It’s no secret that Americans love their pets. According to the Humane Society of the United States, 39 percent of households own at least one dog 33 percent own at least one cat, and many own multiples and/or other types. And then there are the people and families with working dogs and companion animals who give their human a better shot at a full life. Furry family members bring joy and excitement to a household, relieve stress and actually help people live healthier and longer. Providing the best care possible for your pets helps ensure pets have a long, healthy life… and cuts down on the vet bills.
Unfortunately, with so much information available, it’s easy to become confused about what is really best for them. Dr. Ashley Gallagher, veterinarian at Friendship Hospital For Animals, petMD, Dr. Karen Becker and JOMP shed some light on some of the most common pet myths.
Myth 1: If cats have nine lives, what do dogs have?
Cats’ curious nature and quick reaction times are likely the basis of the nine lives reputation, but in reality owners need to remember that both cats and dogs only have one life. That is why it’s important to schedule regular veterinary visits to ensure your pet has a long, healthy and happy one. If at all possible, going to the veterinarian shouldn't only be reserved for times when your pet is sick. Your pet needs annual wellness check-ups, vaccines, dental exams and nutritional consultations, just like humans do.
Myth 2: (All) Table scraps are OK.
Did you know that one ounce of cheddar cheese for a 20-pound dog is like a human eating more than one and a half chocolate bars? That same piece of cheese for a 10-pound cat is like eating almost three full chocolate bars! Table scraps are basically empty calories for cats and dogs, unless they are meat, fish or veggies (that they can and should eat). And definitely make sure that the table scraps and little sneaks never include any of the No-No foods.
Pets need balanced nutrition for their specific life stage and special needs to remain healthy. A good food like Hill’s Science Diet or Royal Canin is great as a staple because it gives them nutrients that they might be missing and it is always good for emergencies if your pets well-rounded eaters. But the best regular diet is either a raw-food diet (not right for all pets) or home-cooked balanced meals for your pets. And make sure that your dogs are getting some bones in their diet.
Remember… in the wild they would be eating raw foods and up until a couple decades ago, when some big companies realized they could make money from making and selling commercial pet food, regardless of their nutritional value… commercial pet food, like commercial baby food and formula and convenience foods for humans, was born… none of which are best choice for animals, babies or humans. There are also some great natural supplements, like StemPet and StemEquine around for pets.
Myth 3: Dogs wag their tail when they are happy.
Dogs wag their tail for many reasons; the most common is that they are either happy or nervous. Cats will also wag or flick their tail when they are upset or thinking. Pets communicate via complex body language rather than vocal expression like humans. Learning to read what your pet is telling you will go a long way in helping to build a fulfilling relationship. Ask your veterinarian for advice if you feel stuck learning your pet’s body language cues.
Myth 4: Letting my dog out in the yard is enough exercise.
Dogs and cats both need plenty of physical activity and mental stimulation to stay healthy. If you just leave your dog out in the yard alone they might not get much of either. It’s important to take them for walks, play fetch or simply run around together. Not only will it make for a happier, healthier dog, but it will also help to strengthen your relationship. Cats should be kept indoors for their safety, but there are plenty of toys that work their brains and their bodies at the same time. Some people even take their cats for a walk on a leash. Visit your local pet store to find some toys that fit the bill.
Each pet is unique, so ongoing care, including precisely balanced nutrition, regular wellness visits to the vet and daily play periods are all good things that keep your pet healthy and living well for many years to come.
Research into brain plasticity has proven that your brain continues to make new neurons throughout life in response to mental activity, which means that cognitive function can be improved, regardless of your age, and cognitive decline can be reversed
A key factor or ingredient necessary for improving brain function or reversing functional decline is the seriousness of purpose with which you engage in a task. In other words, the task must be important to you, or somehow meaningful or interesting
There are computer-based brain fitness programs designed to help improve cognitive function in six different areas in about 40 hours, and can be used by any age group
To optimize your brain fitness, the following lifestyle factors can help: daily physical exercise, focusing on your body movements and your environment, engaging in new learning throughout your life, staying socially active, and practicing “mindfulness”
How Innate ‘Plasticity’ of Your Brain Allows You to Improve Cognitive Performance and Prevent Age-Related Decline
It was once thought that any brain function lost was irretrievable. Today, research into what's referred to as "brain plasticity" has proven that this is not the case. On the contrary, your brain continues to make new neurons throughout life in response to mental activity.
Aside from toxicity, our modern lifestyle plays a part in cognitive decline, as described by Dr. Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus at the University of California, who has pioneered research in brain plasticity for more than 30 years.
He founded Scientific Learning Corporation in Oakland, California, and Posit Science in San Francisco; both specialize in science research into brain training software.
Dr. Merzenich's career arose from an interest in philosophy, and a fascination with the nature and origin of the human persona and individuality, and how brain processes might account for the evolution of our individual abilities. He believed that in those who have learning disabilities or develop psychiatric illnesses, the natural progressions of these brain processes must have encountered errors.
Use It or Lose It — the Principles of Brain Plasticity
The inherent plasticity of the brain was discovered some 30 years ago, and not long thereafter, animal models demonstrated that brain deterioration and aging were in fact reversible, provided the appropriate brain engagement. Dr. Merzenich describes brain plasticity as follows:
"The basic concept is simple. The brain changes physically, functionally, and chemically, as you acquire any ability or skill. You know this instinctively. Something must be changing as your abilities improve, or as new abilities emerge. You are actually remodeling your brain machinery by 'practicing' the skill; those physical changes account for your learning.
Actually what the brain is doing is changing its local wiring, changing the details of how the machinery controlling your behavior is connected. It's also changing itself in other physical, chemical, and functional ways. Collectively, those changes account for the improvement or acquisition of any human ability.
You probably haven't realizd it, but as you acquire an ability – for example, the ability to read – you have actually created a system in the brain that does not exist, that's not in place, in the non-reader. It [the ability; the brain system that controls the ability] actually evolves in you as it has been acquired through experience or learning."
As Dr. Merzenich explains, your brain is designed and constructed to be stimulated and challenged, and to carefully examine, resolve and interpret your environment. During the early days of mankind's development, keeping track of the details of immediate human environments was imperative for survival.
Today, however, we tend to try to remove ourselves from the details of life. For example, instead of keeping track of appointments and to-do lists in our head, we use electronic gadgets with reminder features. Our streets are paved and lit, requiring virtually no attention to navigate from one location to another. And if you don't sufficiently challenge your brain with new, surprising information, it eventually begins to deteriorate.
"Generally, by the third or fourth decade in life, you're in decline," Dr. Merzenich says. "One of the things that happens across this period is that you go from a period of the acquisition of abilities to largely using abilities that have been acquired earlier in life. By that I mean to say, most of the fundamental skills that you apply in your profession or in your everyday life are things you have mastered at a young age, and you're now doing them in 'automatic pilot' mode.
To a large extent, you're operating most of your day without really being consciously engaged in the things you're doing. You're substantially disengaged: 'sleepwalking through life.'
This inattention to detail is substantially a product of modern culture. Modern culture is all about minimizing environmental challenges and surprises... about enabling brainless stereotypy in our basic actions so that our brains can be engaged at more abstract levels of operations. We're no longer interested in the details of things in our world. Because our brains are highly dependent in their functional operations in recording information in detail, they slowly deteriorate. Without that recorded detail, memory and brain speed are compromised."
Contributing Factors to Cognitive Decline, and How to Counteract it
With age, brain researchers have found that there's an increase in "chatter" in your brain. Dr. Merzenich explains:
"Your brain becomes less precise in how it's resolving information as you're operating and listening in language, as you're operating in vision, or as you're operating in controlling your actions. We actually record these 'noisier' processes within the brain as you age. In fact, we can correlate the growing 'chatter' quite directly with the slowing down of your processing.
You know, every older person is slower in their actions, slower in their decisions, and less fluent in their operations than when they're younger. They're slower because the brain basically is dealing with information that is represented in its machinery in a fuzzier, more degraded form."
What research into brain plasticity shows us is that by providing your brain with appropriate stimulation, you can counteract this degeneration. A key factor or ingredient necessary for improving brain function or reversing functional decline is the seriousness of purpose with which you engage in a task. In other words, the task must be important to you, or somehow meaningful or interesting — it must hold your attention. Rote memorization of nonsensical or unimportant items or even heavy work at non-challenging tasks will not stimulate your brain to create new connections or neurons.
Dr. Merzenich has been instrumental in the development of a kind of "brain gym" environment — a computer-based brain training program that can help you sharpen a range of skills, from reading and comprehension to improved memorization and more. The program is called Brain HQ.1
"There are some very useful exercises at www.BrainHQ.com that are free, and using them can give a person a better understanding of how exercising your brain can drive it in a rejuvenating direction. Using exercises at BrainHQ, most people, of any age, can drive sharp improvements in brain speed and accuracy, and thereby rewire the brain so that it again represents information in detail," he says.
"Basically, what you're doing is reducing the chatter -- the 'noisiness' -- of the processes in your brain. That impacts your capacity, for example, to record and remember that information. When the information the brain is shipping around in its machinery is in a degraded form, when it's fuzzy, when it's imprecise, all of the uses that it makes of it are also degraded. When you rejuvenate those elementary abilities, you significantly recover your 'higher' brain powers."
Who Can Benefit from a "Brain Gym"?
Everybody's brain is plastic, including yours, so no matter what your age or current level of brain function, your brain can improve to some degree or another. Dr. Merzenich and his colleagues have specialized in training children, primarily those with learning disabilities or impairments, using similar approaches. More than 4 million struggling kids have been trained so far. But seniors and adults of all ages are also using these programs at BrainHQ.com in increasing numbers. Individuals in all age groups have been found to reap significant rewards.
Children operating in the 10th to 20th percentile of academic performance are commonly able to improve their scores to the middle or average level with 20-30 hours of intensive computer-based training.
"That's a big difference for the child," he says. "It carries most children who are near the bottom of the class, on the average, to be somewhere in the middle or above average in the class. And that gives struggling children a chance to really succeed and in many cases excel in school."
Careful controlled studies in seniors have also been reported in scientific journals. After 40 hours of computer-based training, the average improvement in cognitive performance across the board was 14 years. On average, if you were 70 years old when you underwent the training after 40 hours of brain training, your cognitive abilities operated like that of a 56-year old. Equally strong or even greater effects were seen in 40 to 50 year olds using the program. Individuals who worked on the BrainHQ exercises at home did just as well as those who completed training in a clinic or research center.
How to Implement a Brain Training Program
So, how does such a training program work, and what's the optimal way to implement it in order to maximize the benefits?
"One of the great advantages that we have is that there's a very large body of scientific information that informs us about the optimum brain training approach," Dr. Merzenich says. "It comes from understanding, on a scientific level, the basis of what controls brain change. We know how the machine operates to control its own remodeling. We know that you have to be engaged attentively, and in a sense that the more attentively focused you are on the training tasks, the greater the positive benefits of training.
We know that rewards have to occur, or information or feedback about how you're doing have to occur, in a specific and timely way to drive the optimum changes in the brain. The way difficulties change in the task are also crucial for driving changes with highest proficiency.
One simple thing we do is to [continually] adjust the difficulty level of the task, so that every trainee is at a level in which they get most things correct but they're still capable of error. Because only when you're in this demanding situation, only when it matters to the brain, does the machinery turn on to change the brain. We actually regulate this, and as the person progresses session by session, day by day, they notch up their performance to higher and higher and higher and higher and higher levels."
Ideally, it would be wise to invest at least 20 minutes a day. But no more than five to seven minutes is to be spent on a specific task. When you spend longer amounts of time on a task, the benefits weaken. According to Dr. Merzenich, the primary benefits occur in the first five or six minutes of the task.
You can typically improve yourself to the highest practical or possible level in anywhere between five to a dozen brief sessions of seven or eight minutes each. Again, having a sense of purpose is crucial.
"When it matters to you, you are going to drive changes in your brain," he explains. "That's something always to keep in mind. If what you're doing seems senseless, meaningless, if it does not matter to you, then you're gaining less from it."
Dr. Merzenich developed a website, Brain HQ.com, to help take advantage of the brain's ability to repair.The Brain HQ website has many different exercises designed to improve brain function and it also allows you to track and monitor your progress over time. While there are many similar sites on the web, Brain HQ is one of the oldest and most widely used, and its programs are supported by dozens of published science studies and the most complete confirmation of behavioral benefits and brain rejuvenation.
How Your Daily Lifestyle Can Improve Your Brain Function
Aside from engaging in a computer-based brain exercise program, Dr. Merzenich lists several things you can do on a daily basis, as part of your day-to-day lifestyle, to help maintain optimal brain fitness:
Get 15-30 minutes of physical exercise each day, and when exercising, think about using your brain to control your actions. That means, skip the iPod and instead take in the details of your environment.
"Reconstruct the environment you're walking through in your mind. Basically, we are constructed to take in the details of our physical environments, and to interpret and reconstruct them. That's a critical form of exercise for us basically to refine our navigational skills and abilities in this sense – to basically look at the landmarks, to look at the details, to record them in detail," he says.
Secondly, look for and take note of surprises in your environment. "If you walk across the landscape and are paying attention, you cannot take a walk for 15, 20, or 30 minutes without being surprised or delighted many times," he says. "And the brain loves surprises, because surprises mean that they must be engaged to interpret what they mean."
Lastly, pay attention to your physical body. "You should feel yourself again. When's the last time you actually thought about the feelings of your body in motion?"
Spend about five minutes every day working on the refinement of a specific, small domain of your physical body. Dr. Merzenich explains:
"That is to say, move in a very variable and controlled way – variable in speed, variable to reach a target, for example, with your big toe or your little finger or the small of your back or the motion of your jaw. Pick a specific refinement target to work on, every day. I do that in a systematic way, because I'm trying to maintain the fidelity of the neurological control movement. I know that I'm very much thinking about the feeling in my movements as I do that."
Find ways to engage yourself in new learning as a continuous aspect of your life, such as taking on new hobbies or learning new skills.
Stay socially engaged.
Practice "mindfulness," in which you're attentively focusing on the world around you again, as if you're seeing it for the first time.
"Look at the wonder in the flower. Look with curiosity again at the movements of the lizard. Engage in the details of the world and in life. Associate what you hear with what you feel on your skin," he suggests. "It's incredibly important that you engage the brain and all of its details of how it's drinking in information, because this again relates to the fidelity with which it will represent it for all of its operations."
Nutrition and Brain Health
Another factor that cannot be overlooked is your diet. Foods have an immense impact on your brain, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan will best support your mental and physical health. Just like exercise, avoiding sugar (particularly fructose) and grains will help normalize your insulin levels.
This is an important aspect, as sugar causes chronic inflammation that disrupts your body's normal immune function and can wreak havoc on your brain. But sugar also suppresses BDNF, which is important for proper memory function, and appears to play a significant role in depression as well. At least we know that BDNF levels tend to be critically low in people with depression, and some animal models have suggested low BDNF levels may actually be causative.
The medical literature is also showing that coconut oil can be of particular benefit for brain health, and anecdotal evidence suggests it could be very beneficial in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Ketone bodies have been found to feed your brain and prevent brain atrophy. It may even restore and renew neuron and nerve function in your brain after damage has set in. Ketones are what your body produces when it converts fat (as opposed to glucose) into energy, and a primary source of ketone bodies are the medium chain triglycerides (MCT) found in coconut oil. Other dietary recommendations to preserve and improve your brain health include the following:
Take a high-quality animal-based omega-3 fat. I recommend consuming high quality krill oil to meet the optimal amount of omega-3 fats needed to achieve good health and fight cognitive decline.
Avoid processed foods and sugars, especially fructose – Excessive sugar and grain consumption are the driving factors behind insulin resistance, and the strategies that protect your brain are very similar to those for avoiding diabetes. There is simply no question that insulin resistance is one of the most pervasive influences on brain damage, as it contributes massively to inflammation, which will prematurely degenerate your brain.
Ideally, you'll want to restrict your total fructose consumption to below 25 grams a day. This includes refraining from eating too many fruits, if you normally eat a lot of them. If you consume more than 25 grams a day of fructose you can damage your cells by creating insulin and leptin resistance and raising your uric acid levels.
Avoid grains – Even whole, organic grains will convert to sugar in your body and spike your insulin levels.
Avoid artificial sweeteners – Aspartame, for example, is an excitotoxin that can literally destroy your brain cells. There are many studies showing the dangers of aspartame. For example, one study published in 2000 found that aspartame shortens the memory response, impairs memory retention and damages hypothalamic neurons in mice.
Avoid soy – Unfermented soy products are another common food that should be avoided if you want to maintain healthy brain function.
One well-designed epidemiological study linked tofu consumption with exaggerated brain aging. Men who ate tofu at least twice weekly had more cognitive impairment, compared with those who rarely or never ate the soybean curd, and their cognitive test results were about equivalent to what they would have been if they were five years older than their current age. What's more, higher midlife tofu consumption was also associated with low brain weight. Shrinkage does occur naturally with age, but for the men who had consumed more tofu showed an exaggeration of the usual patterns you typically see in aging.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel has written an excellent book, The Whole Soy Story, which covers the health dangers of soy in great depth and I highly recommend it to anyone still under the illusion that soy is a health food.
What do dark chocolate, casual Fridays, and graduating from high school have in common? According to research, they all improve your workout. Anneli Rufus on the secrets to good exercise.
1. People who exercise as little as 15 minutes a day have a 14 percent lower mortality risk than people who don't exercise at all. That statistic covers all causes of death, which translates at age 30 to a three-year increase in life expectancy. When it comes to cancer, those who work out 15 minutes daily are 10 percent less likely to die of it than those who don't exercise at all. Every additional 15 minutes of daily exercise reduces the all-cause mortality risk by another 4 percent and the cancer mortality risk by another 1 percent. "The best thing to do is to not get obese in the first place,"Biggest Loser contestant Phil Parham, who co-authored The 90-Day Fitness Challenge with his wife and co-contestant, Amy Parham, tells The Daily Beast. "Once you've been big and you lose weight, your body always wants to regain that weight, so you're continuing to fight all your life."
2. Exercisers can improve their performance by as much as 50 percent if they eat dark chocolate regularly. At least they can if they're mice. Researchers fed mice the flavonol epicatechin, a key ingredient in dark chocolate, then put them through two weeks of treadmill tests and observed "an integrated response that includes structural and metabolic changes in skeletal and cardiac muscles resulting in greater endurance capacity."
3. Men who exercise vigorously are only one third as likely to experience erectile dysfunction as men who exercise very little or not at all. According to the study that yielded this stat, men whose workout routines are the equivalent of running at least three hours a week or playing singles tennis at least five hours a week have a 30 percent lower ED risk than men who exercise very little or not at all. Ready, set, go.
4. Depressed people can alleviate their symptoms by as much as 47 percent with regular aerobic exercise. In one study, a group of depressed people who performed moderately intense aerobic exercises at least three times a week "experienced a decline in depressive symptoms by an average of 47 percent after 12 weeks." Another group of depressed people performed low-intensity aerobics at least three times weekly; their symptoms improved by 30 percent. "Exercise isn't just about working off energy. It's about turning on the brain," says Harvard psychiatry professor John Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. With regular exercise, "people become much more emotionally regulated, and their cognitive abilities are much better."
5. Three times as many college graduates as high-school dropouts exercise regularly. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 39 percent of adults with bachelor's degrees or higher engage in vigorous leisure-time physical activity three or more times a week, compared with 13 percent of adults with less than a high-school diploma. According to the same survey, 79 percent of high-school dropouts never engage in periods of vigorous leisure-time physical activity, compared with 41 percent of college grads.
6. Exercisers can improve their performance by as much as 15 percent if they listen to music while working out. In one study, treadmill walkers moving in time with music felt 15 percent more energetic—and less eager to get off the machine—than treadmill walkers who were not listening to music. According to the sports psychologists who produced this stat, "Music listening can be an effective dissociation strategy, reducing perceptions of effort and fatigue by up to 12 percent." Dancing makes moving in time with music into more of a party and less of a chore. "In some ways, dancing is the best exercise—it's really aerobic," Ratey says.
7. Waiters and waitresses walk twice as much as lawyers and police officers do on an average working day. But servers walk only about half as much on an average working day as mail carriers, and about 75 percent as much as janitors. According to researchers with the American Council on Exercise, who highly recommend the use of pedometers, mail carriers walk about eight miles per day, janitors walk just over five, restaurant servers walk four, and cops and lawyers walk about two. According to the ACE study, secretaries walk the least, at 1.7 miles.
John Porcari and Reem Ekhwan, "Do You Do 10K a Day?" American Council on Exercise, Fitness Matters, 2007, 12 (4).
8. Six percent more men than women exercise regularly. And women are bigger couch potatoes than men. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 60 percent of women in the United States "never engage in periods of vigorous leisure-time physical activity lasting ten minutes or more per week." For men, that figure is 50 percent. Who in the United States does engage in at least 10 minutes of vigorous leisure-time activity per week? Only 31 percent of men and 25 percent of women.
9. Workers increase their physical activity by 8 percent and burn 25 more calories on casual-clothing workdays than on workdays when they wear regular office attire. Who needs suits? "Wearing casual clothing every day for 50 weeks of work would translate into burning an additional 125 calories per week or 6,250 calories per year—the equivalent of almost two pounds," write the authors of the study that yielded this stat.
John Porcari and Reem Ekhwan, "Do You Do 10K a Day?" American Council on Exercise, Fitness Matters, 2007, 12 (4).
10. People who want to quit smoking are twice as likely to succeed in quitting if they lift weights than if they don't lift weights. In the study that yielded this stat, one group of struggling-to-stop smokers engaged in two hours of weight training per week. Another group didn't exercise, but watched health-related videos instead. Twelve weeks later, 16 percent of the weightlifters had quit smoking. They had also lost weight. Only 8 percent of the nonlifters had quit smoking, and all 8 percent had gained weight. Resistance training is key, says Parham: "Strength training builds muscle, which burns calories and knocks the weight off. Whatever you're doing, do it more."
11. Avid swimmers have a 50 percent lower mortality rate than runners, walkers, and people who don't exercise at all. Researchers at the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health evaluated data spanning 32 years and involving more than 80,000 participants in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study. They found that swimming lowers the mortality rate—in men, at least—by about 50 percent. The fact that the nonprofit National Swimming Pool Foundation partly funded this project may or may not be irrelevant.
12. Astronauts lost 15 percent of muscle mass and 30 percent of muscle performance during six months at the International Space Station, despite their aerobics-focused exercise regimen. This striking decrease in fitness—along with 30 percent bone-strength loss in some astronauts—is spurring NASA to boost resistance training in space-station workout routines. "While on the ISS, crewmembers had access to a running treadmill, cycle ergometer, and resistance exercise device," write the authors of this study. "Future long-duration space missions should modify the current ISS exercise prescription and/or hardware to better preserve human skeletal muscle mass and function, thereby reducing the risk imposed to crewmembers."
13. Teens who exercise are 36 percent less likely to develop brain tumors than teens who don't. Cancer researchers investigating the type of brain tumor known as the glioma found that the risk of developing these is 36 percent lower among people who were physically active during ages 15 to 18 than among people who were physically inactive during those years. The same study found that people who are obese at age 18 are four times as likely to develop gliomas as people who are not obese at 18.
14. White Americans exercise 16 percent more than Hispanic Americans and 10 percent more than African-Americans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "51 percent of non-Hispanic white adults never engage in periods of vigorous leisure-time physical activity, compared with 61 percent of non-Hispanic black adults and 67 percent of Hispanic adults."
15. Runners who stretch before running burn 5 percent fewer calories than runners who don't stretch. Contrary to what trainers have told us for decades, pre-run stretching isn't helpful, according to one recent study, which also found that nonstretchers ran 3.4 percent farther than stretchers. "Stretching appears to acutely decrease muscle-force production capacity," its authors write, citing decreased leg-press performance, vertical jumping height, knee-extensor concentric torque, and maximum plantar flexion torque, which "remained depressed even 60 minutes after the stretching routine."
So Fair D-Boy or DevGru operator; ODA member or SEAL; PJ or MARSOC man; MSST Guardsman or Force Marine.. Let alone you other fit HRT, Secret Service and Agency SAD types... Think your fairly fit ? Hmmm?
When it comes to fitness and Longevity who is tops, just know that the late great Francois Henri "Jack" LaLanne (September 26, 1914 - January 23, 2011) was an Americanfitness, exercise, and nutritional expert and motivational speaker who is sometimes called "the godfather of fitness" and the "first fitness superhero.
He was a honorable serving sailor with U.S. Navy in World War II and a special force in physical nature. Due to an accident in his teens leaving him with a bum knee, he could not do a full squat. Though he so impressed the doctors with his push-ups and handstands , skirted by the induction medical personnel and gained an enlistment. looked like a body builder his 3 hour daily regime was not about steroids and showing off. he regularly did hi rep weight circuits with double his body weight until he was into his late seventies. He influenced a whole lot of American citizens to be fit and American operators to be fitter and eat better. He was unbeatable at what he preached and did. SEALs talk of their Rudy Boesch as the fittest frogman to span many decades of SEAL operating; Like Rudy, Jack LaLanne's humility did not have him boast of his feats -- though no one ever out did jack in push-ups of any kind! Even then he think of thought of his old training buddy the also late, great Walt Stack as the fittest man ( see interview with Jack in Playboy magazine mid 1980's where he refers to the late great Walt Stack as the fittest man..)
Nevertheless, Jack outlived outlived Walt - and while he aged, Jack's feats surpassed most of the fittest special operators, SEALs and PJ's included. So when you throw in the towel for retirement at 38 step up to the plate and see if youc an maintain what he did until ages 70...and 96 years old.
1954 (age 40): swam the entire length (8,981 ft/1.7 mi) of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, under water, with 140 pounds (64 kg; 10 st) of air tanks and other equipment strapped to his body; a world record.
1955 (age 41): swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco while handcuffed. When interviewed afterwards he was quoted as saying that the worst thing about the ordeal was being handcuffed, which significantly reduced his chance to do a jumping jack.
1956 (age 42): set a world record of 1,033 push-ups in 23 minutes on You Asked For It,[31] a television program hosted by Art Baker.
1957 (age 43): swam the Golden Gate channel while towing a 2,500-pound (1,100 kg; 180 st) cabin cruiser. The swift ocean currents turned this one-mile (1.6 km) swim into a swimming distance of 6.5 miles (10.5 km).
1958 (age 44): maneuvered a paddleboard nonstop from Farallon Islands to the San Francisco shore. The 30-mile (48 km) trip took 9.5 hours.
1974 (age 60): For the second time, he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf. Again, he was handcuffed, but this time he was also shackled and towed a 1,000-pound (450 kg; 71 st) boat.
1975 (age 61): Repeating his performance of 21 years earlier, he again swam the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge, underwater and handcuffed, but this time he was shackled and towed a 1,000-pound (450 kg; 71 st) boat.
1976 (age 62): To commemorate the "Spirit of '76", United States Bicentennial, he swam one mile (1.6 km) in Long Beach Harbor. He was handcuffed and shackled, and he towed 13 boats (representing the 13 original colonies) containing 76 people.[32]
1979 (age 65): towed 65 boats in Lake Ashinoko, near Tokyo, Japan. He was handcuffed and shackled, and the boats were filled with 6,500 pounds (2,900 kg; 460 st) of Louisiana Pacific wood pulp.[33]
1980 (age 66): towed 10 boats in North Miami, Florida. The boats carried 77 people, and he towed them for over one mile (1.6 km) in less than one hour.
1984 (age 70): handcuffed, shackled, and fighting strong winds and currents, towed 70 rowboats, one with several guests, from the Queen's Way Bridge in the Long Beach Harbor to the Queen Mary, 1 mile
( For the record: as a fit warrior , the father of Special Forces, Aaron Bank, after he retired at age 50 ...swam in the ocean around San Clemente, Ca. Pier near daily until he was 75, going on to live and worked out till 101 fit as a fiddle ) So keep it up Operators!
Just how effective can walking your dog be when trying to lose weight? Pretty effective, according to a University of Missouri-Columbia study in which participants lost an average of 14 pounds by walking a dog 20 minutes a day, five days a week for 50 weeks. The study shows that you can still see weight-loss results without power walking or jogging. A routine stroll could be just the trick!
There are two reasons why walking your dog can be more effective than walking by yourself:
• People tend to be more faithful to their furry friends than they are to their own fitness regime.
• The mere fact that walking a dog requires a set schedule forces you to follow it.
• Walking your dog gives you just the kind of discipline and motivation you need to lose weight!
So grab a leash, get your dog, and start walking! Looking to pick up a little extra cash? Pick up a couple dog walking jobs… and see your health improve and the pounds melt away.
Better health rather than an absolute weight or loss amount should be the goal
The healthiest way to lose weight is neither crash diets nor bursts of exercise. The body likes slow changes in terms of food and exercise.
For example, someone who hasn't exercised for years shouldn't rush into running miles a day or pounding the treadmill. Not only will the struggle to do so leave you feeling disheartened and demotivated, you're also far more likely to injure yourself and set your fitness levels back further.
The same goes for people who suddenly start starving themselves. Diets that severely restrict calories or the types of food 'allowed' can lead you to be deficient in the nutrients and vitamins that your body needs.
So, if you need to lose weight, what should you do?
Energy needs and weight loss
Your body uses food for energy. It stores any excess energy as fat. This means if you eat more food than your body needs for daily activities and cell maintenance, you'll gain weight.
To lose weight, you need to get your body to use up these stores of fat. The most effective way to do this is to:
reduce the amount of calories you eat
increase your levels of activity.
This is why experts talk about weight loss in terms of diet and exercise.
Introduce changes gradually
Small changes can make a big difference. One extra biscuit a week can lead you to gain 5lb a year – cut that biscuit out of your diet and you'll lose the same amount.
You're also more likely to stick to, say, swapping full-fat milk for semi-skimmed or making time for breakfast each morning than a diet that sets rules for all foods.
You should think of weight loss in terms of permanently changing your eating habits. While weight-loss goals are usually set in term of weeks, the end game is to sustain these changes over months and years, ie lifestyle change for life.
Increase your activity levels
Someone who increases the amount they exercise, but maintains the same diet and calorie intake, will almost certainly lose weight.
No matter if you hate gyms – even light exercise, such as a short 20 minute walk, will be beneficial if done most days of the week.
Every single time you exercise more than usual, you burn calories and fat.
There are lots of ways to increase the amount of activity you do. Team sports, racket sports, aerobics classes, running, walking, swimming and cycling will all improve your fitness levels.
Find something you enjoy that's easy for you to do in terms of location and cost. You're then more likely to build it into your routine and continue to exercise, despite inevitably missing the odd session through holidays, family commitments, etc.
Get out and about at the weekend. Leave your car on the drive and walk to the shops. Try to incorporate longer walks into outings to the park, coast or countryside and take a picnic, so you're in control of what you are going to eat that day.
Every extra step you take helps. Always use the stairs instead of the lift, or get off the bus a stop before the usual one and walk the rest of the way.
Use commercial breaks between TV-programmes to stand up and do exercise, or consider using an exercise bicycle in the living room while watching your favourite programme.
Reduce your calorie intake
What is overweight?
Doctors use BMI to assess weight.
A BMI of 18.5 to 25 is healthy.
If you have a BMI of more than 25, you're overweight.
Over 30 is obese.
Over 40 is morbidly obese.
To calculate your BMI, you'll need to know your weight in kilos and your height in metres, then follow the example below.
1. Multiply your height by itself, eg 1.7x1.7= 2.89.
2. Divide your weight (eg 80kg) by this figure.
3. 80 ÷ 2.89= 27.7.
27.7 is the BMI.
If you're overweight, you can't continue with your current eating habits if you really want to lose weight.
It's not possible to reduce body fat while eating lots of food, cakes and sweets. This doesn't mean you can never have any treats, but you need to learn how to limit these foods to small quantities – say, for special occasions.
In terms of weight-loss, you can get your body to use up existing stores of fat by eating less and making healthier choices.
This doesn't mean crash diet (anything less than 1500 calories), which usually ends up with you either getting weaker or giving up in desperation. Quick-fix diets can lead to a yo-yoing effect of drastic weight loss followed by weight gain, resulting in a vicious cycle.
There are no shortcuts to losing weight in a healthy and reasonable way.
Eating 300 to 500 calories less per day should lead to a loss of between one and two pounds per week. This is a realistic target. It may seem slow, but it would add up to a weight loss of more than three stone in a year.
Fat contains the most amount of calories out of all the food types (protein, carbohydrates), so a good way to achieve this is to cut down on fatty foods and eat more wholegrain bread, fruit and vegetables.
Below are ways to reduce calorie intake without having to alter your diet significantly.
Replace fizzy drinks and fruit cordials with water.
Swap whole milk for semi-skimmed, or semi-skimmed for skimmed.
Eat less lunch than usual. For example, make your own sandwich and limit the use of margarine or butter and full-fat mayonnaise (store-bought sandwiches often contain both).
Stop taking sugar in tea and coffee.
Have smaller portions of the food you enjoy.
Avoid having a second helping at dinner.
Cut out unhealthy treats – such as confectionary, sugary biscuits and crisps between meals.
All these things will influence your health in a positive way.
Finally, don't be tempted to skip breakfast – or any meal to lose weight. While skipping a meal will reduce your calorie intake for that hour, it will leave you much hungrier later on.
Not only are you likely to overeat to compensate, but you'll often make bad choices to fill the gap: a cereal bar is not as healthy as a bowl of cereal or as filling, leading you to 'need' something extra for lunch.
Irregular eating habits also disrupt your body's metabolism, which makes it harder to lose weight in the first place.
Write down your plan
Food diary
If you're not sure what's wrong with your diet, try keeping a daily diary of everything you eat and drink.
Often Fame and Success Does Not Come Until Later In Life
Some have struggled for years in jobs, others have followed a quiet creative life and many have tenaciously held on to their entrepreneurial spirit. Yet success found them later in life. When you have dreams of something beyond your present experience, patience is your biggest friend.
Here are some examples:
Colonel Sanders had tons of blue collar jobs. When yes Harland Sanders was turning 30 yes he was still yes switching from one yes career yes to yes another yes: Steamboat pilot (yes!), insurance salesman (yes!), farmer (yes!), railroad fireman (yes!). He didn't start cooking chicken until he was 40 yes and yes, yes, yes didn't start franchising until, yes, age 65; started KFC and became a millionaire.
Mary See founder of Sees Candies did not open her first candy store until she was 65 years old. She and her son ran the company until her death.
Anna Mary Robertson "Grandma" Moses was in her 70s when she began painting scenes of her rural life in upstate New York. This self-taught artist, mother and widow became one of the most famous American folk artists of the 20th century and continued painting in her 90s.
Louise Nevelson was in her 50s when she sold her work to three New York City museums and now her art can be seen internationally in over eighty public collections. Shortly before her 60th birthday, she became President of the Artist's Equity New York chapter which was the first of many art leadership positions she would attain.
When she was just months shy of her 50th birthday, Julia Child collaborated on her first French cooking book, a two-volume set titled Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Soon after, she promoted her book on television and that catapulted her overnight sensation in the culinary world.
Up until the age of 40, devoutly religious Anton Bruckner, composed music solely for the Catholic Church. Then a meeting with Wagner turned his life around and he began to compose symphonies of epic proportion. He was working on his great Symphony No. 9 when he died at 72.
Elliot Carter has received media attention at age 100. A review from The New York Times music critic was in praise of his latest, centenarian work, Interventions, describing it as "lucidly textured, wonderfully inventive, even impish. This was the work of a living master in full command."
Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her family's life in the 1870s and 1880s in the acclaimed The Little House on the Prairie series of books for children. She published her first book at the age of 65.
Harry Bernstein was in his 90s when he decided to write his memoirs after his wife of 67 years died. His book titled The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers and continued writing with the recently published book The Dream.
Louis Kahn, a Russian immigrant, was an important architect of the 20th century. He created his first important piece of architecture, the Yale University Art Gallery, when he was in his 50s and continued to design notable academic buildings.
As jobless architect during the Depression, Alfred Mosher Butts invented Scrabble which became the most popular word game in the world. He did not realize success of the game until his early 50s when Macy’s Chairman placed a large order and promoted it.
Charles Darwin was 50 years old when he published his complete theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species which sold out the first day it was released and subsequently had six editions. He continued to write for at least 10 more years (eg The Descent of Man).
This is a short list of many people in a variety of creative venues who pursued their passion and realized success at age 50 and beyond. Their achievements took many paths, twists and turns, and surely moments of self doubt. Coming from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds, (for example, Charles Darwin never had to earn a living while Laura Ingalls Wilder grew up with few resources) their privileged status was not a common thread. But I believe that these late bloomers all share an exceptional ability to persevere, a brilliant talent that would not lay quiet, a set of good genes and a stable environment. They have enriched our lives as a result of their determination and unwavering spirit and they challenge those who believe that old age is simply a negative consequence of living.
Henry David Thoreau said “I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
Some have struggled for years in jobs, others have followed a quiet creative life and many have tenaciously held on to their entrepreneurial spirit. Yet success found them later in life. When you have dreams of something beyond your present experience, patience is your biggest friend.
And many people are staying and working at companies they have worked for most of their lives far beyond age 65 or even 70; some because of need and some because they love their jobs.
Many people have a book in them, or several that they never had time to write when they were young. Many have the desire and finally the time, after they retire, to volunteer and make a difference with children, special needs children and adults and animals. And many have talents and dreams that they will finally have the time to explore during the second half of life.
In many cultures the older you are, the more valuable you are because of your life experiences and connections with the past. Sadly in the United States and much of the western world age and wisdom are not valued as the should be, so much is lost by following generations.
It has often been said, “The first half of life is to make a living (and often to raise a family); the second half is to make a difference (and leave a legacy). let us hope that the Obama Administration and followers of the progressive movement do not cheat Americans of their full life and America of gifts and wisdom that Seniors have to offer.
Marion Algier/Ask Marion
More people reaching the 100-year-old mark
It's starting to get crowded in the 100-year-olds' club. Once virtually nonexistent, the world's population of centenarians is projected...
Ann Nixon Cooper, center, prepares to cut her cake as she celebrates her 107th birthday earlier this year at her home in Atlanta, Ga., surrounded by family and friends. 107 and she look great!
Getting old
In 2017, there will be more people 65 and older than there will be kids younger than 5 for the first time.
The population of people 80 and older is projected to increase 233 percent by 2040, compared with a 160 percent increase for people 65 and over and 33 percent for the total population of all ages.
Childlessness among European and U.S. women age 65 in 2005 ranged from less than 8 percent in the Czech Republic to 15 percent in Austria and Italy. About 20 percent of women 40 to 44 in the United States in 2006 were childless.
Due to low birthrates, Japan's median age will increase from 37 in 1990 to 55 by 2050. The median age for the world during that same period will rise from 24 to 37, slowed by younger populations in Latin America and Africa.
The median age in the U.S. will edge higher from 33 to 39 during that period, kept low by higher rates of immigration.
U.S. Census
WASHINGTON — It's starting to get crowded in the 100-year-olds' club.
Once virtually nonexistent, the world's population of centenarians is projected to reach nearly 6 million by midcentury. That's pushing the median age toward 50 in many developed nations and challenging views of what it means to be old and middle-age.
The number of centenarians already has jumped from an estimated few thousand in 1950 to more than 340,000 worldwide today, with the highest concentrations in the U.S. and Japan, according to the latest Census Bureau figures and a report being released today by the National Institute on Aging.
Their numbers are projected to grow at more than 20 times the rates of the total population by 2050, making them the fastest-growing age segment.
Demographers attribute booming long-livers to decades of medical advances and improved diets, which have reduced heart disease and stroke. Genetics and lifestyle also play a factor. So, too, do doctors who are more willing to aggressively treat the health problems of people once considered too old for such care.
"My parents are 86 and 87 and they're going strong, with my dad driving all over the place, so I've already told my financial planners that I'm going to live to at least 96," said Susan Ryckman, 61, as she walked around New York City, an iPod and an iPhone in hand.
Japan, known for its low-fat staple of fish and rice, will have the most centenarians in 2050 — 627,000, or nearly 1 percent of its total population, according to census estimates.
Japan pays special respect to the elderly and has created a thriving industry in robotics — from dogs and nurses to feeding machines — to cater to its rapidly aging population.
Italy, Greece, Monaco and Singapore, aided by their temperate climates, also will have sizable shares of centenarians, most notably among women.
In the U.S., centenarians are expected to increase from 75,000 to more than 600,000 by midcentury. Those primarily are baby boomers hitting the 100-year mark. Their population growth could add to rising government costs for the strained Medicare and Social Security programs.
"The implications are more than considerable, and it depends on whether you're healthy or sick," said Dr. Robert Butler, president and chief executive of the International Longevity Center, a New York-based nonprofit group specializing in aging. "Healthy centenarians are not a problem, and many are. But if you have a demented, frail centenarian, they can be very expensive."
Butler predicted a surge in demand in the U.S. for nursing homes, assisted-living centers and other special housing, given the wave of aging boomers who will be at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. He said federal and state governments may have to reevaluate retirement benefits, age limits on driving and Medicare coverage as they struggle to redefine what it means to be old.
Wan He, a Census Bureau demographer who co-wrote the aging report, said families also will face more pressure. She noted that because of declining birthrates, there will be fewer family members to provide support if an older parent gets sick.
These are and will be new challenges, but the value of a person, each and every person far outweighs any negative(s)! Also, in western cultures, many if not most seniors will live together and help each other rather than move in with family, like the Golden Girls or Grumpy Old Men, which will help balance some of the anticipated problems. Life and paradigms change and always have. Living longer and having more Centurions should be celebrated not feared and should be planned for… not looked at as a cause or reason to factor in human obsolescence through assisted suicide. That road is a path that leads to a place that nobody should want to go!! … Marion Algier~
Even if you’ve spent the past months dieting yourself into fit form, a few poor food choices each week can quickly add up to a juggernaut of jiggle well before Labor Day. Don’t believe us? Consider the caloric damage of typical summer activities—weekly backyard BBQs provide pounds of juicy burgers topped with gobs of high-calorie condiments; ice cream dates offer options of double and triple scoops, smothered in sugar-packed and fat-blasted toppings; and seasonal drink choices (the kind you add umbrellas to and sip from faux-coconuts) guarantee you’ll wash it all down with hundreds of extra calories. Not exactly flat-belly fare.
That’s why Eat This Not That! The Best (and Worst)! has developed this list of 6 essential summer foods. The more of these bulge-battlers you eat, the better your chances of keeping those abs flat throughout this skin-baring season.
QUINOA
Per ¼ cup:
170 calories
2.5 g fat
7 g protein
3 g fiber
For starters, anytime you choose a whole-grain product over one made from nutrient-stripped white flour, you wage war against belly fat. Penn State researchers found that dieters who ate whole-grains lost twice as much belly fat as those who stuck to white-flour products—even though they’d consumed the same number of calories. What’s more, quinoa contains twice the belly-filling protein as regular cereal grains, fewer glucose-raising carbohydrates, and even a handful of healthy fats. So start your day off with a cup of cooked quinoa combined with a ½ cup of milk and ½ cup of blueberries—microwave for 60 seconds, and you have a delicious (and slimming) alternative to your traditional oatmeal. Bob’s Red Mill Organic Quinoa won “Best Grain” in the Men’s Health 125 Best Foods For Men Awards 2009. See the other Best Foods For Men winners here.
GREEN TEA
0 calories
Catechins, the powerful antioxidants found in green tea, are known to increase metabolism. A study by Japanese researchers found that participants who consumed 690 milligrams of catechins from green tea daily had significantly lower body mass indexes and smaller waist measurements than those in a control group. It’s safe to say that green tea is one of the best beverages for your health.
KEFIR
Per cup:
174 calories
2 g fat
14 g protein
3 g fiber
Think of kefir as drinkable yogurt, or an extra-thick, protein-packed smoothie. In either case, this delicious dairy product is a belly-blasting essential. Beyond the satiety-inducing protein, the probiotics in kefir may also speed weight loss. British scientists found that these active organisms boosted the breakdown of fat molecules in mice, preventing the rodents from gaining weight. The researchers still need to prove the finding in humans, but there’s no danger in downing probiotic-packed products. We like Lifeway Lowfat Blueberry Kefir—it contains L. casei, the same probiotic used in the study.
AVOCADO
Per avocado:
322 calories
29 g fat (4 g saturated, 20 g monounsaturated)
13 g fiber
4 g protein
Never fear this full-fat Mediterranean-diet staple: It’s teeming with healthy monounsaturated fats (also found in olive oil), which have been linked to lowered LDL cholesterol levels and weight-loss. In fact, a recent longitudinal study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the healthy-fat Mediterranean diet was more effective than a diet that avoided fats altogether—so go ahead and indulge! (The fats you should not indulge in, however, are artery-clogging trans-fats.
EGGS
Per 1 large scrambled egg:
102 calories
7 g fat (2 g saturated)
7 g protein
A British study found that people who increased the percentage of protein-based calories in their diet burned 71 more calories a day (that’s 7.4 pounds a year!). Jump-start your metabolism as soon as you wake up with a protein-rich breakfast of scrambled eggs.
GRAPEFRUIT
Per grapefruit:
104 calories
4 g fiber
2 g protein
A grapefruit a day in addition to your regular meals can speed weight loss. The fruit’s acidity slows digestion, meaning it takes longer to move through your system, and you’ll end up feeling fuller, and more satisfied, for longer. And the vitamin C-packed grapefruit works to lower cholesterol and decrease risk of stroke, heart disease, and some types of cancer.
Was reading the news today and discovered the Amish Secret To Fat Loss.
What's great about this secret is it puts an end to the whole "I have the fat gene" argument.
Why?
Because some of the thin Amish people studied HAD that very same "fat" gene! The plot thickens! (So to speak)
So how do these guys stay thin?
Do they go to the gym?
Do they use treadmills every day?
Do they have personal trainers design complicated programs for them using the latest equipment?
...Nope!
They just ‘walk’ more than we do. And do fun stuff like gardening, playing actively with their kids, and other stuff that involves MOVEMENT.
So how can you take advantage of this tidbit? I recommend parking as far away from the store or office as possible and walking the extra distance (beats the heck out of wasting time scavenging for a spot close by anyway). And stop waiting around for the elevator. Conquer those stairs.
Just make sure not to give up your computer and other electronic gadgets in the process. That would be nuts., but cut down on how much time you spend using them
From Your NON-Amish Friend Nate Rifkin - Nate Rifkin Enterprises LLC
P.S. If you are going take up something… to help your health and weight loss, I recommend yoga!!
The researchers found that over four years, prescriptions for children aged 5 to 19 increased significantly. Among two drugs to treat type 2 diabetes, the use doubled. In addition, the use of
drugs to treat asthma rose by 46.5 percent, and the use of drugs to treat ADHD grew by 40.4 percent. The number of prescriptions for cholesterol-lowering drugs rose by 15 percent, the researchers found. They also noted increases in the use of blood pressure drugs and antidepressants (1.8 percent).
Be sure to read AAHF’s position paper on ADHD. According to one of the co-authors of the study, Emily Cox, as the number of obese children increases, the number of children with chronic diseases is also increasing. "That they are being treated is a good thing," she said. "The concern is, are doctors more likely to use drug therapy over diet and exercise?"
Antidepressants are the second largest group of drugs prescribed for children under 18 years of age, second only to Ritalin and similar ADD/ADHD drugs. An earlier generation was given
tricyclic antidepressants like Elavil and Toframil. These drugs had some serious, and occasionally fatal, side effects. The newer ones, including those called SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), are more easily tolerated, but have not been widely tested on children.
SSRIs include Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, and Luvox. They help regulate levels of serotonin, a chemical in the body that is believed to affect mood. Serotonin levels drop off during early adolescence, and therefore may be related to depression in this age group. Low serotonin levels have also been linked to substance abuse problems in teens.
But why give young people such heavy-handed drugs, with their host of potentially dangerous side effects, when inexpensive, natural, and healthy alternatives are available? Low or imbalanced levels of fatty acids are now linked to autoimmune disorders, mood and behavioral disorders, and heart disease, among other health concerns, prompting even allopathic doctors to recommend fish oil to treat ADHD. Researchers at the University of South Australia tested a combination of omega-3 fish oil and evening primrose oil (an omega-6 oil) on 132 children with
ADHD, ranging in age from seven to 12. After the 30-week study ended, almost half the parents reported that their children's symptoms were improved.
Many of the other conditions for which children are being overmedicated can be treated naturally as well. For example, vitamin D deficiency has been implicated as a major factor in the pathology of heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal disease, and more.
Children don’t need cholesterol-lowering drugs. They need proper nutrition and exercise, with
judicious supplementation. But they also need physicians and practitioners who can properly diagnose and treat their conditions with healthy, natural methods. Our website has an excellent database of integrative physicians in your area who can give your family the healthy guidance they need.
Remember… in the wild they would be eating raw foods and up until a couple decades ago, when some big companies realized they could make money from making and selling commercial pet food, regardless of their nutritional value… commercial pet food, like commercial baby food and formula and convenience foods for humans, was born… none of which are best choice for animals, babies or humans. There are also some great natural supplements, like StemPet and StemEquine around for pets.
toys that work their brains and their bodies at the same time. Some people even take their cats for a walk on a leash. Visit your local pet store to find some toys that fit the bill.
Just how effective can walking your dog be when trying to lose weight? Pretty effective, according to a University of Missouri-Columbia study in which participants lost an average of 14 pounds by walking a dog 20 minutes a day, five days a week for 50 weeks. The study shows that you can still see weight-loss results without power walking or jogging. A routine stroll could be just the trick!
