A Week of Fitness: Monday

This is a weeks’ worth of exercise - using correct technique - with accompanying video that can take you from couch potato to fitness guru safely and inexpensively.

They are produced by the University of Texas, M D Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

-maven

Monday: Cardio and Upper-Body Weight Training

Focused on Health - February 2010

Equipment needed: weighted dumbbells and resistance band

If you can’t complete all the suggested reps in this program, start by doing less and gradually increase to the recommended number. If you are just starting an exercise program, you may consider adding activity on two to four days of the week, and gradually increase to the recommended seven days a week. Doing some exercise is better than doing none.

Step 1: Cardio
15 minutes
Walk briskly at 3.5 miles per hour. Follow these tips to get the most out of your workout:

• Keep your chin up and look forward. Your neck, shoulders and back should be relaxed.
• Walk smoothly. Roll your foot from heel to toe. Avoid crashing your heels to the ground. 
• Swing your arms as you walk to increase the intensity of your walking.
• Tighten your abdominals. Keep your back straight. Tuck your pelvis in slightly.
• Think of your walk as having three parts: start with 5 minutes of slow walking, then increase your pace (walking uphill requires more effort), and end with 5 minutes of slower walking.

Step 2: Bicep Curl
1 set of 12

• Hold weights with your palms facing out, elbows next to the body. 
• Bend your elbows and curl the weights toward your shoulders without moving your elbows away from your body.  Lower your arms and repeat.

Advanced option: Do 3 sets of 12.

View Video 
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Pilates workout station/tower in your own home

I’ve been practicing Pilates for more than 10 years now, and using the props at home - such as straps, bands, tubes and long springs - has been a challenge. Where do you hook them? I tried inserting a device in the door jamb, but that put me in an awkward place, and gave me only one point of attachment. It was also difficult to adjust on the fly. Where I’ve positioned this wall unit, I have plenty of free space to move my legs, for example.

Then I saw an ‘alternative’ springboard tower on the Balanced Body website. Their $445.oo price was a bit more than I can justify right now, although it’s probably fine for a professional studio. So I built my own.

With this home-built ‘tower’ I can really use the props as they were intended to be used - for under $40 for all the materials, not including the props which I already had.

I simply purchased a 24”x48” interior grade piece of plywood at Home Depot. They have bins of pre-finished wood cut to this size. I wanted the width to be 20” to fit my space, so had the guy cut four inches off the width. I used this spare wood to mount between the wall and the face of the ‘tower’.

Next, after mounting to the wall and into studs for strength - I stained the wood and put in heavy eye bolts for attachment points.

I’m working on figuring out a foot bar to add to the bottom - for hooking your feet for crunches, and a way to easily add a version of the ‘push through’ bar found on studio versions of the ‘tower’.

But now, I can really do many of the tower and reformer spring/strap exercises - standing or laying supine - much more effectively. I can even begin to incorporate the foam roller, ball and disc for ‘unstable surface’ type exercises.

I’m sure this will be great for my skiing this year, but I can see where folks with long term physical challenges might get a great deal of benefit doing physical therapy type exercises related to their rehabilitation.

I’m sure that I’ll be ‘tricking’ this out as I use it and find more ways to enhance it’s functionality. I’ll keep you posted.

Here are some video demo’s of how ‘tower’ exercises work and you’ll be able to see a bit of what can be done with this inexpensive wall unit.

In this next video, you’ll get a good look at some great leg exercises (I may add some ‘handles’ ):

Here are some more:

Can Energy Balance Prevent Cancer?

The investigational literature has actually been trending in this direction for several years, but the evidence is becoming overwhelming - maintaining a healthy lifestyle of weight control and exercise, combined with lowered alcohol consumption can go a long way toward mitigating the risk of having certain cancers and avoiding a recurrence of cancer you’ve already beaten.

In these times of financial stress, it might seem easy to ask the question “can I afford the gym or healthier food options?” My question as an eight year survivor of Stage III breast cancer is “how can you not?” Had I known then what I know now, I certainly would have made a better effort to avoid cancer. But I have made huge changes since my cancer went into remission to avoid a recurrence, since I know a recurrence of my cancer (a ‘triple negative’ breast cancer) is essentially not survivable, there being no really effective treatments now or on the horizon.

Hey, that’s some kinda motivation? Right?

That said, I go to great lengths to maintain a healthy weight and BMI (Body Mass Index). I’m 5’3” and weigh between 136 and 138 pounds. BMI of 23.7. Actually, it’s lower than standard calculators, but I had mine done up at the UNR Center for Metabolic Research - where they do a couple very sophisticated body composition assessments. I’ve also gone up there and undergone nutritional and exercise analysis by their experts every couple years since my diagnosis.

I’m a nutritionists dream. At least that’s what they tell me. I think you can see from the Food page of this blog, that I’m not exactly living on celery and carrot sticks, but I’m still the food police. We’ve nixed the processed foods, fake food ingredients, saturated fats, refined white flours, sugars and - worst of all - sodium from out diets here. My husband - at 79 - has the clear arteries to prove it. We’re not vegetarian, but rather vegan trending ‘flexitarians’. We love our whole grains, veg and fruit.

And we exercise. A lot. During the warmer months I get in about 800 to 1,000 miles on my hybrid road bike depending on schedules. In the winter I ski, walk and run on the treadmill. We do Pilates and Yoga. I also meditate regularly. I hate gyms. I’m not a big joiner, and I don’t like being indoors to exercise unless forced to.

And we cut down the drinking. A lot.

The bottom line is that I’m now 8+ years out from diagnosis. Those who were diagnosed with same at the time I was are gone. Lifestyle choices are not the total answer. Chance, genes and medical choices also come into play big time. I just know that I’ve done all that I can. That’s all any of us can do.

-maven

The following feature article is from CURE magazine and is authored by Don Vaughn.

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Dealing with stress in just 5 minutes a day

Stress on Your Mind? Cut It in 5

Focused on Health - August 2010

by Laura Nathan-Garner

Money. Family. Work. Health issues. Sometimes it can seem hard to find a reason not to feel stressed.

But here’s a good reason to unwind: “Chronic stress affects almost every system in our bodies and wreaks havoc on their functioning,” says Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., professor and director of integrative medicine at MD Anderson. “It weakens the immune system, affects tumor development and makes it harder for your body to remain healthy.”

And that’s not all. Chronic stress ups your risk for heart disease, sleep difficulties, digestive problems and depression. It also makes you more likely to ditch healthy eating and exercise habits that help prevent cancer and other diseases.

“Some factors that cause stress can’t be controlled, but for things you can control, find ways to avoid them or balance them with stress-reducing activities,” Cohen says. “And, for stressors in your life you can’t control, you’ve got to focus on yourself and make time to do things you enjoy.”

Try these strategies for stress management:

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Exercise for woman: The news gets better and better still

Wow. Now I know how to justify nipping away during the week to ski my brains out for just a couple hours. It’s good for whatever might ail me in the future.

In an article I read today, the benefits to be derived from regular exercise for women is huge.

From a sampling of studies in the Archives of Internal Medicine:

Midlife exercise, including walking, increased the odds that women would have ‘exceptional health’ (no chronic disease or physical/mental impairment - when they reached their seventies.

Weight training just once or twice a week for a year improved the cognitive skills as much as muscle strength.

In a study of German women over age 55, those who where physically active were far less likely to develop cognitive decline.

Exercise guide for seniors

The National Institute on Aging has updated its recommendations for those over the age of 55. Based on advice from a 12 member panel of experts, they have expanded their target audience to include those older adults that might not think they can be physically active.

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Exercise: Getting past the drive to be thin

It’s hard to work all day, come home wondering what you’ll throw together for dinner, pay bill, write a blog, clean up dog puke … and remember to exercise daily.

Like a lot of others, particularly women, I use the old stick and carrot approach of keeping my figure slim and trim, but I know - deep down - that the other benefits of exercise can’t be measured on a scale or with a tape measure.

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Food and lifestyle choices that can affect memory

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The key here is to shop the fresh produce aisles … eat fresh, eat local, eat seasonally. Then add in as many whole grains as possible … eliminate refined grains as completely as possible from your diet. Keep sweets and sugar to a minimum … and remember that alcohol is a sugar and can really mess with your weight as well as your ability to get a decent nights sleep.

Finally, exercise is crucial to brain health. Try to get 30 minutes of exercise daily … and it should be exercise that causes you to break a sweat and breathe deeper.

Nutrition Action from CSPI

That’s the Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of my enduringly favorite sources of reliable information. Really, if you want the straight scoop about food, nutrition and other health and wellness issues, this is one of the best places you can go to.

In this months’ newsletter there is a large article on how to keep your brain young - which all of us seem to be interested in these days. It seems that the bottom line is as follows:

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Exercise to ward off irregular heartbeat

Irregular heartbeats can be very common, but increase in frequency as we age. Research shows that people who do light to moderate exercise on a regular basis - as we should all be doing, anyway - have a significantly reduced risk of irregular heartbeat.

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Sharp at any age: exercise to reverse cognitive decline

We know that there a lot of great reasons to stay active and physically fit, but in our culture most of the attention goes to the relationship between activity and our appearance.

Exercise has so many other really valuable benefits, beyond a healthy physical appearance, that we need an occasional reality check.

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Hatha Yoga for cancer patients