Protein is the building blocks of your body. When your body goes through the stress of exercise protein is there to rebuild your muscles and make them stronger. It’s unfortunate that protein has been categorized as the nutrient you need if you are going into body building or power lifting. These competitors do need to consume vastly more protein than the average individual, but even older adults that are 60+ should put more focus on consuming more protein. Someone that is active with any sort of training should consume close to their body weight in grams of protein. Protein also makes you feel full and helps you to stay feeling full. In other words, your meals will likely be smaller and you will be less likely to snack before your next meal. We’re going to learn what we can about protein so that we can easily work it into our regular meals.

Benefits for weight loss

Carbohydrates have been demonized as the weight gain macronutrient. When someone says they want to lose weight most people suggest stop eating carbs. But what about everything else? Fortunately increasing your protein will likely decrease the amount of carbs you’re eating. I’m not promoting the Atkins diet, but consuming more protein will most likely help with losing weight.

I already mentioned the satiety effect that eating more protein has on our bodies. Have you ever tried to eat just a giant steak? It’s tough, and carbs in comparison tend to go down much easier. Also digesting and breaking down the protein into amino acids to be used to rebuild what has been broken down has been shown to take a good amount of energy as well. Meaning, you will be burning some of the Calories that you just took in to break down the protein into pieces that your body can actually use.

Benefits for Strength gains

Have you ever worked out for a long period of time and stopped seeing results? Your weight has stopped dropping and the work outs have felt the same time and time again. You kind of expect those dumbbells to start to feel a little lighter but you are still struggling to finish your sets. Protein is likely one of the solutions to this problem. Without enough protein your body doesn’t have the building blocks to help it adapt to your training.

The human body does an amazing job at adapting. The more physical stress that we put on it the stronger that it becomes. But if we don’t provide it with the right nutrients then it will not develop. Remember our body only wants to survive and it will do what it takes to survive. If you train hard and eat lots of food, then your body understands that food is plentiful and it doesn’t need to worry about calories coming in. If you train hard and don’t eat enough food, then your body thinks that food is scarce and it won’t build stronger muscles. Stronger bigger muscles take more calories to maintain so your body will naturally avoid creating a deficit that isn’t needed.

Have you ever finished a workout and you haven’t fully recovered from that workout until days later? Everyone gets a little of the muscle soreness especially after your very first day of strength training. However, I’m talking more about how you feel a little lethargic, maybe some slight muscles soreness, and maybe you jumped into another workout just a little too early and you’re quickly fatigued. Everyone recovers at different rates, but a little more protein can help with recovery. Your body needs a minimal amount just to survive and fix what needs to be fixed. But, your body is going to need a little extra protein in order to build more muscle and maintain it too. With a faster recovery you will be able to hit the “get back to training” feeling the same or better than before.

So how do you get more protein?

Honestly, figuring out how to get more protein into your diet is slightly difficult at first. To start, understand how much protein you are already consuming. To do this I suggest tracking your food intake for just a few days. There are some great user-friendly apps out there like Myfitnesspal that allow you to input all this data with ease. These apps may seem overwhelming at first, but once you get the hang of it everything becomes much easier.

If you have a scale I would recommend weighing some of the food just to get started. Once you understand how much one chicken thigh weighs or your normal steak then you can start to estimate your weights from there. But you need to first gain and understanding of how much protein you are already consuming. This will allow you to see where the holes are in your diet, and where you can possibly squeeze in a little more protein. Feel free to weigh the other components of your meal as well just to see how many carbs and fats you are consuming as well.

Dosage

So how much protein should you eat? The number that I’ve seen float around is 50 grams. If you are purely sedentary, or just have an extremely difficult time getting any sort of activity in then yes that number may work. However, for the individual that is active and especially doing any sort of resistance exercises then this is wrong. The studies have shown that consuming close to your body weight in grams per pound is the optimal consumption for muscle growth.

The recommended intake of 50 g is extremely low for many people and doesn’t take into account the person’s weight or training protocol they are doing. I would recommend that you take a look at how you train and evaluate how much protein you need to consume. If majority of your workout consists of walking or cardio type exercise then you don’t need to consume as much protein. If you are doing a good amount of resistance exercise or strength training then I would recommend that you consume closer to your body weight in grams of protein. If you are overweight then I wouldn’t recommend that you consume 400 grams of protein, but I would still aim for something above 100 grams. Check out the chart I made at the end of this article for a breakdown of the protein content of different foods.

The best way for you to consume your protein is through whole minimally processed foods. In other words you typically want to consume your meats at home as opposed to eating out. If you are vegan then diligently consuming your beans, legumes, and other plant based protein sources. The plant-based meats like Beyond Meat can be ok but keep in mind that it is a processed food. Just because it is vegan doesn’t mean that it is healthy. Processed vegan food is still unhealthy.

I understand that sometimes eating this much protein can be a chore. When you actually see and try to eat that much food it can be overwhelming. This is where supplements can come into play. I only recommend supplements when you can’t get your nutrients through food. A protein shake is a great way to help you reach your targeted protein goal. Trust me these shakes have come a long way and some of them are freaking delicious! There are vegan or plant-based protein shakes as well out there, and I would highly recommend a protein shake for vegans. You can get enough protein from natural sources, but the digestive distress that comes with consuming foods that are so dense in fiber and nutrients is difficult to deal with.

Go Eat!

I hope I didn’t overwhelm you with information on protein. I understand that this can be a difficult concept for anyone to understand. This can be equally as difficult to incorporate into your daily life. Take it slow and keep it simple. Since protein can help with weight loss and building strength the addition of protein is likely aligned with your goals. Don’t forget that this is something I would recommend for you seniors to do. As soon as you are able to master this concept it will have massive benefits for your health. Don’t get discouraged if you can’t hit your protein goal in the first week. Keep trying, and even a little more protein can take you a long way. Once you start to feel the difference you won’t be able to stop.

The post How More Protein Can Have Huge Benefits for Seniors appeared first on The Super Senior.

Don’t get me wrong, our bodies need some sort of stress in order to adapt. However, too much at one time and too frequently then our bodies will compensate by inhibiting other processes to survive. Doing too much at once is something you need to watch for especially as an active older adult. So what can we possibly be doing that is setting you back? There are a few crucial variables that are inhibiting your progress. Your sleep/recovery, diet, overtraining, and programming are likely the culprits to why you are stuck in a plateau.

Sleep/recovery

The body can typically take the stress that we place upon it, but it needs time to recover. If you aren’t getting good sleep, or enough, then your body doesn’t have the chance to rebuild and become stronger. Sleep will be most of your recovery from the last workout which means a lot of the inflammation will be worked out of your body as well. Now if you are retired then you may be thinking that there’s no way that you aren’t getting enough sleep. Don’t forget that you might not be getting good quality sleep too. Going to sleep, and staying asleep, can be a difficult process if you don’t approach it correctly.

Sleep is easily the most important factor to pay attention to. I have run into too many people that say they workout 1-3 hours every day. More is not always better. You cannot exercise your hardest every single day. It is not sustainable and your body is going to struggle to figure out how to change itself to survive all this stress. You can’t sit there and do absolutely nothing either.

Active recovery days are highly recommended, especially if you are the type to HAVE to do something every day. These are the days that you take it easy and you focus on other aspects of your health instead of just training as hard as you can. Some examples are light cardio, stretching, meditation, yoga, and mobility. Spending a day to help recover your body will also help to prep it for the next workout, therefore letting you hit the weights in a more optimal state.

How can you improve your ability to sleep? Start with trying to go to sleep about the same time every day. Your body will naturally adjust and get used to the timing of when it is time to start winding down for bed. This will naturally help your circadian rhythm which is our body’s natural response to waking up when the sun comes up, and going to sleep when the sun goes down. Don’t worry about the time you sleep, just ensure that you stay consistent. Lowering artificial light exposure will also help with your circadian rhythm. Inside lights and screens can tell your body that it is still daytime and to stay awake, so limiting this exposure close to bedtime will help your body wind down. Finally, have a good hygiene routine to get started for bed. The action of getting cleaned up alone will tell your body it is time to sleep, but feeling clean and comfortable will also help to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Diet

Diet is probably one of the most misunderstood aspects of your fitness. I most recently helped a lady in her 60’s to figure out how she picked up so much weight and why it won’t come off. Her diet consisted of a smoothie for breakfast and one meal for dinner. Her meal was a tiny piece of steak, a quarter of a sweet potato, and some broccoli. She also claimed that she exercised about 3 hours every day. She didn’t believe me when I said she is eating far too little for how active she is. She started eating a little more every day and she started to lose weight. Amazing how you can lose weight by eating more food!

Protein is the main thing that I told her that she needs to increase. I could go on and on about the benefits of eating protein (it will probably get its own article) but let us stick to the basics. Your muscles need that protein in order to repair and grow. Without consuming enough protein your body won’t have what it needs to repair the damage from a workout, which means it will take longer to recover.

Most people vastly under-consume protein. I suggest taking the time to track your meals for a little while to get a good grasp of how much you’re actually consuming. If you are strength training and are really trying to make some gains then you should be aiming for about 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. This is how you make strength gains and possibly lose body fat as well (depending on your training age). If eating more is difficult for you then try protein shakes between meals. For the record, there are vegan options for shakes as well.

Overtraining

I already mentioned earlier that more is not always better. A lot of people expect that the more they workout the faster progress they will make. Sorry to say that there is a point where the more you do actually stops your progress and will even reverse it. Overtraining is a real concept and can do a great deal of damage to your body.

How do you know if you are in a state of overtraining? The most noticeable aspects of overtraining are disrupted sleep (we’ve come full circle haven’t we), feeling weak, and lethargic. There are other less noticeable symptoms such as brittle bones. Remember that your body wants to survive so it will do what it takes in order to survive. So we need to listen to our bodies sometimes in order to understand exactly what it needs. If you are feeling weak and lethargic it probably needs the rest and recovery.

What can you do to determine whether or not you have been overtraining? Take a week off. If you feel a need to work out go outside and go for a nice brisk walk. After a week of relaxation and doing anything that you want that brings you happiness come back to your training and pay attention to how you feel. Does your workout feel easier? Can you suddenly push more weight easier than before? There’s a good chance that you were in a state of overtraining. This leads us into my last point.

Programming

Proper programming can play a big role in how your body adapts to the exercise. Too much can overwhelm your body, and too little will mean your body doesn’t adapt at all. The bigger thing you need to really hone in on is your priorities and goals. The workout program that you follow to become an Olympic body builder, and the one you follow to have a functional body are completely different. Take a good look at your goals and what exactly you want out of the workout to determine what you need to do. There’s a solid chance that you don’t have to push yourself nearly as hard as you might think.

For example, a workout program that makes you considerably healthier, gives you longevity, and allows you to play with grandkids without getting too tired would consist of equal parts of cardio and strength. Your cardio would range anywhere from a brisk walk to light runs. Your strength training would be a basic squat, bridge, push up, and row in order to hit each muscle of the body. Adding a little resistance to this exercises makes them even more functional. You don’t need to squat 300 lbs.6, a thousand burpees, or do some sprint training on a max inclined treadmill in order to be functional. A free standing full depth squat with a 45lb bar would likely make a very functional body. The person that can do this squat for 10 reps for 3 sets, and has done this for a decade would be exceptionally strong.  You would have an incredibly functional body compared to the person that hasn’t touched a weight.

It’s all connected

You see how bad programming, can cause overtraining, which can disrupt your ability to sleep. Overtraining can cause lethargy which will likely lower your motivation to workout. Your diet can mean that you don’t recover well from workouts, which means that forcing yourself will likely lead to overtraining. Everything comes full circle which means these are all things you need to watch out for to keep your training progressing. So how do you help correct all these variables?

Take the one thing you feel that you can do the most easily and make a healthy change there. Work on only one aspect at a time. Everything at once is always too much for anyone to handle. So find that one change in your journey for a healthy lifestyle and make that small adjustment. Throw a little more protein into your meals, take a protein shake between meals, change your workout, or maybe perfect your hygiene routine before bed. Any baby step will lead to more baby steps, and before you know it you will be running.

The post Avoid the Frustrations of Plateaus and Keep Progressing appeared first on The Super Senior.

The initial problem with resolutions is actually the resolution itself. We have an incredibly vague idea of the thing we want to accomplish. But how do you get there? If you walked into a bank and told them that you want a million dollars to start a business, what do you think they would ask? What’s the business? Are you selling products or services? “I have no plan just give me the money I’ll figure it out”. We can all agree that you probably won’t get the money, because you don’t have a business plan. You can’t expect to reach a goal with no plan. To conquer your resolution you need to create specific goals and have a clear cut path to reach those goals. It’s also best to write everything down so that you have a solid reminder of your path. Let’s dive in!

SMART

SMART stands for specific, measureable, attainable, relevant, and time. It’s highly possible that you have heard this mnemonic before, but I’m going to dive a little deeper. This is just a start to creating the path to a successful resolution. So let us first understand what makes a goal SMART.

Specific – Your goal needs to be more specific. “I want to lose weight” is far too vague to be considered a goal. If you were one pound lighter at the end of the year would it have been successful? Probably not. Creating a specific goal of losing 40 pounds by the end of the year has a clear goal with an obvious end result.

The goal of 40 pounds also makes it Measurable. You can clearly see whether or not you are making progress towards that goal. If you are managing to drop a pound a week then you can see the progress on the scale to get to your goal weight.

Just because it’s specific and measurable it also needs to be Attainable. Goals that are far too ambitious have much higher chances of failing. I’m not challenging your will power and it shouldn’t take that much will power to work towards your goal. You will eventually get burned out and revert back to the old habits, because that’s your comfort zone. You might want to lose 100 pounds by the end of the year, but is that attainable? That breaks down to about 8 pounds a month, or 2 pounds a week.

Losing 2 pounds a week sounds doable, and if you do fall into the obese category then it starts off even easier. However, is this goal actually Relevant to your real goal? You probably want to lose weight because you are overweight. But is it the way you look, or is it all the afflictions that come with being overweight? Just because you lost weight that doesn’t make you healthier.

Finally, you need to have some sort of Time frame to complete your goal. It would be best to break down a goal to create multiple time frames that would result in your end goal. So losing 40 pounds for the year would break down to about 3-4 pounds a month. So you could say that you are trying to lose about a pound a week in order to reach your goal. Now that you have a better idea of creating your resolution let us discuss creating an even SMART-ER goal.

The SMART-ER GOAL

My expertise is in health and fitness so I’m going to stick with the goal of becoming healthier. It would do everyone a great deal of justice to drop the idea of losing weight. Honestly you just want to become a healthier person, right? You want to get rid of all the afflictions that come with being overweight. You typically have high cholesterol, difficulty breathing, low stamina, high blood pressure, back pain, and a difficult time just completing daily tasks. In other words you want to create a healthy lifestyle that allows you to be free of medications and to move about your daily life without worry. So stop looking at the scale and let us focus on changing your lifestyle.

I want to first reiterate why the typical resolution fails. “My resolution is to lose weight. I’m going to start eating healthy, waking up early, and going to the gym 5 days a week.” Can you define eating healthier? Why do you plan to wake up earlier, and how early is early? What kind of workouts do you plan to do at the gym? There are so many holes with a resolution like this, but the biggest thing is that you are completely changing everything you have probably done your entire life in one day. It is far too ambitious for any human being to accomplish. So what should you do?

Start Small

Create a small list of about five aspects of your life you want to change to become healthier. Pick only one. Now write out a plan of how you are going to incorporate this new habit into your life. Also determine a time frame in which you would feel fully confident that it is now fully ingrained into your habits.

For example, you absolutely love soda and tend to drink at least 5 cans a day. You create a goal to drink only 2 cans a day at home, but allow yourself to still have a cup or 2 if you go out to eat. After 2 weeks this has become easy and enough and try to go down to just 1 can a day and still allow some at restaurants. After 2 more weeks, you are confident on replacing all your consumption at home to sparkling water and regular water. You’ve compromised by allowing soda when you go out to eat. See how each step has led to a much healthier lifestyle?

I can’t move on without an example if getting exercise. You determine that with the way your life is laid out you are willing to dedicate 20 minutes 3 days a week to exercise. You don’t want to go to a gym so you start with a 20 minute walk. After the first walk you feel that 20 minutes is too much. So you break it up to 10 minute walks after lunch and dinner. This is much easier and extremely doable for you. After 2 weeks you are starting to enjoy the benefits of the walk and add an additional 1-2 days. After 2 more weeks you try another 20 minute walk and find it is much easier than the first time. You decide to retry the original dedication of 20 minutes 3 days a week. You not only accomplish this for 2 weeks, but took it a step higher by still getting some 10 minute walks after meals. You decide to take it a step further and go for 30 minute walks 3 days a week. After these 8 weeks you have lost 6 pounds, your stamina has improved, and you feel more energized.

You know yourself the best. Just because you read and hear everything that works or that you are supposed to be doing, you know your starting line and the first step you are willing to take.

Build your resolution

As you have seen, one ultimate goal is really a bunch of little goals that build up to the real thing. So let’s take the goal of losing 40 pounds and rebuild it with a different mindset. We are going to lose 40 pounds by developing healthier habits to take care of our one and only body. We are going to achieve this by implementing a new habit every month which gives us 12 brand new habits for our new healthy lifestyle. Each month we will write down 5 habits we want to work on and pick the one we feel the most confident incorporating for that month. You aren’t going to check the scale to see your progress. Instead, you will keep track of how well you are adhering to the new habits that you set for yourself each month.

This is how you should break down your resolution so that you have a specific plan laid out to achieve your goal. Without creating the path to follow you will be walking through the forest in circles only to find yourself back where you started. Trust the process! There are two tools at your disposal that can help you along the way.

Write it down

Writing everything down not only gets it out of your head and into the real world, but it also makes it much more tangible. Writing down your goals and your plans has been shown to help people adhere to their plans. It also serves as a constant reminder of the goals you have put into place.

Don’t just write down your goals and your path that you are creating, but keep track too. Marking down each day that you successfully completed your new habit is absolutely gratifying. This daily instant gratification will help to keep pushing you forward on your journey. You can physically see the progress that you are making and be proud of how well you have done to reach that resolution. I have a FREE printable tracker available at the end of this post.

Accountability

Having someone to help hold you accountable for your actions is also a massive help. Having a close friend or family member to help you on this journey is like having a cheerleader just for you. Time always flies by a lot quicker when you have to drive a long distance when someone else is there with you. This can be someone to just check in with you to make sure you are sticking to the habits. It can also be someone that shares the same goal, so you both hold each other accountable thereby creating a collective effort. You can always pay someone too, like a trainer, to check in and even help you create the next habit you would like to work on. This is another reason why so many people fail to stick to their healthy journey. Having someone there to cheer you on and celebrate those small wins is an amazing feeling.

Step by Step Summary

1. Create a clear and specific resolution
2. Write it down
3. Take a good long look at yourself and your history so you can be aware of what works for you
4. Break down the resolution into smaller more manageable goals
5. Write everything down
6. Find the first habit that you have full confidence you accomplish
7. Find your accountability partner to keep you in check
8. Give yourself 1-4 weeks to implement the new habit before moving onto the next one
9. Trust the process and keep moving forward

You are not a failure if you can’t follow with what you set out to do. You have decades of habits that you are trying to change, so it’s only natural some habits resistant to change. All it means is that that change was a bit too challenging to implement into your life at that moment. Take a deep breath, find something else to work on, and try again at a later time. You are not a failure, you just weren’t quite ready for it. That’s all! After you get a few wins with some other changes then revisit to try again. Or regress the change like I did in my example of starting to exercise. So Happy New Year! Go get’em tiger!

The post How to Actually Conquer Your New Year’s Resolution appeared first on The Super Senior.

We often focus a lot on the list of things we are supposed to do to be healthy. We think that just because we are doing everything on this list that we should be the epitome of healthy. However, we often forget what we feel on the inside. Stress plays such a huge role in our health and it can take many different forms. For example, we can put so much emphasis on our health that it stresses us out. Stress can cause unnecessary inflammation, make our hormones go crazy, and cause a myriad of other issues that typically afflict older adults. We need to lower our stress levels by focusing on our happiness and loving ourselves and our body. Shifting our focus allows us to be more at peace with ourselves which makes us healthier without even realizing it.

You might be stressed and not realize it

Stress has become a normal part of our life in some way, shape, or form. The drive we often have to get ahead causes us to stretch ourselves incredibly thin. I always find myself in this type of situation. Even as I write this article it is almost eleven o’clock at night, I work part-time as a valet, part-time as a personal trainer at a YMCA, part-time as a Realtor, and I have 2 kids at home under 5 years old. I’m doing everything I can to get ahead and create a future or legacy to leave behind for my kids. We find this drive in ourselves and keep moving forward without realizing the stress that we put on ourselves.

Our minds are crazy and it always finds a way to drive us crazy. We have thousands of thoughts a day that is normally a mixture of both positive and negative thoughts. However, we have a tendency to focus on the negative. The negative is what gets all the attention these days, and when it bombards us from every angle we can’t help but think about it. There are events from our past that sometimes pop back into our thoughts for no reason as well. We can suddenly miss loved ones that we lost earlier in life. We start to focus on all the negative thoughts and how we wish we could change things, regrets that we may have, or events that we could have done differently. There are so many ways that we stress ourselves out and we don’t even realize that we’re doing it. So what does this stress do to our body?

The Effects of Stress

When we are constantly under a state of stress our bodies will respond accordingly. The most common response to stress is the fight or flight system. Our hormones are one of the biggest variables that messes with our body. Hormones are the signaling cells of our body. They tell us whether we are hungry, full, absorb or release water, and whether or not we need to uptake glucose into our system for energy. You can see that if our hormones aren’t working properly then our bodies won’t work efficiently.

The effects of stress is something that is sometimes so common that we can’t recognize it as symptoms of being under stress. You see how stress effects the hormones of our body so it’s only natural that we will have symptoms. Decreased sleep quality is probably one of the most important symptoms of stress. Bad sleep really sets us up for failure for the rest of the day. The obvious effect of a bad night of sleep is feeling tired. Our inhibitions go out the window when we feel tired. Every drive that we have to make conscious decisions is put on the back burner and we lose sight of our priorities. We start turning to food for comfort (normally not healthy options) and doing less activity to preserve our strength. Instead of exercising or doing chores around the house we decide to binge watch something off Netflix instead. You can see how this can suddenly spiral out of control. It’s unfortunate that the symptoms of stress can cause more stress.

Stress also decreases your immune system, headaches, gastrointestinal distress, lethargy, depression, aches and pains. These are just some of the symptoms that one can experience when you are constantly under stress. Now I’m not saying that there aren’t other factors that can contribute too many of these symptoms. If you have any concerns then absolutely go see a doctor, but don’t forget to look at yourself and determine if maybe your stress levels have been too high for too long.

How to lower Stress

We need to first find the main source of your stress. Without finding the problem it will be difficult to come up with a solution. This is where we need to dig deeper and heighten our self-awareness to really find the issue. For example, you start really noticing the normal symptoms of stress and try to take a look at your day to day life. Nothing appears to be out of the ordinary. You have a similar routine every single day. All your close relationships give you joy, no one in your immediate family is sick, and you are retired so there is no work to stress you out. What can be the problem? You have had a stubborn 10 pounds that you desperately want to see gone. The result has been an extremely strict diet, and you go to the gym a full 7 days a week. Your obsession with losing this 10 pounds has created dysfunctional “healthy” habits. This obsession has now created an immense amount of stress on your mind and body.

Meditation

Meditation and breathing are going to be your best friends in terms of immediately removing some stress. The breathe work that you practice helps to slow down the heart rate, relax your body, and clear your mind. Meditation can sound a little ridiculous at times. Honestly, I never imagined myself such a big fan of this exercise. I was not a believer until I opened myself up to try new things.

I am not proficient enough at meditation to do it on my own. I need guidance and instructions from an app to follow and help put me into the zone. But when I do meditation I always feel a sense of relief when the session is over. My body always feels lighter, my brain is clearer, and the relaxation helps me sleep better at night.

You can find guided meditations just about anywhere even on Youtube. There are some apps that charge a monthly fee like Calm. Personally I like Deep Meditate, because the free version has good sleep meditations, and the paid version isn’t nearly as expensive as the other apps.

Love yourself to change your perspective

I can’t say it enough, your mind is powerful. When we change our mindset or our perspective we change the way that we view everything. It’s a difficult concept to explain so let us just go over a couple examples. “I have to lose weight to look better” compared to “I only have one body so I want to take care of it”. “I ate like shit so now I have to punish myself by going to the gym” compared to “I had an amazing time with my family”. This second example shows how your focus and your priorities can create stress. If you attend a family event and you feel that you are getting fat by just looking at the food or menu then you need to change your mindset. Unless you are training and getting ready to compete in a bodybuilding or physique competition then you have no reason to think like this.  Food and exercise should not cause you stress. The fact that you want to work out and eat healthy is to take care of your body. You understand that if you take care of your body then you will live a longer life free of medications and walkers. You can live your life fully independent so that you can do what you want to do without limitations.

The way you can do this is by loving yourself. The simple fact is that we will never be perfect in our own eyes. We will always find something that we feel that we need to work on. The more that you hate your belly fat, the wings off your arms, or your double chin the more you feel the need to punish yourself to look better. So we need to switch our mindset so that we are happy with our body and accept exercise as a tool that has many health benefits. The less that we focus on punishing ourselves to look better, and switch to taking care of ourselves for longevity we reduce the stress of “I HAVE TO GET TO THE GYM TODAY”. Life always throws us curveballs and we can’t always plan each day perfectly. With the wrong mindset you will give up your workout and your diet if the day doesn’t go as planned. With a healthy mindset you will still get a quick walk and maybe some light dumbbell work at home for 30 minutes, and still make healthier decisions for dinner.

Actively Reduce Stress

Stress is a silent killer. By taking the steps to reduce your stress levels you become much healthier without working out. Depending on how much and the type of stress that afflicts you will determine how actively you need to combat that stress. Some of us might need to utilize these techniques multiple times a day, and some might need to use them only when we feel we need to. Either way we need to become more self-aware of how we feel and our perspectives regularly. The more self-aware we are of our thoughts the more we can control what stresses us out and take actions to prevent or lower the stress.

The post The #1 Secret That Effects Your Health (Not Your Diet or Exercise) appeared first on The Super Senior.

There are thousands of exercises and you can get a workout from doing all of them. However, some exercises definitely rank above others. The best exercises to start with should mimic daily activities that we all experience. This also means that the exercise should work more muscles than just one. There are not a lot of situations where you will have to bicep curl something throughout the day. So, the best exercises to start with are the sit-to-stand, bridge, wall push up, row, arm circles, and suitcase carry. This workout will work the entire body to help lay the foundation for a fully functional body.

Sit to Stand

This will be the first exercise that you begin that will get you to full blown squats. The sit-to-stand will be a great exercise to start building the legs. With your legs being your main mode of transportation, it would be best to keep them strong. Remember, walking is great, but your legs will still lose some strength year after year unless you start doing some strength training. So, keep your legs strong and never lose the ability to get up from the floor or couch.

Technique

Starting position:

• Stand in front of a chair or anything that you can sit on. If it’s too low then try something a little higher such as maybe your bed.
• Place your feet about shoulder width apart. Play around with the feet position, because some people will feel better with the feet wider or narrower.

Movement

• Begin by pushing your hips backward and pushing your knees outward. You do not want to bend at the knees first because it will put a lot of forward pressure on the knee. Pushing the knees outward will help to strengthen your glutes and the outside leg muscles.
• Feel free to raise your hands in front of you to help with the balance.
• Maintain a flat back. Try to not overextend your back to the point that there is a visible arch.
• Continue the downward motion slow and controlled until your butt touches the chair. Then feel free to lean back into a full sitting position.
• Start the upward motion by leaning forward with a flat back until you feel tension in your glutes. This should be about the same position as when you sat down.
• Push your feet into the ground and push the hips forward to return to the starting position.

Tips

• Keep the knees driving outward will typically help with knee pain if you experience any.
• Take a big breath and brace the core on the way down and maintain a nice slow exhale as you go back up.

Bridge

Our butts are one of the most powerful muscles that we have in our bodies. They are also one of the most neglected muscles. The main action of our glutes is hip extension which basically helps us stay upright. A stronger butt definitely adds to our stability as a whole. You will feel a massive difference in your ability to walk and your overall movement will improve with a stronger butt.

Technique

Starting Position

• Start by lying on the ground with your knees bent so that your feet are about a foot away from your butt.
• Your feet should be about shoulder width apart.
• Allow your arms to lay comfortably at your side

Movement

• Begin by pulling your bellybutton in.  Imagine bringing your bellybutton to your spine
• Push through the feet and drive your hips up to the ceiling.
• Squeeze everything at the top for at least one second before dropping the hips back to the starting position.

Tips

• You should feel this in your butt, but if you do not try to move your feet out a little wider.
• Your back should not be arching too much. Really focus on just your hips moving to the ceiling.

Wall Push ups

Let us start building the chest. This is another big muscle that needs to be developed. As a senior this muscle will be essential to catching yourself if you happen to fall. You also want to keep the ability to be able to push yourself off the ground. This is the first exercise to begin developing that strong chest. If the wall is too easy then feel free to use a counter. The goal is to keep using lower and lower surfaces until you are down on the ground.

Technique

Starting position

• Stand only a couple feet away from a wall. Basically, you should still be leaning slightly towards the wall with your arms fully extended
• Place your hands on the wall so that they are about shoulder height and a little outside shoulder width.

Movement

• Pull your shoulders back and down. Imagine putting your shoulders in your back pocket. This will ensure most of the tension is put into your chest. MAINTAIN YOUR SHOULDERS IN THIS POSITION THROUGHOUT THE EXERCISE.
• Bend the elbows until your forehead is about to hit the wall. Let your upper arm drop slightly so that your elbows can come backwards. Do not let your elbows flare out so that it looks like a chicken wing.
• Push against the wall until you return to the starting position.

Tips

• Really focus on the elbows coming back instead of out to the side. This protects the shoulder, puts more focus on the chest, and lets you work more of the range-of-motion of the chest.

Rows

Time to work on your back! Building a strong back is always the focus of my training. We focus so intently on all the things in front of us that we forget what is behind us. A strong back will have one obvious benefit, and that is improve our posture. Our back plays more of a role than most would think. Anytime that you are pulling something or holding something that is relatively heavy you are using your back muscles. Maintaining posture while doing daily tasks, and carrying heavy items is the epitome of functionality.

Technique

Starting Position

• Stand in the middle of a doorway. Standing a little behind the doorway will be easier and standing a little in front will be a little harder.
• Place your hands on the door jamb that’s slightly below nipple height and get a good comfortable grip.

Movement

• Lean backwards until your arms are at full extension. Please watch your feet and use proper footwear if necessary, so that you do not slip.
• From full extension pull yourself back to the starting position. Imagine there is a string on your elbow and that string is pulling your elbow back as you return to the starting position.

Arm Circles

Your shoulders can move through the largest range-of-motion in comparison to any other joint. This also means that it is the most prone to injury. We can protect these joints by strengthening all the muscles around it. Now there are a lot of muscles that move your shoulder through its entire ROM which means there are a lot of muscles to strengthen.

Technique

This exercise is relatively simple and self-explanatory. You can perform this exercise from a standing or sitting position. Stick your arms straight out to the side and begin making circles with your arms. You will be doing small, medium, and large circles both forward and backward. Each circle will be slow and controlled so that you can feel the different muscles really start to burn. The large circles will be the most important to perform slowly, specifically the back half of the circle. Really pull your muscles into the furthest ROM possible. You should only feel the burn from the exercise and some discomfort from pulling into a new ROM. IF YOU FEEL PAIN STOP!

Suitcase Carry

This last exercise is really a bonus. The ability to walk while carrying a load will give you huge improvements on your functional movement. If you can walk while carrying a load then normal walking will just become so much easier. Now this exercise will challenge your ability to keep good perfect posture walking while carrying a heavy load on one side. This will challenge your core and stability throughout your entire body to counterbalance the load on one side. Use some sort of bag with a good stable comfortable handle. I’d say a plastic bag or any sort of grocery bag probably won’t work, because the bag can break and the handle probably won’t be very comfortable to hold for a long period of time. The weight should be on the heavier side. You do not want it so light that you can barely feel the weight, and you do not want it so heavy that you have a hard time stabilizing the weight. Play around and find a weight that is heavier and you can walk with good control.

Technique

• From a normal standing position, bend over and pick up your chosen weight in one hand. Make sure you brace your core, maintain a flat back, and use your legs to pick up the weight. Even if the weight seems like something easy to handle take the extra precaution. We often hurt ourselves over the stupidest reasons.
• Put your shoulders in your back pocket and maintain that stability.
• Walk slowly and move as smoothly as possible. Your body should not sway and your head should maintain the same height.
• Walk a short distance, drop the weight, pick it up with the other hand, and repeat.

Programming this workout

You can do this workout 1-3 times a week. If you do this work out more than once a week then allow for 1-2 days of rest or recovery between workouts. Try aiming for one set of 8-12 repetitions (reps) of each exercise. Start with one set and as you get stronger start trying to work in 2-3 sets. Progressive overload is the only way to get stronger. Keep everything slow and controlled so that you really focus on the technique of the exercise. If you rush the exercise you will increase your chances of getting hurt. Also make sure that you pull that bellybutton in to brace and stabilize your core to further protect yourself.

You will hit the legs, chest, back, shoulders, and core with this full body work out. This will be one of the best ways to build a strong foundation for your body. Even as an older adult you can build a solid body that is fully functional and ready to take on the stresses of the day (or year this is the year 2020).

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The post Top 4 Strength Exercises for Beginner Active Older Adults (From Home) appeared first on The Super Senior.

The number on the scale is not a good measure of how healthy you are or how good you look. The fitness industry and influencers have pushed how you can lose all this weight and make a “3-month transformation”, but that doesn’t mean you will be any healthier. By shifting your focus away from the scale, you can obtain all your ambitions of being healthier as well as lose some of the weight. By following and improving in these 5 steps you can without a doubt obtain everything and then some.

1. Resistance training
2. Yoga/Meditation
3. Eat whole minimally processed foods
4. Find what is sustainable for you
5. Focus on performance

Step #1 Resistance training

Resistance training or weight training has been shown to have huge benefits on the body. Building strength is something that is essential to any workout routine. Building a stronger body has been proven time and time again to be more beneficial than cardio. Don’t get me wrong cardio is essential too because of its benefits on the cardiovascular system. However, one key aspect of people that only utilize cardio as their main form of exercise is a decrease in muscular strength. Implementing at least one strength workout a week can have some major benefits for your body. Your joints will become stronger and more stable, and many other tasks will be much easier to do.

Step #2 Yoga/Meditation

I go over a lot of different benefits of doing yoga in another article. If you’d like to dive deeper into that topic then go ahead and click this link. Yoga and the meditation aspect of yoga will help your body in more ways than one. Yoga itself will help to build strength, stability, and mobility. You will be able to move pain-free in bigger ranges of motion which will allow you to feel better and healthier. Your body’s alignment and your posture will improve a great deal which will also help to unlock more strength and mobility by just getting your bones and joints into the positions that they’re supposed to be in.

The meditation aspect helps with your heart rate and your stress levels. You must have felt it at some point in your life. When your stress starts getting too high then your body reacts accordingly. You can feel sick, lethargic, and it can affect your mood for everything else leading to more stress. I remember this feeling during a difficult physics test. During the test I suddenly felt sick, my nose started running, and I started to feel hot. As soon as the test was over and I was outside I suddenly felt so much better I couldn’t understand how my symptoms just vanished. Meditation can help lower your levels of stress which will increase your levels of happiness and gratitude. This is almost like a secret fix to feeling better and healthier without even working out.

Step #3 Eat whole minimally processed foods

Dieting isn’t as complicated as it might seem. You will see a plethora of different advertisements and commercialized products or diets that will speak specifically to you. The worst are the ones that advertise to a very specific portion of the population. “The best diet based on your genetic type” “The best diet if you are an endomorph” or “What you should eat if you’re a 53 year old female trying lose 3.75 pounds living in Las Vegas”. The last one might be a bit exaggerated but you get my point.

Eating to be healthy is simple. Eat whole minimally processed foods. What does this mean? The foods that you eat should resemble the way that it looked before you cooked it. Typically the healthiest meals that you will make are typically the most simple. However, the real moral to this story is to shop in the outside areas of the grocery store instead of the inside. Packaged foods will typically be more processed and contain ingredients that you can’t pronounce. They will also have more added sugars which can really help to pack on the pounds because your body will absorb it so easily. A banana or an apple in the morning will be much more beneficial compared to a Poptart.

Step #4 Find what is sustainable for you

As Mr. Miyagi would say, “The key is balance Danielsan”. Finding that balance in our life is what really allows us to be healthy for the long term. Exercising 7 days a week and eating chicken, rice, and broccoli every day is not sustainable. We only need to be conscious of our health most of the time. We are human beings, not robots, there is no way for us to do the same thing day in and day out without getting burned out. You need to enjoy yourself at family events, go get ice cream with your grandkids from time to time, and enjoy one of your favorite meals at your favorite restaurant. Chances are that these events will only occupy 20%-30% of your diet, but it will occupy 100% of your happiness. You do need to be conscious of your health but you also need to enjoy your life as well. Because if you aren’t enjoying the life then what are you trying to be healthy for?

Step#5 Focus on your performance

How do you feel? Do you feel more energized throughout the day? Do daily chores feel like they take less of a toll? Does the idea of getting up off the ground no longer stress you out? These are all questions that should be focus on your journey to becoming healthier. You can probably drop that 10 pounds pretty easily but it would likely change your answers to these questions. There are an infinite number of questions that you can ask yourself regarding your health and the key is to watch how you feel as you continue on your journey.

Maybe you didn’t lose the weight on the scale but your clothes feel looser. You needed assistance to stand up from a chair before, but now you can do perfect squats while holding a 20 pound weight. You feel more stable when you’re walking and don’t have to worry about falling. You started with being able to balance on one foot for only a few seconds at a time, but now you balance for a full minute on both sides. These are accomplishments that are worth achieving.

The Number on the Scale is NOT the Full Picture

By following this guide you will see major improvements in your health. DISCLAIMER: There is a good chance that your weight will not go down and it may even go up a little bit. However, after a year of following these general principles you will feel and move better than before. The number on the scale might not go down, but there is a good chance that your body fat percentage will drop which is more important. All other aspects of your health will likely improve which will allow you to navigate life with less trouble. My final point against the scale: when you see the number drop you feel great, but when that number goes up you feel like a failure. End the cycle. Focus on how amazing you feel and how much stronger you have become and STOP LOOKING AT THE SCALE!

The post Why you need to stop looking at the scale – shift your focus in 5 steps appeared first on The Super Senior.