Life Change Habits

I didn't care to work out on machines or wish to join a gym. I stumbled across a stretching workout while watching an exercise special on public television and decided to give it a try. Although I've always been a physically active person, I was looking for a way to build and maintain my upper body strength. Daily walking is great for cardio fitness, but it does not provide a full body workout. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy stretching was and soon I was doing it daily, with great benefit to my body and health. As we age, our bodies naturally lose mobility and flexibility unless we give ourselves a boost by regularly working all of our muscles. Low mobility and decreasing agility slows us down and makes it hard to do simple things such as reaching into a high cupboard, or even getting in and out of a car. Our posture starts to sag. But there is no need to accept these losses and just give on our youth and vitality. Miranda Esmonde-White, a Canadian dancer ...

Book Review: Aging Backwards: Reverse the Aging Process and Look 10 Years Younger in 30 Minutes a Day By Miranda Esmonde-White Aging Backwards , the most recent installment of Essentrics, is available both as a book and DVD series. Essentrics is a flowing, fluid routine that is similar to dance. I found it to be much more enjoyable than yoga, and noticed benefits to my body within days. There are four components to the Aging Backwards program that address various aspects of our physical needs: posture, pain-relief, mobility and bone-strengthening.  The gentle stretches of these exercises are age appropriate and suitable for persons of any level of physical activity to do safely at home. Like swimming or cross-country skiing, Essentrics utilizes and therefore strengthens all 650 muscles and 206 bones of the human body. The author, Miranda Esmonde-White, a Canadian dancer and fitness expert, has developed an amazing series of stretching workouts called that anyo...

Today looks to be another scorching, steamy day here in North Carolina. Usually I try to walk early in the morning, because the heat lasts into the evening. I walk almost every day if I can, or at the least try not to skip more than a day. I don't have a treadmill, and at this point I don't belong to a gym. Sometimes I walk and talk with a friend, but usually I go alone. Going on a walk gets my circulation going, clears my head, and relieves stress. Along the way I can admire the roses, listen to the cicadas, or hear the morning bird songs. When I lived in a noisy apartment building last year, walking was an important respite from barking dogs, loud music, and neighbors talking on the cell phone outside my window. Walking gets me out and away from the computer, telephone, and the tyranny of the urgent tasks of the day.