Encouraging Health

Good news! You don’t have to kill yourself with crunches to get a sleek stomach.

But it turns out that you do need to get your heart rate up. Aerobic exercise is key to banishing both the deep belly fat and the superficial doughy stuff that give you a pooch.

Going the Distance
How much aerobic exercise does it take to trim a tummy? In a recent study, overweight people who jogged, cycled, or hit the elliptical for about 3 hours a week had the best belly-busting outcome — as long as they exercised at an up-tempo pace. Not ready to go that distance yet? Try walking briskly for just a couple of hours per week. That’s enough to at least keep belly swelling in check.

It’s All Good
It’s almost a guarantee that people who do nothing as they age will be watching their waists grow along with their risks of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. So whether you do it a little or a lot, sweat is still a sweet way to manage your middle. In addition to up-tempo exercise, try these tips and tools for training your body and toning your tummy:

Heart Rate Recovery Quiz – It helps you measure your fitness gains.
Trunk Tune-Up — Use these easy exercise-ball moves to tone tummy muscles.
The YOU Diet — It’s a proven waist-management plan.
Walking Wish List — Read about all the wishes that walking can help grant.

Don’t want to work out alone? How about the “Y”?

“The YMCA is an excellent case study of adaptation and survival,” one expert said. “They have a history of openness to new ideas.”

That may help explain its steady growth. Its revenue of $5.7 billion in 2006 — from donations, government support and user fees — was topped only by the American Red Cross among U.S. nonprofits.

Many Y participants benefit from financial assistance, and even full membership fees usually are less than commercial health clubs. Yet a survey of 10,000 gym users, just released by the independent watchdog group Consumer Reports, found that health facilities at Y’s and other nonprofit centers were generally better rated than big health-club chains.

Overall, the Y hopes to expand its clientele by 25 percent, to 25 million, within four years. Yet though its full, formal name no longer describes the YMCA’s mission or participants, there’s no serious thought of changing it.

“The name ‘YMCA’ is so widely recognized across the country — it’s up there with Coca-Cola and IBM as a symbol and a name,” the expert said. “But we continually need to work to help people understand how much broader we are than that name.”

For more health and fitness articles, browse Encouraging Health

aerobic exercise, belly fat, YMCA

aerobic exercise, belly fat, YMCA

If you love nuts as much as a backyard squirrel does, but you’re caught up by your calorie-counting conscience, relax. And read on . . .

Peanuts may be one high-calorie treat that doesn’t do serious damage to your weight or your waistline.

Say Hi to Mr. Peanut
In a recent small study where people were given a daily snack of peanuts, researchers were surprised to find that no one’s weight changed significantly after many weeks, despite the extra calories. Why? Seems peanuts fill you up (thanks to the fiber, protein, and healthy monounsaturated fats) but don’t necessarily fatten you up, because the fat and calories in the nuts aren’t completely absorbed by your gut. Now, if only Girl Scout cookies worked the same way.

Go Nuts

Making a heart-smart grocery list? Add a bag of peanuts.

Saving your own life doesn’t get much easier than this: Eat a handful of peanuts twice a week. Or almonds, walnuts, or Brazil nuts, if you prefer. Men who do this slash their risk of suddenly dying from a heart attack by almost half. Why? It’s all about the good fats.

What makes nuts so heart-healthy? Monounsaturated fats — those good-for-you fats that lower bad LDL cholesterol and increase good HDL, which helps keep your arteries clean and clog-free. Nuts are full of good fats, as are olive oil, canola oil, avocados, and flaxseed. In a study, men who nibbled on nuts at least twice a week had a 46 percent lower chance of dying from an out-of-the-blue heart attack than men who rarely or never ate nuts.

The only caveat: Nuts are high in calories — although other studies have found that, thanks to a happy quirk of digestive chemistry, the body doesn’t absorb all the calories in nuts. Still, if weight loss is a goal, substitute nuts for other snacks rather than just adding them to your daily diet. A little goes a long way: It only takes a small handful, the rough equivalent of a 1-ounce serving, to protect your ticker.

Lost in Digestion
More good news about peanuts: We may burn off the fats in them better than we burn off the fats in potato chips or cookies. Our bodies break down the monounsaturated fats in peanuts and convert them into energy more easily than saturated fats.

Browse http://www.encouraginghealth.com for more healthy articles.

nuts, fiber, protein, and healthy monounsaturated fats

nuts, fiber, protein, and healthy monounsaturated fats

Brown rice contains one of the best kept secrets of bone health: magnesium.

Yes, calcium is still key when it comes to keeping bones strong. But magnesium — something lots of older adults don’t get enough of — is another bone builder your body needs. And brown rice is a great source.

3 Bone Builders
For optimal bone health, RealAge experts recommend the following daily amounts for healthy people:
Calcium: 1,200 milligrams (mg) of calcium per day (broken up into three doses a day)
Vitamin D: 400 international units (IU) per day (as a supplement) if you’re under age 70 or 600 IU per day if you’re over age 70
Magnesium: 400 mg per day for women and 333 mg per day for men

More Foods for Your Frame
Soy lovers also get a good amount of magnesium, but if tofu isn’t your thing, opt not only for brown rice but also for spinach and other green leafy vegetables; salmon; fortified cereals; whole-wheat pasta; oatmeal; and cashews.

Dietary sources of calcium are best because they contain other nutrients, too. If you are unable to get enough calcium from your diet, then calcium supplements are an alternative. They are not designed to replace nutrition, only supplement. Calcium supplements are available in tablets, powders, liquids, and chewable chocolate. Read the label for the amount of calcium. Avoid taking a supplement that contains more than 500 mg. It may keep your body from using the other nutrients in the meal or snack. High doses of calcium at one time can cause gastric upset. Calcium citrate is a supplement that dissolves easily in the stomach and is absorbed efficiently. Bone-meal supplements are made from finely ground animal bones. Bone-meal supplements are not recommended because they may contain toxic metals such as lead.
A word of caution: supplements are not regulated. As a result, many of the products are not standardized-meaning that they do not have the same amount or same product. Check for the Consumer Lab stamp of approval, a CL and a beaker, on the label. CL conducts independent product tests to ensure purity and consistency.

For more articles on health, browse Encouraging Health

brown rice, healthy bones, vitimin D, vitimins

brown rice, healthy bones, vitimin D, vitimins

If you’re trimming your waist by keeping an eye on the calories you eat, that’s a good step. But do you know how many calories you drink?

When a label isn’t at the ready, use the “10-20″ rule of thumb: Figure 10 calories per ounce for most “thin” drinks (sodas, juice, milk, etc.) and 20 per ounce for thicker ones (smoothies, shakes, etc.).

Your Calorie Calculator
Sugar-free sodas and teas aside, that means a regular 32-ounce Coke from the drive-thru window would have roughly 320 calories according to Brian Wansink, PhD, inventor of the “10-20″ rule and author of Mindless Eating.

Wansink also advocates adding ice to all your beverages to help you burn off a few of those calories. “Since your body has to use energy to heat up an iced beverage, you actually burn about one calorie for every ice-cold ounce you drink,” Wansink writes.

Beverage of Choice
Of course, nothing beats a tall glass of ice water when you’re trying to whittle your waist.

To Weigh Less, Just Add This
Here’s the deal, dieters. You’ll make great strides in your effort to lose weight if you get a little extra of this past your lips: water.

Upping your daily water intake by 33 ounces — that’s about 4 additional cups — could help you melt an additional 2.5 pounds over the course of a yearlong diet. Here’s the simple science behind the claim.

Water, Water Everywhere
When researchers evaluated the water-drinking habits of overweight women who were following various popular diets (from Ornish to Atkins), water intake helped tip the scales in the right direction. The women who either upped their water intake or replaced sweet drinks with water lost about an extra 2.5 pounds. But it had to be water: Switching to or adding diet drinks didn’t have the same effect.

Why Water’s Great
So how does H2O give dieters an edge? It may be that drinking water helps reduce calorie intake — you’re full of water, so you eat less! It could also be that the agua alters your metabolism in some helpful way. Just keep in mind that drinking water, by itself, doesn’t melt pounds. The women who benefited from the extra H2O were already on reduced-calorie eating plans.

For more healthy living tips, browse Encouraging Health

“10-20″ rule, water

“10-20″ rule, water

These days, yoga gets more love than whoever’s starring in The Bachelor. And for good reason.

Yoga reduces blood pressure, lowers heart rate, decreases stress hormones, and increases three relax-it’s-okay compounds.

The Feel-Good Three
Talk about a natural high. Yoga has been shown to boost blood levels of serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins — three natural feel-good substances. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that makes you feel cheerful and content. Dopamine is a brain chemical closely tied to the pleasure centers of the brain. And endorphins? Those are the opiate-like compounds that produce a sense of well-being. Go big three!

Quick Start
And the best news: You can get the benefits of yoga from a single exercise or a full-fledged class. Try a quick-and-easy starter movement:

e see yoga as having two major advantages in terms of making your RealAge younger:
One, it increases your flexibility. Your muscles aren’t static tissues. They move, they expand, they contract. The more flexible they are, the better range of motion you have and the less stress you’ll put on your joints doing normal activities.

Two, yoga increases your strength. No, you’re not holding any weights in yoga, and yes, yoga looks more tranquil than a Pacific Ocean sunset. But some of these poses are as taxing as they are relaxing. They force your muscles to lift and hold your body weight, which counts as resistance training.

Doing the Sun Salutation every day works most of your muscle groups in one flowing routine.

1. Stand with both feet touching. Bring your hands together, palm to palm, at the heart. Make sure your weight is evenly distributed. Exhale.

2. Raise your arms upward. Slowly bend backward, stretching arms above the head. Relax your neck. Inhale.

3. Exhale while you slowly bend forward until your hands are in line with your feet, touching your head to your knees, if possible. Press your palms down, fingertips in line with toes (bend your knees if you have to), and touch the floor.

4. Move your right leg back behind your body in a wide lunge. As you inhale, keep your hands and feet on the ground, with your left foot between your hands, and raise your head.

5. Bring your left foot together with your right foot.

6. Exhale as you lower your body, resting on your forearms.

7. As you inhale, lower your pelvis to the ground and raise your head and bend backward as far as possible, while straightening your arms.

8. Putting your hand on the ground and keeping your arms straight, raise your hips and align your head with your arms. Exhale.

9. Slowly inhale and bend your right leg to take a wide forward step. Keeping your hands firmly on the ground, place your right foot between your hands and lift your head up.

10. Keeping your hands in place, bring both feet together. Straighten your legs but keep your waist bent and upper body lowered. Touch your head to your knees, if possible. Exhale.

11. Slowly rise, straightening your back into a standing pose. Bend backward, stretching your arms above your head as you inhale.

12. Return to position number 1. Exhale.

Remember, yoga is not about ego. It’s all about how much you can
do — knowing your body and its limits.

For more health tips, search Encouraging health.

yoga, health

yoga, health

For speedier afternoon thinking, which snack should you choose — a ripe banana or a chunk of cheddar cheese?

Go for the banana. Why? High-carb/low-fat foods test better than low-carb/high-fat diets when it comes to giving you a mental edge.

Combo Effect
Both low-carb/high-fat and high-carb/low-fat diets appear to perk up people’s moods, but when it comes to things like brain processing speeds, high-carb/low-fat foods beat others to the punch. Makes sense. Carbs are a critical source of the type of energy that brains need to perform. Fat, on the other hand (especially saturated fat), seems to bog down the mind.

Go Bananas
Need more reasons to eat bananas? Besides making your wits quicker, they’ll also:

Provide you with a healthy dose of vitamin B6, a nutrient credited with helping fend off Parkinson’s disease

Bananas are rich in vitamin B6 — and very early research suggests that high levels of B6 may protect against Parkinson’s. Still, the news is not something to go bananas over just yet. The benefit applied only to smokers in the most recent study. But bananas and B6 do your body good in many other ways.

Vitamin B6 — along with folate and B12 — helps reduce levels of homocysteine, an amino acid. That’s good for your ticker, because too much homocysteine in the blood appears to up heart disease risk.

Homocysteine also appears to be toxic to nerve cells, and elevated levels have been linked to Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurological disorder that causes muscles to become rigid and shake uncontrollably.

Could B vitamins be the answer? Among nearly 5,000 people studied recently, smokers whose B6 intake was highest were 50 percent less likely to develop the brain disorder over a nearly 10-year period, compared to smokers who consumed the least amount of the vitamin. And although all three members of the nutrient trio help lower homocysteine, only B6 intake — not folate or B12 — translated into reduced rates of Parkinson’s, suggesting the B vitamin may lower disease risk by some mechanism unrelated to the lowering of homocysteine.

What’s smoking got to do with it? Oddly enough, nicotine may actually protect nerve cells in some way, and B6 may help out in that process.

Banana’s also reduce your risk of kidney cancer and help keep your blood pressure steady because they’re full of potassium.

For more healthy tips browse Encouraging Health.

bananas, brain processing speeds, High-carb/low-fat foods, vitamin B6

bananas, brain processing speeds, High-carb/low-fat foods, vitamin B6

Packing your sandwiches with lots of crunchy bits could be good news for your waist.

That’s right. When your diet is stuffed with difficult-to-chew foods, you increase your odds of a littler middle. So stack lots of crunchy cabbage, cucumber slices, and sprouts in those wraps and subs.

Jaws of Lite
Soft, creamy foods may be a comfort, but the foods we’re genetically designed for — the hard and crunchy ones our ancestors thrived on — are better for our health and waistlines, studies show. So give your jaw a little workout at each meal.

Crunchy and Nutritious
The benefits of “hard” diets probably have something to do with what is usually found in hearty, chewy, crunchy foods — less fat and calories and more fiber. It’s certainly true for chewy eggplant and mushrooms, hearty broccoli and cabbage, and crunchy apples, carrots, and leaf lettuces. And yes, raw is best!

3 Ways to Dress Your Veggies

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Your veggies don’t like to be naked. And what couture do they prefer? Try a little healthful-fat finery.

A bit of unsaturated fat can help your body better absorb the fat-soluble nutrients in your vegetables. Here are three different looks to try:

1. Skip the fat-free ranch dressing. Instead, toss your greens with an olive-oil-based dressing like balsamic vinaigrette.
2. Make your fat crunchy. Season peppers, corn, carrots, or squash with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, and then top with slivered almonds or toasted sesame seeds.
3. Go Thai. Create this Spicy Peanut Sauce for dipping lightly steamed broccoli and cauliflower . . .

In a recent study, people who tossed their salads with a dressing that had some fat in it absorbed more carotenoids from the vegetables than the people who used a nonfat dressing.

Carotenoids are potent antioxidants found in brightly hued produce — think red, orange, and yellow. But the small intestine needs a little fat to absorb these power nutrients. So do several other fat-soluble vitamins, including:
Vitamin E (found in spinach and broccoli)
Vitamin K (found in cabbage, cauliflower, and turnip greens)
Vitamin D (found in some fish and in fortified dairy)
When you’re dressing your veggies, remember the Brylcreem jingle: “A little dab’ll do ya.” You can nearly undo all the good in veggies by turning them into high-calorie, high-fat side dishes. So don’t drown them in sauces and oils. Think lightweight summer ensembles — a little dribble of olive oil on a sliced tomato or a smattering of chopped walnuts on your spinach salad. Or a bit of Thai peanut sauce on your steamed broccoli.

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for more health tips.

eating habits, crunchy vegetables, weight loss

eating habits, crunchy vegetables, weight loss

Blood pressure under control? Check. Cholesterol level okay? Check. Gait speed good? Umm . . . why does that matter, you ask?

Because gait speed may very well be another important “vital sign” — like heart rate, blood pressure, and cholesterol level — that helps predict how long you’ll live.

Ready, Set, Go
Your gait speed is the speed at which you walk when you’re really trying. Faster walkers may be more resilient and able to bounce back better from a health crisis. Which may explain why the zippy over-65 walkers in a recent study enjoyed lower mortality rates. The magic speed for staying young? At least 2.25 miles per hour for people 65 and older. So time yourself on a treadmill or around the track.

Contingency Plan for Slow Walkers
If you don’t hit the 2-mile-per-hour mark, don’t despair. Improving your gait speed boosts your longevity, too. Start by doing some interval training, where you intermittently pick up the pace for a short distance. Some strength training can help you walk better and stronger, too.

In addition to walking 30 minutes a day, which serves as the foundation of any physical activity plan, you should do this workout two to three times a week. Consider it part of your armor against aging. The stronger your body, the longer and better your life. Remember to maintain proper form throughout the exercises and to breathe freely. Keep a strong but relaxed pose as you perform the exercises.

Here’s an easy strength workout that uses your body as a gym, courtesy of Real Age.

1. Yo-Yo (Warm-up)
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and your knees slightly bent. Interweave your fingers and bring your hands and elbows up to shoulder height. Turn your palms out, so now you can see all your knuckles. Keeping your torso upright, slowly twist to the right and left, 10 times each side, to where it feels comfortable. Inhale going to one side, exhale back to the other.

2. Punching Bag (Strengthens arms and shoulders)
Lift your hands and elbows to shoulder height, make your hands into fists, and turn your knuckles facing away from you. Spin your hands around in a circle as far away from your chest as you can. Keep your shoulders relaxed, away from your ears. Do it 20 times clockwise, then 20 counterclockwise.

Advanced: Do an additional set in double time, balancing on your toes.

3. Praying Mantis (Strengthens arms, shoulders, chest, and back)
Bring your forearms flush together in front of you, with your hands together in prayer and elbows shoulder height. Your middle fingers should be in line with your elbows. Pulse 1 inch up and 1 inch down for 30 seconds.

Advanced: With your elbows glued together, clap 20 times while balancing on one leg; switch legs and clap 20 more times.

4. Titanic (Stretches chest, shoulders, and arms)
Bring your arms out to your sides, palms facing forward, 2 inches below your shoulders. Keeping your torso upright, stretch your hands out to the sides and back. Hold for 20 seconds. Breathe into your chest, as if it were one big balloon. For a deeper stretch, bend your wrists back and reach your fingers toward one another.

5. Flapper (Strengthens upper and lower back)
With knees slightly bent and feet together, bend at the waist and lean forward until your back is flat and as parallel to the floor as possible. (If you have a bad back, stay up higher.) Keeping your arms straight and your elbows unlocked, bring your arms out to the side, parallel to the ground. Pause, then lower them down. Do 40 times.

6. Hula Hoop (Opens hips and balances back)
Stand with your feet together and your hands on your waist. Relax your shoulders and circle your hips clockwise five times and counterclockwise five times, making the biggest circle you can.

7. Dream of Jeannie (Strengthens quads, abs, and shoulders)
While on your knees, cross your arms and elbows up like a genie. Keep a straight line from the top of your head to your knees. Lean back slightly and hold for 30 seconds. While pulling your navel in and squeezing your butt, take deep breaths.

Advanced: Lean back farther during this exercise.

8. All Ears (Stretches neck and trapezius)
Sit on your heels and place your palms under your butt (this prevents you from raising your shoulders during the stretch). Slightly drop your ear down to one shoulder, keeping your chin forward. Hold for 10 seconds and then switch sides. Do twice, lifting your chest up and taking deep breaths into the tightest area.

9. The Fire Hydrant (Strengthens butt and obliques)
Move onto all fours, with your back flat. Lift your right knee out to the side at hip height and lower it back down to the other knee. Lead with your knee and not your ankle. Do two sets of 20 lifts for each leg. If it feels more comfortable, you can do this exercise with your forearms on the ground and hands clasped.

And start walking — every day. Before you know it, you’ll be covering more ground in a little less time.

For more tips and health hints, browse Encouraging Health.

walking, health, body exercises, cardiovascular health

walking, health, body exercises, cardiovascular health