Health and Fitness: Keeping Your Golden Years Golden, guest blogger Helen Hilton

As they approach retirement, many people choose to stop focusing on health and fitness, instead leading increasingly sedentary lifestyles. This is a grave mistake. Exercise and healthy eating can actually help to slow many of the effects of the aging process. As our God-given bodies begin to age many of us choose to accept and embrace this aging process, but many more struggle to accept their changing abilities and those extra aches and pains that they feel at the end of the day. The good news is that you can choose to minimize the effects of the aging process on your body and that it is much easier to achieve than you might think: Staying healthy and feeling your best is important as you age, and the two sure-fire ways to ensure that you remain as active and health as possible are to eat well and to exercise regularly:

Eat Well, Live Well

Healthy home grown fruits and vegetables should be at the heart of every meal you eat (the five a day rule has been in place for a long time and it continues to hold true), but there is more to eating well as a senior than simply maintaining the same healthy diet that you have enjoyed during your younger years. You should begin to opt for low fat dairy products in order to lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of hypertension. You should also avoid too much red meat, instead opting for plenty of low fat but protein rich chicken and fish instead. Finally, it’s important that you do remember to eat three healthy meals every day: as we age our appetites tend to get smaller, and whilst it is OK to eat smaller portions to suit your appetite, you should avoid skipping meals which can have a massively detrimental effect on your overall health and wellbeing.

Exercise and Repair Your Muscles

Exercise is important at any age, but it becomes increasingly important as we age. As well as benefiting our physical fitness and health levels, exercise can also improve how you feel mentally and emotionally, and generally contribute to your quality of life. As we age our physiology begins to change, leaving us with reduced muscle mass and weaker and more brittle bones. After the age of forty the metabolism also slows down, which can lead to weight gain. All of these factors combined serve to make exercise vital to the aging population. Exercise can improve your core strength, rebuild your muscle mass, and help you feel more supple and revitalized. The more you exercise now, the easier you will find it to continue having good mobility as you age. Despite this all being good, common sense, an incredible 78% of men and women over the age of 40 either don’t get an adequate amount of exercise or simply choose not to exercise at all. You only get one body, and it’s an important responsibility to take care of it to the best of your ability for the full length of your life.

Active Minds Lead to Active Lives

As well as ensuring that you take good care of your body, it is also essential to ensure that you take care of your mind and nourish your mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. Mental health issues and alcohol abuse are common problems that affect women of the baby boomer generation, though these issues are largely unreported by the press. The fact is that as they age their pace of life slows and for many women this can lead to a sadness brought on by an inability to cope with change. Depression also affects one in five seniors living within the United States: many older people are lonely and struggle to cope with their new position in society. It is therefore important to keep your mind as active as your body and remain active within your church and your wider community. As well as protecting your mental wellbeing, this proactivity can also help to keep dementia at bay and ensure you can continue to serve and support those around you.

Lifetime intellectual enrichment delays cognitive impairment

People who maintain high levels of intellectual stimulation throughout life may delay the onset of cognitive impairment by more than 8 years, according to a population-based study of 1718 cognitively normal individuals and 277 individuals with mild cognitive impairment aged 70-89years. The article appeared in the August 2014 issue of JAMA Neurology.

Mid- and late-life cognitive activity like reading, crafts, social activities and games improved cognitive performance.

Six ways to prepare to age well

Well, when I saw that heading, I said, “Too late.”  But these are good reminders published in Health Beat, Harvard Medical School.

1. Adapt your home. Stairs, baths, and kitchens can present hazards for older people. Even if you don't need to make changes now, do an annual safety review so you can make necessary updates if your needs change. [When we remodeled our bathrooms we put in taller base cabinets and “comfort height toilets. Some recent changes in the kitchen, although not sure those will make any difference.]

2. Prevent falls. Falls are a big deal for older people - they often result in fractures that can lead to disability, further health problems, or even death. Safety precautions are important, but so are exercises that can improve balance and strength. [I’m nagging my husband a lot about the ladder and yard work.  We have hired a service for our lake house. We’re both in exercise classes and balance and strength are part of the routine.]

3. Consider your housing options. You might consider investigating naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs). These neighborhoods and housing complexes aren't developed specifically to serve seniors - and, in fact, tend to host a mix of ages - but because they have plenty of coordinated care and support available, they are senior-friendly. [We’ve been living in a NORC since 2002 and love it. We wanted a one floor plan, but have 3, and so far it hasn’t been a problem.  The grounds are gorgeous, and the neighbors the best.]

4. Think ahead about how to get the help you may need. Meal preparation, transportation, home repair, housecleaning, and help with financial tasks such as paying bills might be hired out if you can afford it, or shared among friends and family. Elder services offered in your community might be another option. [I have some friends in their 90s, and am watching carefully. Elder services seem to be quite good in our area. The kitchen repainting was done by professionals this winter.]

5. Plan for emergencies. Who would you call in an emergency? Is there someone who can check in on you regularly? What would you do if you fell and couldn't reach the phone? Keep emergency numbers near each phone or on speed dial. Carry a cellphone (preferably with large buttons and a bright screen), or consider investing in some type of personal alarm system. [We recently got new phones; bigger numbers, but I still like phones with a little heft.  These feel like they’d break if dropped, and the sound quality isn’t that great. We aren’t in the habit of carry cell phones.]

6. Write advance care directives. Advance care directives, such as a living will, durable power of attorney for health care, or health care proxy, allow you to explain the type of medical care you want if you're too sick, confused, or injured to voice your wishes. Every adult should have these documents. [We’ve got the funeral/burial stuff purchased, and wills, and power of attorney, but best of all, our children live close buy.  A family is the best safety net.]

Five Steps to lower risk of Alzhemer's

5 steps to lower Alzheimer’s risk

While there are no surefire ways to prevent Alzheimer’s, by following the five steps below you may lower your risk for this disease — and enhance your overall health as well.

Maintain a healthy weight. Cut back on calories and increase physical activity if you need to shed some pounds.

Check your waistline. To accurately measure your waistline, use a tape measure around the narrowest portion of your waist (usually at the height of the navel and lowest rib). A National Institutes of Health panel recommends waist measurements of no more than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men.

Eat mindfully. Emphasize colorful, vitamin-packed vegetables and fruits; whole grains; protein sources such as fish, lean poultry, tofu, and beans and other legumes; plus healthy fats. Cut down on unnecessary calories from sweets, sodas, refined grains like white bread or white rice, unhealthy fats, fried and fast foods, and mindless snacking. Keep a close eye on portion sizes, too.

Exercise regularly. This simple step does great things for your body. Regular physical activity helps control weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol. Moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise (walking, swimming, biking, rowing) can also help chip away total body fat and abdominal fat over time. Aim for 2 1/2 to 5 hours weekly of brisk walking (at 4 mph). Or try a vigorous exercise like jogging (at 6 mph) for half that time.

Keep an eye on important health numbers. In addition to watching your weight and waistline, ask your doctor whether your cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, and blood sugar are within healthy ranges. Exercise, weight loss if needed, and medications (if necessary) can help keep these numbers on target.

Six things about vitamin D

A number of factors influence a person’s vitamin D levels. Here are six important ones.

1. Where you live. The further away from the Equator you live, the less vitamin D–producing UVB light reaches the earth’s surface during the winter. Residents of Boston, for example, make little if any of the vitamin from November through February. Short days and clothing that covers legs and arms also limit UVB exposure.

2. Air quality. Carbon particles in the air from the burning of fossil fuels, wood, and other materials scatter and absorb UVB rays, diminishing vitamin D production. In contrast, ozone absorbs UVB radiation, so pollution-caused holes in the ozone layer could end up enhancing vitamin D levels.

3. Use of sunscreen. Sunscreen prevents sunburn by blocking UVB light. Theoretically, that means sunscreen use lowers vitamin D levels. But as a practical matter, very few people put on enough sunscreen to block all UVB light, or they use sunscreen irregularly, so sunscreen’s effects on vitamin D might not be that important. An Australian study that’s often cited showed no difference in vitamin D between adults randomly assigned to use sunscreen one summer and those assigned a placebo cream.

4. Skin color. Melanin is the substance in skin that makes it dark. It “competes” for UVB with the substance in the skin that kick-starts the body’s vitamin D production. As a result, dark-skinned people tend to require more UVB exposure than light-skinned people to generate the same amount of vitamin D.

5. Weight. Body fat sops up vitamin D, so it’s been proposed that it might provide a vitamin D rainy-day fund: a source of the vitamin when intake is low or production is reduced. But studies have also shown that being obese is correlated with low vitamin D levels and that being overweight may affect the bioavailability of vitamin D.

6. Age. Compared with younger people, older people have lower levels of the substance in the skin that UVB light converts into the vitamin D precursor. There’s also experimental evidence that older people are less efficient vitamin D producers than younger people.

Don’t see a link, but this is on their e-mail newsletter. http://www.health.harvard.edu/

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/