

You move to hoist your backpack into the overhead bin, get about 50% of the way there, and it won’t go up any further. Your tour guide (a guy who is about your height) leaps to your rescue. Without a word, he grabs your bag, tosses it in the overhead without a thought, and has a seat.

This happened to me a number of years ago, and the memory of it still smarts. I was grateful and humiliated at the same time.

When the gym doesn't translate into real life. 

How could I not lift my own bag?

I went to the gym all the time. I was 24 years old.  I ran, I took group fitness classes, I…I…I…I wasn’t strong enough to lift my own bag up to put it away.

A hard lesson to learn.

My entire life has been dedicated to being fit, active and healthy. It...

Lessons learned from rekindling my love affair with running.

Running and I suffered a serious breakup a number of years ago. We had been hot and heavy for a while in my 20s and 30s but lost the magic in my mid-40s.

Now, in my early 50s, I'm rekindling the relationship, and it's been very different. The red-hot excitement of the early days, embracing every challenge as quickly as I could, has cooled to a slow burn. I've lit the match and have been slowly reigniting things. This time, the goal is long-term smoldering. 

Off to a Slow Start. 

When I say slow, I mean really slow. Like one-mile-at-a-time slow.

Beginning January 1 this year, I set a goal to run a single mile every day. That was it. One mile. Every day. No excuses.

Running a single mile, especially if you have a history of running longer, sounds ridiculous. There are so many reasons not to:

• It'll take almost as much time to change into running clothes as it will to run the mile.
• It's such a short distance;...

I had the best night’s sleep last night. A full 7-and-a-half hours uninterrupted. No bathroom run, no uncomfortable sleep positions, just 7+ hours of unconsciousness.

When I woke up and checked my phone, I fully expected it to be about 3am. That’s the time I usually pop out of my sleep cycle for whatever reason.

What did I do differently?

I ran 3 miles yesterday.

Can I say for certain that it was the run that had me sleeping so soundly?

Without hesitation, yes.

Does this mean you have to run miles each day to sleep soundly? No.

Struggling with Sleep? You're not Alone.

Did you know that up to 70 million Americans don’t get the recommended amount of sleep each night to maintain great health? As a matter of fact, a Gallup survey from 2022, shows that 33% of Americans rate their sleep as fair or poor. You may count yourself among them.

What can you do?

One of the simplest ways to improve sleep is to move your body more. A scoping review (similar to a meta-analysis)...

What’s different about strength building for women over 50 versus someone in their 20s? A lot and not that much.

 It’s not that the exercises are different, but how you do them is different and how you progress them is different.

Why?

If you’re starting over at 50, you will be less strong now than you were in your 20s (assuming you’ve led a typically sedentary but busy life of most mid-life adults). That means starting weight in your 20s will probably be out of reach for you in your 50s.

The good news is that while you may be starting a bit behind the start line, you’ll be able to progress and build strength quickly. And your workout doesn’t have to be complicated. As a matter of fact, the simpler you keep the exercises, the more likely you are to complete them.

Here are 3 simple exercises you can do anywhere and how to increase their difficulty as you get stronger.

• Squat. This basic human movement has a wide range of options. The simplest...

Health and wellness can seem complex and overwhelming, especially when you’re a woman over 40. By this time in your life, you feel like you’ve tried everything to manage your weight and health. On top of your own experience, every friend and neighbor has a story to share with you about their own weight loss or health journey. Things can get complicated very quickly.

• There are all things you haven’t been doing for the past 20 years (or more).
• Then there are all the new fitness crazes (should be doing Pilates or HIIT?).
• Throw in the complications of Keto, Intermittent Fasting, and Menopause, and it’s easy to see why you might opt out altogether.

There has to be an easier way.

And there is.

Meet The Four Fs.

I like to think of health and wellness in terms of The Four Fs… Food, Fitness, Feelings, and Friends. Mastering each of these categories is simpler than you think.

Food

What you put into your body determines what comes out in terms of weight and...

Pick up something heavy and put it down. Do it again. Do it often. Doing this keeps you strong, healthy, and active. It is the Fountain of Youth. 

Why should you care more about muscle now? 

"Muscle mass decreases approximately 3–8% per decade after the age of 30 and this rate of decline is even higher after the age of 60. This involuntary loss of muscle mass, strength, and function is a fundamental cause of and contributor to disability in older people." Published in a study in 2010 by the Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Department of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California

This isn't urban legend. Muscle loss in aging has been studied and documented. 

If you're reading this, you're over 30.

You're probably over 50, which means you may have already lost 6-16% of the muscle mass you had before you were 30.

Do the math, and it's a slippery slope to 0 muscle mass (you can't actually...