Super

This week it rained. It was suppose to have been the wettest week in Southern California in five years. I spent most of the weekend at home reading mostly about nutrition. I found a list of “super foods” such as blueberries, avocados, garlic, spinach, sweet potatoes…all the usual suspects. Each has its own super health benefit. The problem is that there are very few foods that produce an immediate effect. So, I’m always left wondering how much I have to eat and how frequently and when will I know when it works? I guess you just have to have faith that they will work but what is your daily dose of spinach look like? Do you have to eat all of the super foods every day? If you google the term “super foods,” you can find tons of lists of super foods. Three years ago, there were ten super foods and now there are several lists of 25 super foods. For the heck of it I googled “mushroom super food” and guess what? It is a super food! And guess what? So is zucchini! Who knew?

Right now my goal is to lose weight so I’m not going to be eating dark chocolate or drinking red wine (both super foods) for the time being. I will have to forgo those health benefits for a while, but I am working at trying to eat five fruits and vegetables a day. It is not that easy. I did discover one new super food that I had never heard of before, at least not in terms of nutrition. I bought a canister of crushed chia seeds. Yes, chia like the chia pets but these are the seeds and not the sprouts. It is suppose to be really good for you but it is also really high in fiber so it fills you up (an immediate pay off) and you feel fuller and therefore eat less.

An Exercise in Concern

January 16, 2010

I am addicted to news. I’ve been watching CNN all day today on the continuing coverage of the earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti. I keep hoping that they will find someone alive under the rubble. After a while the news cycle starts repeating itself but somehow I feel like am I am helping by staying with them and watching. So that means I’ve been sitting on the couch all day.

I was multitasking though because I also read the entire February issue of Oprah that contains tons of information on health and nutrition. As a bonus it had a special supplement entitled “The Best of Dr. Oz,” with “effective tips for a stronger, happier, healthier life.” I read it cover to cover. I know this doesn’t count as exercise but I feel it is a step in the right direction. If I am nothing else I am very well read on all of the most popular diet and nutrition advise available. I have a not so small collection of nutrition and diet books that share space on the same bookshelf as my collection of cookbooks. Did I mention I have two gym memberships?

The good news is that I was home today so I had a much higher degree of control over what I ate. I am working my way towards a 1500 a day calorie diet but for the past two weeks I’ve been averaging about 800 calories a day. I know, my metabolism is going to slow down, my body will go into starvation mode, etc. but after what happened over the holidays I had to take drastic measures. It was challenging last week because I had three business lunches. I tried to make smart choices like ordering a half sandwich and soup combination. I tried to make lunch my main meal of the day keeping it under 500 calories. This wasn’t too hard because my husband wasn’t home and my daughter had rehearsals all week for a play she is in this weekend.

So my goal for the coming week is to work in 90 minutes of aerobic exercise. I also feel like I have repented for any holiday sins and now I am back to my normal overweight self and I can afford to take on conventional dieting advise. Wish me luck.

Thinking Ahead

It’s a brand new semester, a new year and a new decade. It feels good. I’ve always been a big fan of January. That’s when all of the magazines come out with resolutions to health and prosperity. It just feels like a new chapter. This year kind of feels like a new book. This year I turn 49. That means I can start counting down 365 days until I turn 50. Granted, I’m getting a little head start--my birthday is on March 23—but I have a lot to start working on. My goal is to be the healthiest, happiest 50 year old I can be. For starters that means being in great physical condition.

This is going to be a challenge for me because I’ve never developed the kinds of behavior that puts my physical well-being ahead of everything else. The first 25 years or so I got free pass. I’ve been blessed with good health. The last 23 years or so haven’t been so bad either, just little by little I’ve lost my upper body strength and somewhere along the way running became hard. This might have something to do with working at a desk and commuting two hours a day. I keep fantasizing about getting up even earlier then I do now, but that’s just not been happening for me. I’ve been really busy and when I am not busy I’m really tired. I’ve been really busy for the last 23 years. Ironically, much of what has occupied my time has been devoted to improving the quality of life of older people in one way or another.

I work at a research university in a school devoted to the study of aging—for the last 23 years. That means I’m exposed to cutting edge research on how to prevent diseases and the decline associated with old age. The last few years I’ve started to cringe a little when I see statistics related to morbidity and belly fat and lack of physical activity. I’ve somehow avoided getting diabetes (that I am genetically predisposed to) but I always sense it is lurking around the corner. I haven’t had a physical exam in the last 4 years, but when I did all my lab work was outstanding. But I’ve also gained 40 pounds in the last 4 years and I haven’t been at my ideal weight since having my second child in 1992.

Right now, I’m just dealing with the weight issue . Later on I’ll deal with the supplements, exercise, meditation and the three million other things I know I should be doing to ensure that the next 50 years are healthy and happy years. This blog is intended to chronicle behavior change- day-by-day. I am doing this to help motivate myself and hopefully motivate other people like me. I don’t think that people that don’t exercise are lazy, especially people who work full time and then go home to be a mommy or a daddy. It’s really hard to do everything we need to do in one day. I don’t have time to write a long blog entry and I don’t think anyone has the time to read one. But if this can serve as encouragement to busy people that need to reinvest in themselves, then it is time well spent. I plan on this being the longest blog entry I make. I won’t tell you what food I consumed or what exercises I did, but how each day I changed my behavior.

I came across a statistic while doing some research on a talk I was giving on healthy aging---every seven seconds in America someone turns 50. Next year that includes me. I started thinking about all the things I know about healthy aging and all of the things I don’t do. I needed the motivation, for lack of better words, to get my head in the game. I know I have the knowledge and the desire but without making significant changes in my behavior, my 50^th birthday will come in 2011 and I’ll be in just a little worse shape then I am now.

I have neglected myself for 23 years, I can take one year of my life and make my health a priority. After all the world might end in 2012 and I want to be fit enough to see it through.