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The Power of Purpose

I have Parkinson’s. I call it “accelerated aging” because it is a progressive neurologic disorder that simulates aging. On my bad days, I feel ten to twenty years older than I am.

For your information, a bad day, for me, has me struggle to get out of bed specifically having to focus all my energy on one arm and then the other arm to just move enough to get my bed cover off my body in hopes of coming up with a strategy to get out of bed and to the bathroom in time. I stressfully drive to the gym and at least show up to the one-hour fitness class. I put on boxing gloves to hit the bag and my arms don’t respond to what my mind is commanding that they do. But I show up. I then go home and walk around my house because I cannot find a comfortable place to sit. Medical marijuana allows me to sit, but makes work, household chores (if fact, almost everything) impossible. The term of art for this phenomenon is “off periods.”

What I can say is that, when I am doing something purposeful, I somehow am able to muster the strength and, yes, courage to get up on stage and provide inspiration to my audience. I love standing in front of a group and provide words of wisdom that help others to change their behavior. It is how I “make a difference.”

For example, I just traveled from Sarasota, Florida to Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday, attended a reception Tuesday night, attended breakfast with the Medical Science Liaison Society on Wednesday, did a 45 minute inspirational talk, attended much of the conference, enjoyed the Awards banquet, went out late with a group of attendees, went to be late, got up early on Thursday and travelled back to Florida. The thing is that I was on the whole time. I had my slower moments, but was able to summon the energy to stay engaged the whole time. I call it the “power of purpose.” It happens to me every time that I have an engagement. I also call it “staying engaged.”

By way of a second real-life example, last Tuesday, I flew to New York City, On Wednesday, I attended my father’s induction into the High School Athletics Hall of Fame. On Thursday, I was in the audience of the Wendy Williams Show, talk about the power of positivity waiting in line with some pumped up people at 7:00 am. On Friday, I took a train 2 hours each way to inspire about 100 individuals at the Mid-Hudson Parkinson’s Association. Finally, on Sunday, my wife and I threw her mother an 80th surprise birthday party. We flew back Tuesday and I was useless for several days. My point is that you can summon the energy to overcome anything for a finite period of time if it is in line with your purpose.

Stay Engaged. Fulfill your Purpose. Make a Difference. Have Faith.


John Baumann is a 17 year veteran of Parkinson’s who has demonstrated the desire and discipline to continue to have an amazing life. He exemplifies the word “resilience” starting out as an attorney, then, after getting the news that he has Parkinson’s, continuing to practice for ten more years while getting prepared to fulfill his lifelong dreams of teaching at a University, writing a book on success, and finding his life’s purpose as an inspirational speaker. John graduated from the University of Massachusetts and Cornell Law School. He worked for Exxon for 10 years before accepting the position of General Counsel of Steel Technologies. John was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2002 when he was 41 years old. Since being diagnosed, he has taught law at the University of Louisville, College of Business, written a book entitled, Decide Success: You Ain’t Dead Yet, and delivered over 100 keynote presentations.

Hormone Balancing Fitness for Women in Midlife

Before hormone balance can be a goal you need a clear definition of what it or hormone imbalance looks like! It’s never just hormones though is it? For the majority of women in midlife and beyond, there’s also a special condition, a joint issue, or a crazy schedule that also needs to be addressed.

If any of these describe you:

  • You’re putting on weight lately no matter what you do
  • You have belly fat even though you’re weight is OK
  • You have cellulite on your thighs, belly, bum, or on your upper arms
  • You can’t seem to develop any muscle tone in your legs
  • You’ve got a saggy bum in spite of so many lunges and squats you can’t sit down
  • You’ve turned up the exercise and eat carefully but still no results
  • You’ve got saggy chest and neck skin

Plus:

  • You have touchy joints from prior or current injuries
  • You have had breast cancer surgeries
  • You’ve had other invasive surgery or joint replacement
  • You have a chronic condition

And potentially:

  • You can’t sleep well
  • Even if you do sleep you don’t wake up refreshed
  • You have high levels of stress right now
  • You’ve tested your hormones and you’re “normal” but don’t feel it
  • You still don’t have any idea how to exercise “normal” or not
  • You have depression or anxiety
  • You’re taking medications for the above or other things with side effects
  • Your digestion is off (even if you thought that was “just me”): You don’t poo every day at least once (more is better); You have rabbits or pudding instead of snakes, You have gas or bloating you just tolerate

And finally:

What you used to do doesn’t work any more.

Then this is definitely for you… if you want to change. Changing is the obstacle for a significant percent of women that express interest in change. If you aren’t willing to change habits, change beliefs, change what you eat and when, change how you exercise and when, then this will just be another blog. No set of exercises, videos, menu plans will ever help until you decide you are 100% in.

Throw Away the Textbook

Exercise for hormone balance is not your textbook exercise. “I’ve never heard that before,” is not a good excuse to dismiss something as true. How many research studies did you read last week about menopause, hormones, and exercise? They’re at anyone’s fingertips in today’s world. So holding onto old ideas without researching for yourself or finding a voice you trust instead of going by an outdated text is irresponsible. A published textbook is outdated by the time it goes to print. Research in this area is accelerating. Get help and get up to speed on research on hormone balance.

Approximately 6000 women a day go into menopause right now. That’s 2 million a year. Yet, 39% of all sports medicine and exercise research features females at all. It’s safe to say a small slice of that focuses on women in perimenopause, menopause, and post menopause and the hormones that influence and are influenced by her exercise.

It’s time to change the way we prescribe exercise during the change. If a woman begins perimenopause in her mid 40s and lives to her mid 80s she spends 40 years in menopause. Shouldn’t we be optimizing exercise for this large population of currently 38 baby boomer women, 25 million Gen X women and coming soon, an even larger number of millennial women? Fitness is either going to open a new level of health for women, who ultimately influence 80% of household decisions including health, or fail miserably. Conventional exercise prescriptions contribute to hormone imbalance.

Your hormone balance exercise

Start lifting weights focused on major muscle groups. Even if you swear by functional movement patterns, insulin, cortisol, and the half dozen more hormones that influence her fat and health are key for reducing risk of disease. Even if you want to tone those arms, you want to start with major muscle groups. Even if you want a flat belly, start with major muscle groups. Stop long slow exercise sessions and long endurance activity.

Increase your protein at every meal and eat regularly. Get to bed early and make sure you control your environment. If you love your wine or nightcap, you’ll want to stop that. All of these things kill testosterone, a key hormone for building lean tissue and libido. Testosterone gives you a kick of confidence too also important for libido.

These are but a few scenarios of exercise changes you can make for more hormone balance. Each woman has a unique set of health history, physical status, signs and symptoms that make her unique.


Excerpt from the original blog post by Debra Atkinson for Flipping 50

Debra Atkinson is the #youstillgotitgirl who is flipping 50 and changing the way thousands of women think about their second half. She’s the host of the Flipping 50 TV Show and the Flipping 50 podcast. As a master personal trainer, strength and wellness coach with over 30 years fitness industry experience, she works with women who are pro-aging with vitality and energy. She is an international fitness presenter, author of hundreds of articles and multiple books. Visit her website, flippingfifty.com

grandchildren

The Power of Knowing Your Why

If you want to get fit or stay fit, you need a good motivator — a primary reason why you want to exercise, eat right, and live a healthy lifestyle.

I talk to people about this all the time. Active adults have powerful, compelling reasons why they lift weights, run, swim, take yoga, ride their bikes, and more. Here are just a few most often cited:

  • Playing with children/grandchildren
  • Reducing medication
  • Traveling
  • Sports and hobbies
  • Avoiding obesity, hypertension and falls
  • Social interaction
  • Better recovery from surgeries
  • Treatment of chronic conditions like Parkinson’s, diabetes and more
  • Being active without the risk of joint pain and hurting themselves
  • Do any of these strike a chord with you?

Any reason is a good reason. In fact, you don’t really even have to have one. Most people, however, need to remind themselves of what truly drives them to lead a healthy lifestyle. It can give you a boost when you’re not feeling motivated and it can guide your choices about how to spend your time and energy.

Knowing your deeper WHY leads to better results and a more vibrant life. Fully connecting with your why will motivate you to make better choices with how you eat and maintain your health. Many people are not aging well, but they are living longer, which means that their quality of life may be less than optimal. You have to ask yourself what’s more important to you right now. If you’re going to live a long life, you may as well live a healthy life.

Knowing your motivation is vital, but motivation can only get you so far. Your habits and daily routines are more powerful than motivation. Your motives for being healthy will help you get started on your goals, but your habits will get the results that you want. Think of it like this: You have to work regardless of whether you feel like it or not, right? You can apply the same reasoning with regards to your health. You must work towards good health and wellness regardless of how good or bad you’re feeling. When you discover the power of what good health, wellness and being fit can do for you, you’ll ask why you didn’t embark on your health journey sooner.

Bottom line, don’t let a lack of good health prevent you from living out your best years. Protect your brain health, improve your strength, lower your need for multiple medications. Good health leads to happiness and you deserve to happy. Find your motivation and strengthen your good habits as you eliminate the bad ones.


Ron Kusek is Transformational Wellness Coach & Holistic Chef. He is certified as a personal trainer through the National Strength & Conditioning Association, as well as holding certifications with the Institute of Transformational Nutrition as a Certified Transformational Nutrition Coach, and a Functional Aging Specialist with the Functional Aging Institute. Ron specializes in functional aging for mature adults; he runs a home-based wellness program for women 50+ called the Lean & Sexy Fitcamp. He’s working to change the lives of the community in the Antelope Valley in a positive, holistic way. 

apple-scale-weight-loss

To Weigh or Not to Weigh

Do you want to lose weight?

You might be asking should I weigh or not to weigh, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of knowing one’s outrageous weight, or to take arms against a sea of bulges by simply ignoring the scale and trying to eat less and exercise more. For some of us, the scale is a tool. For others, it’s the enemy.

So let’s say your plan is to lose 1lb a Week.

Some health and fitness professionals have made a compelling case for ignoring the scale, saying that measuring one’s percentage of body fat is the most accurate way to track one’s fitness level.

It indicates a healthy body composition, regardless of height and weight. I agree that you should know your body fat as a baseline for fitness.

Here are some body fat guidelines according to the American Council On Exercise

Body Fat Percentage for Women

  • Athlete: 14-20 percent
  • Fit: 21-24 percent
  • Average: 25-31 percent
  • Obese: > 32 percent

Body Fat Percentage for Men

  • Athlete: 6-13 percent
  • Fit: 14-17 percent
  • Average: 18-24 percent
  • Obese: > 25 percent

So why bother weighing yourself at all? When you’re trying to lose weight, it’s important to use any indication you can get that your efforts are paying off. It can take a couple of weeks before you see any difference in body fat. Your weight will change more quickly. Besides, there are relatively inexpensive scales that give you both your actual weight and your percentage of body fat.

My personal prejudice is to weigh yourself at least once every week or two. I do, and I find that facing my weight on a regular basis helps me stay motivated. Believe me, there have been times when I’ve dreaded getting on that scale. But I do it anyway because no matter what it says, I feel relief. I find it liberating. Why? Because now I know where I am and what I need to do next. It helps me maintain a healthy weight.

In my practice, I have helped hundreds of people lose weight. And many of them initially fight me about getting on the scale, and I understand this because I know that terror. Part of the process of losing weight is to prepare oneself to do it. If you are not psychologically ready to lose, stepping on the scale can be a real turnoff and actually deter you from losing weight. But once you’re ready, facing that number can jump-start your weight-loss program and keep you going.

I give my clients a baseline of their body fat percentage and get them to use the scale. Then we set up a diet and exercise plan. You can lose weight by diet alone. But dieting can reduce muscle mass along with fat. This becomes ever more important as we age. We can lose as much as 6 pounds of muscle tissue per decade as we age. And metabolism can slow down as much as 3 percent per decade. You can see that if left unchecked, you’re on a slow boat to obesity. Adding an exercise program may be all you need to turn this process around. Cardio exercise burns calories, and strength training raises your metabolism and builds lean muscle mass while you are losing. Losing about 1 percent body fat a month and one to two pounds a week is considered safe and realistic. Here’s the winning combination. Reduce calorie intake with diet, do cardio most days to burn calories, and strength train at least a couple of days a week to build muscle mass and increase metabolism.

So, I’ve made my case for using the scale as a tool, and I hope you’ll try it when you are ready. Regardless, to be or not to be at a healthy weight should not be in question.


Mirabai Holland MFA, EP-C, CHC is one of the foremost authorities is the health and fitness industry. Her customer top rated exercise videos for Age-Onset health issues like Osteoporosis, Arthritis, Heart Disease, Diabetes & more are available at www.mirabaiholland.com. Mirabai also offers one-on-on Health Coaching on Skype or Phone. Contact her at askmirabai@movingfree.com.