Fit at 50 and Beyond – Aches & Pains

You Are Officially Old Now!

Just 3 days ago I turned fifty. There were no sudden aches or pains nor did I suddenly get grey hair or lose my hair. Rather, those aches and pains and hair loss have been creeping up for many years now. What did happen on queue however was that my invitation to join AARP arrived in the mail, just hours after turning 50!

I am thankful that I still have very good health. I can run nearly 4 miles at a fairly good clip, even breaking into a sprint at times. What makes this good health so worthwhile is the fact that I can keep up with my kids and even play outdoor physical games with them.

In this last year, several close acquaintences have developed cancer. Also, one of my best friends passed on from Leukemia just a few years back. All of this makes me think I need to do all I can to keep up my immune system. It seems that cancer is just waiting to strike down many of us. Specifically, I am striving to get good nutrition, get plenty of exercise, try to sleep, and keep my stress down as much as possible.

I have heard it said that “the best doctor is the one inside yourself.” I think one could say something similar with respect to dieting. So many people are searching for the perfect diet. The South Beach Diet, The Atkins Diet, The Jenny Craig Diet, and about 100 other fad Diets . . . Are these the magic bullet? In my opinion they are not needed. I learned two things many years back concerning weight loss:

1. Weight loss is not as important as weight maintenance.
2. To maintain your weight, get enough exercise, especially after meals.

Why Is It Important To Exercise After Meals?
Many years back my wife was trying out the Hilton Head Metabolism Diet. Two features of this diet consist of exercise and a low fat diet. Specifically, according to the diet, exercise is to be done after meals in order to increase one’s metabolism. It is accepted medical fact according to Webmd.com and Mayoclinic.com, that exercise increases metabolism. And exercise that develops muscle, like weight lifting (or lifting heavy boxes in your garage), is even more beneficial. In fact, at Webmd.com they mention an “Afterburn Effect” of such muscular activity that can last for as much as 24 hours after the activity.

My Winter Exercise Plan!

What Types of Exercise Do I Do To Keep Weight Off?
The answer to this question is “Any!” Any type of activity will work. You can walk, jog, ride a bike, play catch with your kids, or work on a project. You should, however, try to work in some activities that develop muscle if you can on several days a week and try to do some aerobic type exercise like walking, biking, swimming, or jogging  on some days. Personally, I jog 3.75 miles every other day. And on the non-jogging days I will work on projects around the house for an hour or so after dinner that often involve lifting of some sort. One winter I cleaned and organized our incredibly cluttered storage shed – it took about 15 after-dinner 1-hour sessions! And truthfully, I don’t think I would have straightened it up any other way   Also, I reserve a fire wood pile for splitting in our cold winter months when physical activity is restricted, even though I could easily afford to buy a wood splitter and split it all in a day or two. The wood splitting is the ultimate in upper body muscle development!  So get active, and maybe clean up your garage while you are at it!

Of course, use good judgment before starting any exercise plan and consult a doctor if you have health or age-related concerns. For example, shoveling your walk after a heavy snow when you have a heart condition would not be a good idea.

But I Want To Lose Weight!
Losing weight is all about energy. As stated at Webmd.com, “… weight is dependent on the balance of total calories consumed versus total calories burned.” Burn up more energy than what is provided by your food intake and you will lose weight. I would suggest maintaining your current diet caloric intake (minus any fatty foods or excessive calories) and increasing or doubling your physical activity level. You will lose weight, since you are burning up more calories than you are taking in. And you will probably convert some fat (low density) to muscle (higher density) so even if you do not lose much weight, you will become trimmer.

More Tips
Get enough sleep. It is strongly suggested that sleep-deprived people tend to gain weight – see article at Medscape.com. It makes sense to me – When you are tired, you tend to not be physically active. Also, eat a balanced diet, avoiding excessive amounts of high fat foods and especially avoiding excessive amounts of  “empty calorie” foods like soda, candy, and snack cakes.

Yes, it is that simple! And the cost of this diet plan? Nothing, it is free. So get active, watch what you eat, and stay healthy and well rested.

Benefits of Keeping Physically Active
You will feel better. Much better! Personally, I feel bloated and all out of sorts if I can not get some sort of exercise on a daily basis. Often, I will not sleep well if I have not gotten some sort of exercise.  And personally, I would rather be able to take care of myself in my elder years instead of being a burden on my children – keeping fit will help achieve that goal. You can read about more benefits of exercise at Mayoclinic.com.  As an added note, upon receiving the results of my blood work done as part of my recent physical examination, my doctor recommended “Get 30 minutes aerobic exercise each day”. He also stated that he makes this recommendation to virtually every patient he sees.

Jogging and Sinus Problems

For that last 4 or 5 years, I have experienced mucus build up in my sinuses when I would go running.  Generally, it would manifest itself as a breathless condition, making it difficult to run on occasion. In addition, I would have mucus build up sometimes cause me to temporarily be unable to breath while sleeping.

About 6 months ago, I tried something new with my breathing while running: Instead of breathing in through my nose and exhaling out my mouth (like you are supposed to do), I started inhaling by mouth and exhaling out my nose. The result was that the mucus buildup has been virtually eliminated. And, I have been able to run at much higher levels.

In addition, I still have not had a cold for 13 months now. Part of this I attribute to my daily vitamin C that I take in almost religiously, but I think my new breathing technique could also be playing a part. It should be mentioned that besides getting 2-4 colds each year, I was also getting sinus infections almost once a year. It is very well possible that this avoidance of mucus buildup in my sinuses could be helpful in that regard.

With respect to winter jogging and running, I plan on breathing through a muffler over my mouth to preheat that air a little and exhale through my nose.  I run at temps down to -5 Deg F. We will see how that goes with this new way of inhaling and exhaling.

How To Start Jogging

If you are wondering how to start jogging, start by visiting your regular physician to get his or her recommendation. Then schedule times and days to jog and stick to it! You can’t jog one week, and then skip several. Generally, you will want to only jog every other day if you are over the age of 30. Your body needs a chance to rest and recover. Also, you need some good quality shoes. Go to a specialty shop like Athletes Foot to get a pair – plan on spending about $90. Other than that, you can jog any place there is roadway/sidewalk that is safe, or you can run laps at a health club or YMCA.

In the last few weeks I came to realize that I no longer had the occasional stiffness in the morning.  The stiffness I had was not a sciatica type pain, but rather just a stiffness without the typical sciatica pain and tingling down one side. See http://www.sciaticabackpainrelief.com/health/?cat=34

So what happened?  All I can think of is that I have not been sitting in my basement office chair for long periods like I was last year and even last summer. My work assignment was a special project that I worked on from home. Now, I am back at the office, commuting, sitting in my office chair, and also doing a fair amount of moving around and standing. So I go through a variety of sitting, standing, and walking motions rather than sit, sit, sit in the same chair. Actually, I believe I have read that it is a good idea to take breaks from constant sitting in the same position, so perhaps this new variety of movement and sitting position is helping.  As a side note, my running is going better than ever as well. I run 3.75 miles every other day at a pace of between 7 and 8 minutes a mile.

So if you are having back pain, try a variety of chairs, and take frequent breaks. It could prove to be quite helpful.

I had my last cold about a year ago. Contrast that with the 2-4 colds per year I would get in years past. What’s different? Vitamin C!

Each day about an hour or two after breakfast, I swig down about a 8-12 ounce glass of orange juice or other vitamin C-fortified fruit juice. To prevent too much acidity, I have one or two pieces of toast with the juice. Also, at this time, I will pop down my multivitamin for the day. Currently, I am taking Centrum Silver.

If I drink the juice first thing in the morning, I will sometimes get of an upset stomach. Waiting an hour or two after breakfast seems to help.

As I have mentioned before on my site SciaticaBackPainRelief.com, the reason I can drink juice at all now is because I no longer am popping the almost daily ibuprofen pills. Instead, I only take them for bad headaches – maybe 4-6 200 mg pills per week at the most. The decompression device I used was helpful in achieving this.  And now, I very rarely have any sciatica back pain, so I have not even been using this device for quite some time now.

Besides helping to prevent colds, Vitamin C

• Is an antioxidant needed for many bodily functions
• Is needed for repair of wounds
• Is needed for healthy gums
• Protects against infection and helps your immune system
• More benefits, as listed at HealthVitaminsGuide.com

As of the last 2 weeks or so (since my camping trip), I have been sleeping absolutely fantastic. Not only do I fall asleep easily and sleep well, but I am not waking up in the middle of the night for this or that like I often have done in the past. Also, in the last 2-3 weeks, I have been eating at least a cup of fresh green beans daily, along with another cup of cooked beans daily. We are growing a lot of green beans this year so we can freeze enough for the whole year. And as the kids and I pick the beans, I will eat a good cup or more fresh off the vine.

So what is in these beans? According to whfoods.com, green beans have Vitamin K, Vitamin C, Manganese, and Vitamin A in fairly large quantities, as well as a whole host of other nutrients. Furthermore, whfoods.com states that these vitamins are at optimum levels in beans that are uncooked.

Vitamin K, at least at this source, may possibly be linked to sleeping better. At any rate, fresh green beans provide an ample supply of a good variety of natural vitamins while resulting in very few calories added to your diet.

So grow some beans in your back yard or patio! Pole beans can be grown in a very small area with several hills providing enough fresh beans for all your needs. All you need to do is get a bag or two of compost from your home store that you mix into the ground or very large planters, sow about 6-12 pole bean seeds in each hill, water, and provide climbing poles or a trellis as the beans get larger.

Recently, I posted about lower back stiffness and pain on a camping trip. So much pain as to wake me at 4AM. It was very damp, and I was sleeping in a tent, all be it on a 4″ foam pad. And anti-inflammatory medications like ibuprofen did nothing. The next night or two at home, I had a similar, but much milder stiffness, not enough to prevent sleep. I tried the following:

Rubbed my back with Arbonne Herbal Muscle Massage Gel, which contains menthol, capsaicin (hot peppers), methyl salicylate and eucalyptus. This is basically Icy Hot with a hot pepper kick. (I don’t sell Arbonne by the way!)

Also, I used my Trueback for a few minutes. Read here about how I use the True Back decompression device.

The result was I had no stiffness at all for the next few days! And the next night, I slept 9 hours! (9 hours beats 5 any day)

So which helped? The back rub cream, or the Trueback? I suspect what I have going on here in my back is just simple old age stiffness (arthritic?) and the back rub cream is helping. But just to know, I will try the back rub cream alone and also try the Trueback alone the next time I get a stiff back in the morning – somehow I know that there are more stiff back mornings to come.

Went camping with the family two nights ago. We have a family size tent and I have a 4″ thick foam pad to sleep on. I fell asleep OK, but woke up at about 4:30AM with a pain/stiffness in my lower back. So I got up, took a long walk, and then (quietly) started a fire for coffee and pancakes for the rest.

The stiffness and soreness persisted, even after taking a few ibuprofens at about 9AM. So I am thinking this was not an inflammation pinching a nerve, but just simply some stiffness. It was extremely damp – dew was forming on the trees and falling off like rain. In fact, I thought it was raining while sleeping in the tent. Would the dampness cause this? At any rate, the stiffness went away by early afternoon, and last night I slept fine back at home.

Our friends camped in a pop-up camper in nice dry beds well off the ground. Now I know why.

I had a dream about having lower back pain last night! Weird, huh. And as you might guess, sure enough I had some lower back stiffness and light pain when I woke up. But, at least I slept nearly 8 hours before waking up.

I am not sure what caused this: I slept on my stomach, which is not a natural way for me to sleep. Also, however, I played several games of volleyball yesterday evening, going for broke as usual, so perhaps that was the cause.

At any rate, I do not believe that I could have slept through the night on a regular mattress. The 4″ foam/memory foam pad came through again! And I did not take any pain killers or ibuprofen today – the stiffness and pain quickly left on its own.

Get this pad if you can’t sleep. Seriously!

After several weeks of Arbonne Vitamin packs, I am feeling noticeably better. Less aches and pains in the morning and in general.  I can’t say I feel like I am 25 again, but perhaps it would be accurate to say that I feel like I am 45 again. The only drawback to these vitamins is the price – over $100 for a several month supply!

A friend of mine that worked in a health-related industry told me that Centrum Silver is a good vitamin for 50+ year olds. At $18 per 270 tablets (last I checked), I think I will give this a try when my Arbonne vitamins run out.

As a side note, my wife just completed a week of an “Arbonne Cleansing”, as it is called. She gave up sugar and caffeine, exercised, and drank this “cleansing tea”.  Seemed like a lot of smoke and mirrors to me, BUT her face cleared up completely. With no make up on, she had a completely clear complexion – my wife is naturally pretty and looks great without makeup and this morning, she looked like she was ready to go out on the town. So the Arbonne stuff works… if you can afford it!