Exercise is Good For Your Brain

I sincerely plan on living into a ripe old age.  I see myself as a spunky old woman, maybe a bit on the eccentric side, refusing to wear old woman clothes and sensible shoes.  However, my plan does not involve early bird specials, reruns of Walker Texas Ranger, or boring word searches.  Rather my vision for old age sees me karate chopping unruly great-grandchildren and hiking the Appalachian Trail. 

One of the reasons for my interest (sometimes it could be labeled “obsession”) with health and fitness is my desire to grow old and still be active.  I don’t want to hobble around with joint pain or shortness of breath.  I want to flamboyantly blast through the doors of my senior years dancing and bending and twisting with ease.

But what good would it all be if I wasn’t in my right mind?

My grandmother recently passed away after 83 years of her own spunkiness.  While it was a severe infection that actually caused her death, she spent most of her last years as a healthy old woman.  She had no problems with arthritis or diabetes or heart disease.  But most days she couldn’t even remember her name.  She didn’t recognize her own children and she couldn’t remember to eat. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s disease.

My grandmother’s death has forced me to consider my own mortality.  I’ve questioned my desire to live a long, long healthy life.  Would it be merciful to die an early death and save myself the loss of my intellect and personality?

Thankfully there is something that effectively reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and it’s something I’m already doing.  It’s regular exercise.

That’s right.  Physical activity has benefits beyond heat health and a smoking body.  There is a mounting number of studies which suggests the more regular exercise that raises the heart rate inhibits Alzheimer's-like brain changes, slowing the development of key features of the disease.

Dr. Ronald Petersen, director of the Alzheimer's Research Center at the Mayo Clinic, said "Regular physical exercise is probably the best means we have of preventing Alzheimer's disease today, better than medications, better than intellectual activity, better than supplements and diet."

Add that to your list of reasons to get up of the couch and get moving.  If you’ve ever seen the effects of Alzheimer’s on a loved one, it’s enough to make want to run screaming in the opposite direction.  And that’s exactly what you should do.  Maybe minus the screaming part, it tends to freak out the neighbors.

Fit By Insanity

This past Saturday, June 19, Weighting on 40 hosted our very first public event, Fit by Insanity.  After all the talk, and blogging, and Facebook Status updates, our friends were curious, or maybe skeptical about just how insane Shaun T's Insanity program really is.  So we showed them.

Keith and I were joined by 14 of our local blog followers for the event, and some of them were even brave enough to join us in the workout.  We jumping-jacked, mummy-kicked, and level 1-drilled our way through Insanity's first workout, Cardio Plyometrics.  It was fun (if by fun I mean sadistically sweaty and hard on the calves). 

No one threw-up or passed out, so I'm calling the event a huge success.  Seriously, everyone did great, and now we all feel like camrades in arms.  You know, chummier since we all went through Hell and made it back to tell the story. 

You may be wondering why this particular event summary is being published in the "For Women" section of Weighting on 40.  That would be because only Keith was man enough (or should I say wo-man enough) to attempt this killer workout with us ladies.

Keith is da man!The rest of the men were happy to munch their chicken biscuits and watch the ladies burn calories.  (Yes, this actually happened.) 

So thanks to everyone who came out.  If you missed it, I promise it won't be our last event.  Keep your eyes open for more awesomely sweaty, fun, and fit events to come.

She may be hot and sweaty, but she's still smiling!

Do You Want Beautiful Skin?

It’s not a secret that exercise is good for our bodies.  If you don’t know that exercise helps with weight management you’ve probably been hiding under a rock for the past several decades.  Come on out into the sunshine!  And unless you’ve been residing beneath that boulder you probably have heard that exercise also reduces a person’s risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure.

If for some weird reason those weren’t enough reasons for you to get your tookus off the couch and get moving, here’s a new one:  exercise will make your skin more beautiful. 

I know this is the reason, the coup de grace of your sedentary lifestyle, the impetus to finally hit the gym with consistency.  With all of the billions of dollars women spend each year on cosmetics and other related skin care products, I know radiant skin is something the typical woman strives to achieve.  Who would have thought the key to beautiful skin lies in regular exercise?

When you exercise, the tiny arteries in your skin dilate which allows more blood and the nutrients it carries to reach the surface of the skin.  The increased flow of nutrients to the skin’s surface does some amazing things, including repairing sun damage, fighting free radical damage (which causes signs of aging like skin sagging), and increasing collagen production (decreasing the appearance of wrinkles).  So in basic terms, the increased blood flow caused by exercise helps your skin be smoother, firmer, and less ...well…old.

If you are exercising hard enough to work up a good sweat, you can think of exercise as a pampering facial.  A good sweat dilates the skin’s pores, and flushes out trapped dirt and oil. 

So pump it up ladies!  Increase the intensity of your workouts in order to really get a good sweat going.  It’s like a day at the spa for your skin.

Don't Deprive

The parking lot at the gym was jam packed this morning.  The cardio machines monopolized by a bunch of brand new faces.  The New Year's Resolution Makers are out in droves, bright-faced with the desire to lose weight and shed old habits.  It makes the gym seem like a three ring circus, bustling with activity. 

Unfortunately (or fortuantely, depending on your outlook), it won't last for long.  Most of those optimistic newborn, gym-goers just aren't in it for the long haul.  In fact, the average amount of time a New Year's resolution lasts is only 10 short days. (I heard that figure on the radio, so you KNOW it's true. :-/ ) 

That's because it's hard.  And often people make resolutions because that's what you're supposed to do this time of year, not because they are truly motivated to make lasting life changes.  Plus they go about the whole weightloss thing without solid guidance.  They starve themselves and feel like crap and then decide they were happier before the whole weightloss journey began.

Want to stick with it?  Try adding the adoption of good habits into your resolution list.  Instead of depriving yourself by resolving to "Eat less" or "Give up soda and cookies" try putting a positive spin to it.  Resolve to "drink at least 8 glasses of water each day" or "eat at least 5 servings of vegetables".  It just might provide the psychology you need to stick with the resolution beyond the craziness that is the gym in January. 

And as your new resolutions become good habits, add some more.  Drastic life changes are very hard to stick with long term.  Don't set yourself up for failure.  By adding good habits into your life, you'll be replacing bad ones.  Before you know it, you're on your way to a healthier you.

Pole Dancing For Fitness

A friend of mine recently posted this video on his Facebook page.  I believe his comment was, "Wow."

After watching the video that was exactly what I thought, too, though probably not for the same reason. 

Let's be perfectly honest, these women are BUFF.  The moves they perform require an incredible (and I mean INCREDIBLE) amount of upper body and core strength, serious flexibility and they do it all while wearing shoes that are anything but sensible.  I truly am in awe.

I'd never really thought much about what physical ability it must take to be a truly good pole dancer.  It's the kind of stuff usually left to the dank recesses of sleazy strip clubs.  That's not generally the place I go looking for athletes.  But these women are definitely athletes.

Thankfully for those of us not prone to the strip club scene, it seems that pole dancing is making it's way out of the hazy red light districts and into mainstream gyms and health clubs.  Pole dancing for fitness?  That's right.  Pole dancing as a fitness craze is gaining in popularity, and not just for nubile barely-legal women either, but for soccer moms and middle aged women, too.  They are heading to their local gyms (although not quite so scantily clad as the women in the above video) to get a good workout and maybe even feel a little sexy and sultry.

There are pole dancing fitness videos and instructors across the country.  Remeber KT Coates, the woman who made the bodybuilding championship finals just weeks after giving birth? Yup.  She's a pole dancing fitness instructor.  Pole dancing is one way she got rid of her pregnancy weight gain.

But wait!  Isn't this just a way to maintain the women as objects perspective that we women have fought so hard to conquer?  Women are not just sex objects to be ogled. 

There is one thing about pole dancing that you just can't deny.  Physically it is an awesome workout, building both strength and flexibility.  It's hard to deny that a pole could potentially get you in some pretty serious shape.  And just because you use a pole to help attain your fitness goals doesn't mean you have to flaunt your feminine wiles in high heels and a g-string. 

So what do you think?  Great workout opportunity or just another way sex creeps into every aspect of our culture?