Category Archives: Health and Fitness

Arthritis, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Screw-less spine fusion

September 7, 2016 betsyjbell 2 Comments

Have you had surgery? A spine fusion? It has been three weeks since Dr. Nora operated performing a screw-less spine fusion of three discs, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5. This past week I re-engaged the busy world I left behind on August 16th. The two-week retreat seemed like long enough.

A cheer went up at choir practice when I walked in an inch taller and without my usual hiking sticks. The same at church on Sunday. I have had an ear full of “me, too” stories of surgeries, fusions, medications that helped. Nice to be in good company with people who seem to be handling life with gusto after major surgery. Most of these people are younger than I am.You will probably respond to this post with your own stories and I will want to hear them.
Post op people become members of a club of survivors. It is a club I have avoided with vigor for many years.

Since 2004 when my neuro-surgeon, Dr. Stan Herring (sports medicine doc for the Seahawks, Huskies and Mariners) told me my bones were bad and he would never recommend surgery, I’ve been blogging about my efforts to keep moving in spite of a bad spine. Dr. Herring took one look at my MRI and told me a person with my lumbar spine should be in a wheelchair. My first blog was titled www.nowheelchair.wordpress.com, inspired by Dr. Herring’s remarks.

My goal in No Wheelchair and in www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com/be-well/ has been to share my strategies for staying active and relatively pain-free. I looked forward to a “surgery avoidance” club of mutual arthritis sufferers who wanted to avoid medicine and surgery for as long as possible. There are a lot more “post surgery” club members than “surgery avoidance” club members. My question is Why?

I, like many of my readers began life trusting implicitly in the wisdom of doctors and medicines to kept me well and to fix me when something went wrong. I was the obedient daughter of a nurse and an orthopedic surgeon. I took dozens of drugs as a young person to get over the slightest sniffles, headaches and even used Physohex surgery-prep soap when, in puberty, I was covered in pimples. When I was only 34, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, had a mastectomy (no chemo or radiation).

As I tried to make sense out of cancer at such a young age, my conclusion, justified or no, was that I had destroyed my immune system by taking all those drugs and that left to its own devices, a healthy body will repair DNA damage and prevent the onset of cancer. All it takes is good nutrition and a positive mindset.

Of course, people who have a lifetime of good nutrition and positive attitude get diagnosed with cancer all the time. No doctor will support the idea that something you did or didn’t do caused you to develop cancer.

We all have our stories. Mine included a changed diet, more exercise on a regular basis and, at age 48, the addition of a supplement program with products made by Shaklee. My health changed and I suffered fewer colds. My arthritis (in the knees in those days) calmed down and I wanted to world to know about my cancer avoidance program.

In 1989 I herniated a disc (L5) and the misery of accident- caused arthritis began. By the time I first saw Dr. Herring in 1990, I was ready to try anything. By 2004 when he saw me again, I’d been to Feldenkrais, Chiropractic, massage, PT, Alexander method, therapeutic pilates, yoga and had several visits with the Polyclinic’s orthopedic PA, Darrin Morrow. Things had gotten worse in my spine but I was hiking regularly including the Wonderland Trail, 95 miles around Mt. Rainier. In 2006, I climbed Mt. Shasta. I seldom missed a Wed. hiking or cross country ski adventure. I was determined to keep moving. I ate handfuls of Shaklee vitamins. My approach seemed to be working for me. No drugs. No surgery.

I’ve had many faithful readers of my blog posts. Some have even tried a few of the suggestions. Making a commitment to consistent (and expensive out-of-pocket) self-care is not common. My guess is that many have read, watched and concluded that I keep on keeping on by dint of some genetic or innate energy. The truth is that I possess a fierce determination to keep visiting the wilderness and moving my body and will do and pay for whatever it takes. I don’t like the way drugs make me feel. I would not have avoided surgery this long without that willingness and the choice of Shaklee for the supplement part of the program.
The most recent MRI in April of this year revealed an even worse spine than before. My physical medicine doctor, Dr. Ren and her PA, Diane, shook their heads when I told them I had walked (with hiking sticks) to the appointment at the Polyclinic from the bus stop at 3rd and Seneca, 8 blocks up hill. My neuro surgeon, Dr. Peter Nora scared me when, during the pre-op appointment, he said he and his colleagues had been discussing my spine and concluded I would be a good candidate for a fairly new procedure. After thinking about this “new procedure” for a couple days, I was full of doubts. Were they experimenting on a fit old lady who has lived a good life? How many procedures like this had Dr. Nora done? What were the results for people like me? A google search revealed no spine fusions without screws. I have osteoporosis so how were they going to fuse bad bones? What were they going to do to my spine?

*screw-less spine fusion from the left side.*

A phone call settled me down. Dr. Nora had performed this operation multiple times in the previous two years with excellent results. As a thin and fit 79-year-old, I was a good candidate for a screw-less spine fusion. He entered my body from first one side (two incisions) and then the other (one more incision) to access malfunctioning lumbar discs at 2/3, 3/4 and 4/5. He cleaned out the offending discs and inserted titanium spacers and added a plastic material in the spaces around which new bone of my own making will form a stable scres-less spine fusion.
It worked. No screws. No leg pain.

Recovery from surgery comes with its own suffering. Bowels that don’t work. Incisions that itch and ache. Psoas muscles that won’t work and complain loudly because of being shoved to one side during the titanium insertion process. Learning to grab things too low or too high with a gripper. Wanting to wiggle in bed and having to lie still like a log. Having beautiful good food fixed by someone else sit in front of me and having no appetite.

eucharist8-28-16 — *Saint Mark’s friends brought Eucharist and music.*

Daughters, step-daughters, neighbors, hiking buddies, Saint Mark’s friends, friends from 45 years of living in Seattle have come bringing food, making the bed, sweeping the bathroom floor, drying my legs after a shower, tying my shoes, driving me to the doctor, watering the parched trees and flowers, feeding the cat, and collecting the eggs from the hen house. They have carried the dirty clothes to the laundry and the clean clothes to the clothesline and helped put clean sheets on the bed. My housemate has filled and emptied the dishwasher, taken the recycling out, reached under the bathroom sink for fresh toilet paper, brought in the mail, connected my laptop to the TV so I could watch old shows and Netflix. Friends have called, emailed and sent notes. I am so full of appreciation, of gratitude for the outpouring of prayer and care and of my willingness to graciously receive these offerings. It is a new phase of life. A letting go of the need to control.

I am so full of appreciation, of gratitude for the outpouring of prayer and care and of my willingness to graciously receive these offerings. It is a new phase of life. A letting go of being superwoman, confronting aging as Joseph Campbell observed, the way we might watch an old jalopy fall apart one fender at a time.

In three more weeks I’ll board a plane for Boston and my oldest niece’s wedding. I’ll ask for a wheelchair and check my luggage at the curb. I promise not to lift the suitcase or anything else weighing over 10 pounds for another six weeks. I don’t want to mess up the beautiful thing Dr. Nora did for my body.

I still hope for readers who have a fierce determination to avoid surgery and medication if they can find a way to move comfortably without them. I support anyone who takes full responsibility for their own health and does all they can through alternative therapies and with traditional medicine to work out a plan that will keep them moving comfortably as long as possible. And I wish for each one of us the grace to accept what is as we move toward the end of our lifespan, however long that may be.

Please share your stories of arthritis and/or injury and the ways you have alleviated pain and kept yourself moving.

Be well, do well and keep moving.

Betsy

206 933 1889

206 409 5940

shop for Shaklee products at www.HiHohealth.com

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

sleep and pain

May 22, 2016 betsyjbell

Does pain keep you awake at night? “Sleep, or lack of it, may be a sign that surgery might help.” Dr. Nora listed several indicators including sleep and pain. Sleep difficulty jumped out at me.

Several customers have complained about sleep challenges so I thought I’d share some problems associated with pain and lack of sleep plus some remedies.

When pain is first experienced, most people do not experience sleeplessness. However, when pain becomes a problem, it can be a vicious cycle. If someone experiences poor sleep due to pain one night, he or she is likely to experience more problems the next night and so on. It gets worse and worse every night.

We know that pain triggers poor sleep. Someone experiencing lower back pain may experience several intense phases of light sleep which lead to awakenings. These periods of light sleep are innocuous for a person not experiencing chronic pain. Pain is a serious intrusion to sleep. Pain is frequently associated with insomnia and these coexisting problems can be difficult to treat. One problem can exacerbate the other.

A 2015 sleep and pain study conducted by the National Sleep Foundation verified by numbers which we could have guessed: people with chronic pain are three times more likely to get a bad night’s sleep even though over half of all Americans experienced pain in the last week.
Without a good night’s sleep, one gets grumpy, is less able to function and the perception of ones general health status goes down. Sleep is necessary for healing and restoring every internal organ and without it, health does deteriorate.

We often turn to drugs—both prescription and over the counter, and alcohol to try to get to sleep. The National Sleep Foundation suggests being very intentional about getting adequate sleep by making sleep a priority.

*Stop or limit caffeine consumption.
*Limit alcohol intake, particularly in the evening.
*Use of pain killers and/or sleeping pills are effective, but should be used under the supervision of a physician.
*Practice relaxation techniques , such as deep abdominal breathing.

Personally, I go to bed by the clock, not by my sleepiness. I can get a second wind if I get started on a new project—web search, emails, Face book—in the late evening which keeps me up. I know I will wake up at 5:30 so aim for head-on-the-pillow by 10:30. Seven hours of sleep. When I wake up at 5:30, I usually listen to soothing music or a meditation tape, a Nidra Yoga or Back Pain relief to stay in bed until 6:15 or so. I sit in the hot tub every night just before going to bed. Some people take a hot shower or bath to aid the transition to sleep.

Shaklee makes an herbal supplement called Gentle Sleep Complex which has passion flower extract and chamomile extract plus 225 mg of Valerian. Three tablets before bed helps you go to sleep.

I take several Pain Relief Complex tablets, also. I put Shaklee’s Joint and Muscle Pain Cream on my lower back and then lie with an ice pack under the my back while I listen to a meditation tape.

What have you found that helps with 7 – 9 hours of deep restful sleep? Please add your comments so other readers can benefit from your experience.

Be well, Do well and Keep moving.

Betsy

206 933 1889

www.HiHoHealth.com for shopping

www.EmpoweredGrandma.com for travel stories

www.MyLifeasFiction.com for my writing blog (not live yet)

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Physical Therapy

March 6, 2016 betsyjbell

This article is part of a series of posts I have written about various therapies that may be helpful to relieve suffering due to arthritis.

Physical Therapy has not been high on my list of therapies helpful to relieve sciatica. However, pain up and down my right leg emanating from pinched nerves at L5 and L4 sent me back to the Physical Medicine doctor at my HMO, the Polyclinic here in Seattle. Dr. Ren recommended the Physiotherapy Associates at Greenlake. Eight sessions later, I still have pain, but I am stronger and less fearful.

Perhaps you have had similar responses to pain. When you hurt every time you walk a couple blocks, pretty soon, you stop walking altogether. When that happened to me, I stumbled on Tarama Gillest, Therapeutic Yoga instructor and owner of Bend n Move. In four sessions with her, I learned to manage my anticipation of pain with deep breathing and a series of body loosening and strengthening moves. I got out my sticks and took them everywhere so when the pain came, I have help. The hiking sticks help me lift my body with my arms, taking the pressure off my back.

In spite of this therapeutic intervention, I still experienced increased weakness in the right leg. This is where Physical Therapy came in. Two things to tell you about Physical Therapy with Physiotherapy Associates.

1. the exercises and stretching moves they employed did not increase pain. In fact, the opposite. Several of their stretches and exercises were ones I feared because they mirrored the actions that have caused pain in the past, such as the doggy leg lift when on all fours. In the controlled environment at the Physical Therapy office, I have been able to do leg lifts, strengthen the ham string without fear. Fear of pain is one of the problems that keeps us from moving.

2. Repetition increased strength. Do you know how many reps these guys make you do? 15 to 20 with each leg, twice or three times. You have to increase strength with that kind of workout.

They always end with icing and a ten minute rest. I recommend this PT experience for anyone who is struggling with the results of arthritis.

Finally, the therapist and my personal trainer talked to discuss my strength training at Xgym, so I have a tailored program to keep the upper body strong while I am working on the muscles and tendons and nerves below the waist.

The experience that pushed me over the edge was cross country skiing last week. The pain was so great, I had to stop after 2 hours and sit in the car while my companions enjoyed another hour and a half of skiing. I decided to follow the advice of my skiing/hiking buddy’s husband. I am going to see an orthopedist who specializes in a mildly invasive surgery to clean out the spinal stenosis bone growths. The real culprit is a narrowing of the spinal opening. If he can help, he will. If he looks at my MRI and decides he can’t help…….. well, I will have to continue doing the things I am doing in order to get into the wilderness and hike or ski the trails.

Shaklee’s Pain Relief Complex is helpful. I still recommend it. You can take lots without hurting your stomach, and by that I mean, 4 – 10 a day.

Wish me luck. Betsy

Be well, Do well and Keep moving. Above all else, Keep moving.

Betsy

Be well, Do well and Keep moving, Betsy

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Therapeutic Yoga

December 29, 2015 betsyjbell 1 Comment

Therapeutic Yoga

This past November I dashed late into a networking event at a new-ish yoga studio in my neighborhood-walking distance from my house. BendnMove owner Tamara Gillest introduced me around. The health care providers offering their services were familiar to me, members of a Business Networking International chapter here in West Seattle. It felt like coming home to a room full of caring practitioners; a chiropractor, a vendor of the Smovey and Nordic walking poles, a life coach and personal trainer, a massage therapist among others. I knew I’d been led to this event and was open to what was offered.

Therapeutic Yoga. I asked Tamara what that might be. I have studied yoga for years and have a morning practice. Over the last few months, walking any distance at all has been challenging because I never know when the sciatic pain will begin. It is a pain that makes me cry out and wonder if I can make it home. I remember once walking to the hardware store about a mile away and setting out for the return trip with a cloth bag full of six bedding plants. That much weight proved too hard to carry. I set the bag behind a picket fence and limped home to get the car, worried that someone would steal my bag. Of course, this is West Seattle’s Genesee hill and the bag was untouched.

Every time I left home, I experienced breath-shortening anxiety in anticipation of pain. I realized I wasn’t walking every day out of fear of pain. Perhaps Therapeutic Yoga could help with that anxiety.

I signed up for 4 sessions. Tamara sized me up and gave me a series of gentle stretches, hip opening, core strengthening moves to practice. Most importantly, she refocused my yoga breathing to help with the anxiety. It has made such a difference to practice deep breathing, to remind myself to initiate every move with the breath, and to build confidence in my legs and back and core again. I always take my sticks with me to give support when the pain hits. I’m back to 30 minutes of walking every day.

A google search for yoga poses to help with sciatica resulted in poses that are far too advanced for the level of challenge I have. Perhaps it is my age. At 78, it is not a good idea to twist into a pretzel even though I am strong enough to do this. Tamara’s approach is gentle, breath-centered, calming-the very approach I need to help me slow down, relax into movement. If you have suffered chronic pain, you know how difficult it is to manage your thinking about an activity you are about to try. If you know it causes pain, you tense up or you may decide not to bother trying at all.

The last thing I want is to stop moving. I would lose all the benefits of moving that I have mentioned in post after post. Muscle tone weakens; blood flow to the joints slows down; lungs long for fresh air and deep breathing; stiffness sets in. We must keep moving to stay vibrant. Anticipating pain can keep us from setting out. My pain is diminishing ever so slightly and I am able to step out of the house with my sticks and walk for 30 minutes, breathing into the pain, keeping my breaths long and deep and calming.

Here’s what Tamara has to say her Therapeutic Yoga teaching

Yoga therapy provides high quality and skilled therapeutic application of yoga. The education and skills required to work as a yoga therapist surpass those of the average yoga teacher, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of anatomy, physiology and psycho-spirituality from both the eastern and western traditions. Yoga therapy is a highly personalized experience that focuses on your specific condition and needs. It offers a means for safe, personal healing to people living with chronic pain or illness. You can expect a tailored program unique to you that incorporates breath, movement and meditation. Individual yoga therapy is ideal for those with special needs or conditions, who prefer a slower-paced program and a one-on-one setting.

Does yoga therapy replace other treatment modalities?

Yoga therapy is leading edge and uses yoga as a complementary treatment to traditional medical healing practices. Based on on-going treatment studies, these weekly sessions are ideal for those with chronic lower back pain, neck pain and auto-immune disorders such as Multiple Sclerosis, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, among many chronic conditions.

Thank you, Tamara and Therapeutic Yoga.

Comments? Thoughts?

Be well, Do well and Keep Moving.

Betsy

www.HiHoHealth.com Shaklee product shopping site

www.EmpoweredGrandma.com tails of travel, most recently Mexico

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Heal Back Pain

October 30, 2015 betsyjbell

new purse cropped — This new purse holds my hiking sticks. The new normal: carry sticks when I leave the house walking anywhere.

Heal Back Pain

I struck gold when mining my magazine and journal basket in the bathroom recently. In a 2011 issue (January) of Seattle Woman Magazine, Nancy Shatz Aton gives us 10 ways to heal back pain. This excellent list comes from her book, The Healthy Back Book: A Guide to Whole Healing for Outdoor Enthusiasts and Other Active People. It’s a book on my wish list, for sure. Here are her 10 suggestions with my comments. Put this away somewhere handy for when you need it, or put the suggestions to use right now.

Most Americans suffer back pain at least once during their life time and some of us develop chronic lower back pain conditions that give us grief on a regular basis. That would include me. I am so happy I saved and now found Nancy Alton’s tips for managing this pain.

Take charge of your healing. Although working with a knowledgeable practitioner who discusses every aspect of an injury can be helpful, it is important to realize you are in charge of your own healing. Whether you experience back pain daily or only a few times a year, living with it is about self-management. This is the premise of my GrandmaBetsyBell blog: self-care. Picture the various types of therapies available to you as spokes of a wheel. Imagine yourself as standing on the hub of that wheel. You can select any combination of therapies, or spokes, from that big wheel.

Tune into the mind-body connection. I find it interesting that this is her #2. Becoming self-aware is key. Pain has a physical component, but it also derives from our emotions. We tell ourselves a “story” about why we have low-back pain. We sometimes ignore the emotional side of the tale, But thinking that way overlooks the powerful role emotions play in the story of pain. Both the rational explanation and the emotional component are part of the mind-body connection; that is, how our minds and the emotions, thoughts and feelings emanating from them affect our bodies. “Like all experiences, pain is influenced by everything that is going on in a person’s life at the time, and probably everything that has gone on in the past,” says Dr. J. David Sinclair, a pain-management specialist in Seattle.
Move often. Keep Moving! It is ideal to exercise your body every day. Of course, after a back injury you’ll need your doctor’s OK before you begin exercising. Resume normal activities and movement patterns as soon as possible; moving your body leads to healing. A 1996 health campaign in Australia erected billboards and produced radio and television spots with messages such as, “Does your back hurt? Get up and take a walk.” And “Back pain—don’t take it lying down.” The campaign conveyed the message that engaging in the daily activities of life is often the best treatment for back pain. During and directly after the campaign, the rate of medical payments for back claims fell more than 25 percent!

Find a good rehabilitation specialist. When your back goes out, often the first person you call is your primary care doctor. Next time, you might want to try booking an appointment with a physiatrist (fi-see-a-trist) as well. My primary doc. sent me to Dr. Ren, a physiatrist, or Sports medicine doctor. Way more useful than a referral to the orthopedist. Dr. Ren urged me to walk 30 minutes every day, with hiking sticks, if necessary. No sitting down because of the pain from sciatica. Keep walking. She offered me hard drugs, but so far I’ve been able to get by with the Shaklee Pain Relief. She encouraged me to change from Aleve to Tylenol which I think will be good for my stomach. More than 3 Aleve a day made me sick to my stomach.

A physiatrist is a specialist in treating illnesses and injuries that affect how people move their bodies, and ae especially well qualified to deal with back injuries. Physiatrist believe in educating patients about their conditions and helping people understand that movement is an important tool for easing low-back pain.

Try out different bodywork treatments. Hands-on therapies can be incredibly healing. Adding one or more of these complementary practices to your medical care might promote healing, ease pain and contribute to a sense of wholeness. More than 80 types of therapies fall within the category of massage, from Swedish massage to RuiNa. It’s worth finding a well-recommended practitioner and looking into unfamiliar bodywork therapies. Your road to healing may begin with an appointment with a bodywork practitioner. Have you thought about trying Bowenwork, Rolfing, Heller work structural integration, hypnotherapy, chiropractic care, osteopathy or acupuncture?

Strengthen Muscles. Back injuries often stem from muscular imbalances. This is why practicing yoga or Pilates can be so beneficial for both easing back pain and preventing future back pain episodes. Both yoga and Pilates help develop a person’s core strength, which includes the abdominal, pelvic floor, buttocks, hip and lower back muscles. During class, you strengthen these muscles, build muscular endurance and learn how to initiate movement from the core area. The way you move on the mat will begin to carry over into your daily life, which can correct poor postural traits and eliminate the corresponding low-back pain. Two other movement therapy practices that have proven successful in easing and healing low-back pain are the Feldenkrais Method and the Alexander Technique. I have posted my recommendations and experience with Myo fascial release therapy, Feldenkrais and Pilates for low back pain.

The caveat here is you will be paying for these therapies out of pocket in almost all health insurance plans and it is expensive. I just began a 4 week course with a therapeutic yoga specialist and see results already. Four weeks cost $150. Every Myo facial release session with Cedron Sterling costs $160 for 90 minutes. His work has made a huge difference and certainly worth the expense. Most of us cannot afford these wonderful therapies that keep us out of the orthopedist’s surgery theater.

Mediate. Practicing meditation can help bring relief to back pain. Mindfulness meditation had numerous benefits for the chronic back pain sufferers who took part in an eight-week study reported in Pain in 2008. These patients experienced less pain, improved physical function, pain acceptance and better sleep. Meditation can be any activity that elicits the relaxation response in a person, which simply means your body calms down, lowering metabolism, blood pressure, heart and breathing rates. Forms of meditation include the relaxation response, transcendental meditation, mindfulness meditation, tai chi, repetitive prayer and walking meditation. Practicing any movement therapy that has you focus on your breathing while moving your body with intention can be a meditative experience.

Watch what you eat. Inflammation often causes pain and swelling. You can modulate your body’s inflammatory response system through diet. Through simple changes, you can decrease your likelihood of generating an overly high inflammatory response during a back pain episode. To decrease inflammation in your body, include the following foods in your diet: cold-water fish, fruits and vegetables, whole grains and high fiber foods and water. The following food can increase inflammation, so minimize these food types in your meal plan: red meat and high-fat dairy products, sugar white food, flavored drink and highly processed foods.

I have posted an extensive commentary on foods that reduce inflammation. The best of these posts is here.

If it involves a disk, be patient. Disk herniations heal without surgery more than 85% of the time and several studies have shown that after two years, people who have had surgery and people who have not had surgery recovered at equivalent rates. If you feel your back pain stems from a herniated disk or disks, try all avenues of noon-operative care. “Probably upwards of 40 percent of people who eventually get surgery aren’t happy with it in the end,” says family physician Sarah J. D’Heilly, MD.

My original injury involved a herniation at L5. It is much less protruded now and had pretty much healed, although that is the place here the sciatica pain originates.

Keep trying. Sometimes a doctor or a practice might not be the right fit for your low-back problem. If you try a therapy or new practitioner and don’t find any relief or see any progress after a handful of sessions, it might be time to move on. This can be discouraging. Still, it is worthwhile to try new paths to healing, whether that means trying a different bodywork technique or Pilates or talking to your back specialist about other options. It is also helpful to think about the term healing, which isn’t defined by a cure. There isn’t always a cure for low-back pain, but you can begin to see yourself as a whole person with low-back pain. Healing might mean learning self-care methods to alleviate your pain, practicing yoga a few times a week, seeing your doctor as needed and living your daily life a fully as possible.

My new normal is never leaving the house to walk anywhere without my hiking sticks. Sometimes I don’t need them. But it lowers my anxiety and allows me to keep walking when I have them with me. I recently bought a new purse that holds the folded sticks. I can look relatively sheik going to the opera with this purse, don’t you think?

Be well, Do well and Keep moving.

Betsy

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

walking improves brain health

October 24, 2015 betsyjbell

Gentle Reader,

To my delight, my signature byline, Be Well, Do Well and Keep moving, points as much to brain health as managing arthritis. Recent studies show that walking improves brain health.

In August 2010, Live Science reported on a study involving a group of “Professional Couch-Potatoes.” This is what one researcher called the 69 adults, aged 59 – 80, who were sedentary before entering the study. I mean sedentary: they reported exercising no more than twice in the previous six months. The study compared this group of inactive people with thirty-two 18 – 35 year olds.

The result? Walking at one’s own pace for 40 minutes three times a week can enhance the connectivity of important brain circuits and combat declines in brain function associated with aging and increase performance on cognitive tasks.

The goal was not to study specific brain function, but to study connectivity. “Almost nothing in the brain gets done by one area; it’s more of a circuit,” study researcher Art Kramer, psychology professor at the University of Illinois, said in a statement. “These networks can become more or less connected. In general, as we get older, they become less connected, so we were interested in the effects of fitness on connectivity of brain networks that show the most dysfunction with age.”

Previous studies showed a loss of coordination in the DMN (Default Mode Network) when a person is least engaged with the outside world either passively observing something or simply daydreaming. This networking failure is a common symptom of aging and in extreme cases can be a marker of disease, study researcher Michelle Voss said.

People with Alzheimer’s disease tend to have less activity in this network and they tend to have less connectivity, Voss said. Low connectivity means that the different parts of the circuit are not operating in sync. Like poorly trained athletes on a rowing team, the brain regions that make up the circuit lack coordination and so do not function at optimal efficiency or speed.

In a healthy, young brain, activity in the DMN quickly diminishes when a person engages in an activity that requires focus on the external environment. Older people, people with Alzheimer’s disease and those who are schizophrenic have more difficulty “down-regulating” the DMN so that other brain networks can come to the fore, Kramer said.

In this study by Kramer, Voss and their colleagues, they found that older adults who are more fit tend to have better connectivity in specific regions of the DMN than their sedentary peers. Those with more connectivity in the DMN also tend to be better at planning, prioritizing, strategizing and multi-tasking.

Just by walking three times a week for 40 minutes, DMN connectivity was significantly improved in the brains of the older walkers, but not in the stretching and toning group, the researchers report.

If you have friends or relatives who sit around with the remote, tell them about this study and see if they would be willing to get out and walk. It could make a big difference.

One Way to Ward Off Alzheimer’s: Take a Hike

The study began with 299 dementia-free participants, ages 70 to 90, in 1989. Researchers measured how many blocks they walked per week and, at 9 and 13 years after the initial examination, scientists assessed them with high-resolution magnetic resonance imagining (MRI).

In a final evaluation,116 of these people were diagnosed with dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which can lead to Alzheimer’s disease, while 169 (excluding those deceased prior to the follow-up) remained free of these conditions.

No one has taken a snap shot of an elderly group and followed them over time prior to this study. The participants agreed to walk at least one mile per day. Erickson’s study found that walking at least one mile per day significantly enhanced the volume of several regions of the brain, including the frontal lobe, which is involved in reasoning and problem-solving.

The researchers also found people who walked that distance reduced their risk of cognitive impairment by about half. However, walking more than one mile every day did not further improve brain volume.

We don’t need to do much, but we do need to do something, every day. In my recent visit with the Sports Medicine doctor, she dissuaded me from getting a cortisone shot for my sciatic pain. She gave me some new stretches and said, “Walk 30 minutes every day without fail. It’s the best medicine.”

If my pain is acute, I leave home with walking sticks.

Before long, the pain eases up. BTW, I also take several of Shaklee’s Pain Relieve Complex herbal tablets during the day, depending on how bad the pain is.

It looks as though this advice is helping my brain as well as my joints.

Join me!

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving,

Betsy

206 933 1889

www.hihohealth.com shopping for Shaklee

www.EmpoweredGrandma.com for travel suggestions and reflections

Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Annual Physical

October 14, 2015 betsyjbell 2 Comments

Gentle Reader,

My intention is to have my annual physical coincide with my birthday in early August. Travel and the rule that 365 days must pass before the insurance company will pay for another wellness check-up have pushed this forward. We are in early October, and I have been parading to not one primary care physician, but a total of five medical practitioners who administer their tests and make a judgment as to how I am doing.

I notice that I am invested in the outcomes. These are the Gold Stars I work for when I eat kale, carrots, beets in my Shaklee powered protein shake each morning; when I submit to the torture of the trainers at the Xgym each week; when I sit quietly to calm my mind and body; when I climb trails full of roots and rocks; when I stop in the middle of a writing passage to get enough sleep each night so I can do it again the next day.

The practice of gratitude moment by moment eases the intensity of this competitive attitude toward life, but I admit I have been working to outrun illness and death. And crave and expect thunderous applause for winning the race. How ridiculous. No one gets out alive, not even me.

Seventy eight is humbling me. I notice that I chose sitting in the back garden instead of taking that pain-causing walk around the neighborhood. I notice that I sleep in on Mondays, finding longer hours in bed delicious after a too busy weekend. I notice that I put my glasses on immediately upon rising because it is too fuzzy to walk around my familiar setting without them.

I carry a flashlight in my pocket when I go to the hot tub at night because my eyes don’t adjust to the darkness sufficiently for my safety.

I notice I go without a hat just to feel the wind in my hair, ignoring the genetic abnormality may result in melanoma.

I accept that I have lost another half inch in height, that my HDL/LDL ratio is not as good as last year; that my bone density did not improve as a result of intense weight bearing exercise; that I need to go home to put in my hearing aids (which I forgot last Sunday) if I want to hear the proceedings of the meetings and the family dinner party; that I must carry my hiking sticks with me every time I go out, because I never know when the sciatica will make one more step without them unbearable.

The results of my annual physical come in. None of my doctors is worried about me. Internal medicine finds me better than average. Dermatology burns off a few pre-cancerous spots on my face and affirms my overall skin health. Audiologist declares my hearing loss is increasing less than might be expected. The bone people say I am still losing bone as you would expect at my age but not bad enough for medication. The diagnosis is osteoporosis. They ask, “Did you fall this past year?” I crashed heavily on the way down the rocky trail from Lake Twenty Two this past spring. The scar where I tore the skin on my arm is still visible, but I didn’t break anything. “Stay strong,” they say. I don’t get a fight when I decline the flu shot. I accept the new pneumonia vaccine. My upper respiratory system is vulnerable. I’ve had pneumonia twice in the last five years.

Someone in my circle of friends and acquaintances appears in a draped box on the altar every other week. I join the still living to sing the hymns and repeat the promises of eternal life. I look into the eyes of the spouse (I didn’t know her well enough to interpret her stoicism) and imagine the final weeks and days and hours of suffering and grieving. I remember my own two husbands and their dying. I was the strong one, holding everything together. Now I picture myself in their places.

Recently I finished reading the August issue of The Sun Magazine in which the lead interview gives Stephen Jenkinson, the Griefwalker, the opportunity to talk with us about dying. The default manner of death was for the dying person to endure — to not die — for as long as possible.

Health, Jenkinson says, is not the absence of disease or hardship or brokenness. Health includes all of that. It includes dying.

I have no intention of adopting a morbid fatalism going forward in my seventy-ninth year. I do intend to stop striving for Gold Stars. Numbers on the MyChart read out may neither discourage me nor encourage me. They just are. I will pay more attention to the pleasures of the moment, and less to accomplishments. Like two weeks ago when hiking Green Mountain, one of my favorites in the North Cascades. It has been inaccessible for eight years due to a road wash out. It wasn’t in me to climb to the top, so my companions went on up the autumn patch work quilt of color to the newly strengthened fire lookout. I lay on the heather, alternating watching their progress through my binoculars and dozing off in the autumn sun, relishing the quiet, the beauty, the privilege of being in this remote place one more time. I was happy.

Jenkinson describes the healthy life as a tripod: In the dominant North American culture we talk about health as a possession, something you have and are responsible for maintaining. But I see our health as like a tripod, a dynamic thing: One leg is your relationship with all other human beings. It’s not possible for you to be healthy when there are people living under a freeway overpass in cardboard boxes. Your health is dependent on theirs. The second leg is your relationship with all in the world that’s not human. If you have only these two legs, you can try to live a good life, but it’s like walking on stilts. The third leg is what gives you a place to rest, and that leg is your relationship with the unseen world, everything not described by the other two. Having all three constitutes health. That’s where it lives. This tripod sustains you. You don’t exist as an individual without these relationships.

This is the kind of health I intend to cultivate. The awareness of relationships. The holding all those friends who no longer climb on physical legs. The awareness and pleasure of my slow (or sudden) progress toward the rest I will share with them.

Thoughts on aging? I’d love to hear them. Let us cultivate an attitude toward health that embraces death, a giving back of ourselves to the Earth.

Be well, Do well and Keep moving,

Betsy

www.HiHoHealth.com shopping for Shaklee

www.EmpoweredGrandma.com travel blog

Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness

walking to lose weight

September 9, 2015 betsyjbell

Gentle Reader,

My thanks to an article forwarded to me by a friend. My strategy for maintaining my goal weight all these years has been to walk everyday. I am delighted to pass on this analysis of how much walking it takes to lose weight. Takes the guess work out of it.

From your current weight to your ideal weight: walk

One of the harmless forms of exercise nowadays is walking. You can lose one pound per week or more, dependent on how often you walk. Just by walking to lose weight, you can lose more than 20 pounds in five months without going to the gym or going on a weight loss diet.

You can tone your muscles and improve your health while shedding pounds and inches from your body. You will love this easy and beneficial exercise routine once you learn how to implement the principles of walking to lose weight into your life.

How to Lose Weight by Walking

The number of calories that can be burn with walking depends on your body weight and walking pace. Normally if you walk at a speed of 4 miles per hour (regular speed) you can burn around 400 calories each hour.

Four miles a day added to your regular life will probably give you 10,000 steps and burn 400 calories. But other combinations work well, too. For example, if you walk 3 miles, you can burn extra 300 calories per day. Also you can walk a shorter distance, just combine it with your schedule. There is a device called pedometer to help you to burn some extra calories while walking and doing your daily plan.
I found several on the web from very expensive to moderately priced. I plan to order this one.

Pedometers and Weight Loss

If you are attempting to get in shape with walking, one of the best things that you can do to help to increase the chances for your efforts is to go out and purchase a quality pedometer or a wrist band that can track your everyday exercises.

Pedometer is a useful gadget that you place on your outfit close to your hip region. It is light weight and has several features. The important feature is checking the quantity of steps you take during your workout and throughout your day.

If you want to find out how many miles you need to lose extra pounds, you have to figure out how many you are currently covering. Get a base line to determine how many steps you must add to lower the number when you step on the scale.

So, if you take 8,000 steps with your current routine and daily habits and stuck at an undesirable weight, the quantity of steps that you have to add is just an question of math; increase your mileage according to how many calories you need to burn (more details on that below).

How Many Steps to Lose Weight?

An average person needs to take about 2.000 steps a mile to lose weight. For each mile – burn 100 calories. The pedometer will keep track of your steps, how many calories you burn and how many miles you walk daily. To increase your weight loss, you simply add steps to your daily routine.

1 Mile = 2.000 steps and 100 calories burned
1 Pound = 3.500 calories
Lose 1 Pound weight per week = 500 calories daily.
You need to take 10.000 steps daily to lose 1 pound per week.

Here are ways to fit the walking in your busy day if 10,000 steps sounds like a lot (you don’t need to start from 10,000 steps. Start slowly – you will lose less weight at first)

Get off the bus and walk the rest of the way to work or to home.
Park the car far away from your destination and walk the distance.
You can walk to the station instead of taking bus or car.
Don’t use elevators or escalators, take the stairs instead
Walk the children to school.

You can keep track of the number of pounds you lose or how many calories you burn, depending what kind of pedometer you have. This data helps you stay informed regarding your advancement by giving you a reasonable picture of what you have physically accomplished with your walk.

Because of the critical elements recorded you will want to buy a decent quality pedometer (like this one which is moderately priced) to guarantee each step is checked. As indicated by the American Medical Association, wearing a pedometer is crucial to long haul weight control and effective weight reduction.

How to Keep it Interesting

Keep your routine interesting and switch thing around, because walking the same old track can be boring.
Walk outside at different areas, parks, neighborhoods, or listen some music to enjoy, motivate and energize you to finish the daily walking.
Don’t stop with your daily walk because of cold winter weather. Buy a treadmill and put it in front of a television or window. You can enjoy in nature with looking through windows during walking, or savor every minute of your favorite show in front of television.
You can invite friend or a family member to join you. Even if they walk with you once in a week, it is still good way to mix up your daily routine. You can be bored with same old routine, even if you are dedicate walker. Don’t let this happen to you.
Switch up your routine and keep it interesting.

Walking Style

We all know how to walk and have been doing so since we were a little kid. And throughout the years bad stance and habits may have made you to have less desirable walking standards.

When you are walking for exercise you will focus your eyes about 100 feet forward, keep your chin up, and pull in your abdomen towards your spine. Keep a “fluffy butt” to avoid back strain. This walking style can help you to achieve the maximum from your workout.

How Often to Walk

Before starting with this daily routine it’s a good idea to check in with your primary physician. When you have the go-ahead, you might want to start walking three days per week for 15 to 20 minutes. Then you will increase the frequency until you are walking 30 to 60 minutes a day, every day of the week.

You will be happy to know that this exercise is the best things you can do to lose weight. You can lose 88 pounds in one year without going on a special weight loss diet.

I want to add a couple comments to this piece. I have suffered from severe sciatic pain in the last months which has curtailed my daily walking. When hiking with sticks, I do not have sciatic pain. My strong upper body is lifting the weight off my lumbar spine and allowing the sciatic nerve room to travel down my leg. Even though it feels embarrassing to walk around the neighborhood with hiking sticks, I have been doing just that. I am not willing to lose my fitness level because of vanity!

Recent stories show treadmills in office settings. At Zillow , for example, employees are encouraged to sign up to work at a desk mounted on a treadmill. People report that they can get their emails answered while walking at a rate of 2.4 mph. Spending 30 minutes doing this twice a day combines one of those necessary work tasks with exercise. They even have a conference room with two treadmills so people can conduct and “walk and talk” meeting. It takes a little getting used to. If you work at home, consider this addition to your home office. A lot of us sit most of the day. This would be an efficient way to increase your walking to lose weight, keep your fitness level where you want it, or simply change the scenery.

Be well, Do well and Keep Moving!

Comments? Please share them.

Betsy

206 933 1889

blogging on health at www.grandmabetsybell.com/be-well

shopping for Shaklee products at www.HiHoHealth.com

Travel adventures at www.EmpoweredGrandma.com

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Charlie Horse remedy

August 21, 2015 betsyjbell

Gentle Reader,

The Charlie Horse remedy is a welcome answer to miserable breath-stopping pain. Read on for suggestions on how to deal with your next Charlie Horse when it happens and how to potentially avoid its coming on.

If you have been following my blog posts from Italy, you know that I have been suffering from pain in my right leg and hip. The pain often woke me at night (and still does) with a cramp in the right calf. After multiple types of therapies, I now know that my pain is caused by the increased spinal stenosis especially around the previous herniation of L5 in my lower spine. I have an appointment to get a shot of cortisone mid-September, something I have tried to avoid for a very long time. In the meantime, this article came across my desk. I presume others have Charlie Horses from time to time. My method has been to put a soft resistant ball under the calf with the weight of my leg pressing into it until the muscle releases. The procedure suggested here sounds like it might do the trick nicely. Julie Donnelly also describes a method of working with the calf muscle prior to hiking or working out. Thanks to Dr. Steve Chaney for passing this information along. Let me know how it works for you. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. I appreciate all your continued support. Betsy

Author: Julie Donnelly, LMT – The Pain Relief Expert

You awaken in the middle of the night in excruciating pain from a cramp in one of your calf muscles. You want relief, and you want it now. What can you do?

A calf cramp is caused by several different conditions, such as dehydration and mineral deficiency. These each need to be addressed to prevent future calf cramps, but when your calf spasms wake you with a jolt at night or send you crashing to the ground in agony, you need a solution NOW!

And, stretching is definitely NOT the first thing to do.

Emergency Treatment For Calf Cramps

A muscle always contracts 100% before releasing. Once started, a calf cramp will not partially contract and then reverse because you stretch, as it may cause the muscle fibers to tear, which will cause pain to be felt for days afterward.

As a result, it is most beneficial to help your muscle complete the painful contraction before you try to stretch it. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it cuts the time of the calf cramp down, and enables you to start flushing out the toxins that formed during the sudden spasm.

Your muscle will be all knotted up, screaming in pain, so it’s good to practice this self-treatment when you are not having a calf cramp.

Grab your calf muscles as shown in this picture. Hold it tightly, and then as hard as you can, push your two hands together.

The intention is to help the muscle complete the contraction as quickly as possible. During an actual calf cramp it won’t be as “neat” as the picture shows, but anything you can do to shorten the muscle fibers will hasten the completion of the spasm.

Follow These Steps To Release Your Calf Cramps

1) Hold your hands and continue pushing the muscle together until you can begin to breathe normally again. Continue holding it another 30 seconds, bringing in as much oxygen as possible with slow, deep, breathing.

2) Release your hands and keep breathing deeply.

3) Repeat #1. This time it won’t hurt, but you are helping any last muscle fibers to complete the contraction before you move to release the spasm.

4) Begin to squeeze your entire calf as if you were squeezing water out of a thick towel. Move from the top of your calf and go down toward your ankle. This will feel good, so do it for as long as you can.

5) It is now safe to stretch your calf muscle because the cramp has completed and you have flushed out the toxins. Stretch slowly, and don’t go past the point of “feels so good”. You don’t want to overstretch.

This calf cramp emergency treatment has been proven successful by endurance athletes who have written to me saying how they could continue their race (or training) without any further pain.

This is a very important tip to share with all athletes. Please tell your friends on Facebook and Twitter, it helps athletes prevent injury and pain.

Julie Donnelly

Julie Donnelly is a Deep Muscle Massage Therapist with 20 years of experience specializing in the treatment of chronic joint pain and sports injuries. She has worked extensively with elite athletes and patients who have been unsuccessful at finding relief through the more conventional therapies.

She has been widely published, both on – and off – line, in magazines, newsletters, and newspapers around the country. She is also often chosen to speak at national conventions, medical schools, and health facilities nationwide.

Be well, Do well and Keep Moving,

Betsy

206 933 1889

www.hihohealth.com shopping for Shaklee products

www.empoweredgrandma.com blogging about travel

Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness

summer athletes

July 22, 2015 betsyjbell 3 Comments

Gentle Reader,

People are out pushing limits in team sports or striving for a personal best. What is the best nutrition to enhance the performance of summer athletes? I hike with friends every week. Friends in a high-rise retirement home are logging miles so the combined efforts of the group will total the distance of the Pacific Crest Trail from the border of Mexico to Canada, 2650 miles. Else, who turned 80 last year, leads the pack walking from First Hill to the Seattle waterfront and back up the steep incline several times a week.

My acupuncturist tells me she will participate in the Washington Trails Association Hike-a-thon. She has the awesome goal of hiking 4 days a week during the month of August.

Most of us are into sports because being active is fun, enhances fitness, flexibility and greater longevity. A few sporty people are elite athletes competing at the state, national and international levels. I don’t know about you, but I like to know what the winners do to achieve their results. Perhaps their nutritional practices would help you and me do better. I turned to the Shaklee-fueled Olympic winners to see what helps them get to the top of their game.

Led by pentathelete and Beijing games competitor Eli Bremer, the Shaklee Pure Performance Team is an amazing group of world-class athletes that has been handpicked from a variety of highly competitive sports. They represent Shaklee’s long-term commitment to creating a 100% pure, safe and effective nutrition that gives athletes the healthy edge they need to win at the highest level of competition.

These elite athletes have the most stringent anti-doping regulations in sports, so what they put into their bodies is critically important to them. To make sure they are not only getting the performance and efficacy they need to compete, but also guaranteed quality and purity, these top athletes—who have already won a combined 120 gold, silver and bronze medals at summer and winter games—all choose to use Shaklee.

There are many medal winners whose sports are practiced in the summer. I want to focus on a couple who match the sporting actions of people I know.

Michael Blatchford’s first true passion, at age 13, was a potentially dangerous and imposing force: the Velodrome in Los Angeles, a 250-meter oval track designed for high-speed cycling that was used during the 1984 Games. But since visiting that track as a young teen, Michael went on to become one of the most dynamic American sprinters on the track circuit.

It’s a truly amazing story because from a young age Michael has suffered from both migraine headaches and asthma. The damage done to his lungs is irreversible and is so bad his doctors say he never should have been able to compete on a bike—especially at a world-class level. He also learned to push his body through the pain of migraines, which not only gave him a higher tolerance for pain that made him a better rider but also diminished the effects the of the headaches themselves.

In 2004, Michael became the first junior to win an elite national title with a sprint victory at the U.S. National Track Championships. He also set a national record at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, earning a silver medal in the team sprint.

Michael on 12 national championships and was a competitor in 2008 summer games, narrowly missing out on a spot to compete at the 2012 London Games. He has now retired from the world of competitive cycling to complete a long-postponed college degree.

Michael says, “Athletes are responsible for what they put in their bodies; the ideas of health and performance do not stop at just racing.” His favorite Shaklee products are MindWorks, Performance, Physique and Energy Chews.

Not many of my friends row, but my grandson is hooked. He just came back from an extended camp in Pittsburg, one of 30 high school rowers from across the US. This last weekend he raced in Cincinnati in the junior nationals. (see picture at top) Because of him, I want to showcase Shaklee rower Caroline Lynd Shald, teammate on the US Olympic women’s eight gold medalists, London 2012 and Beijing 2008.

Caroline Lind gold medalist Shaklee powered

Little did this two-time gold medalist of the Games know that when her mother happened upon an article in The Wall Street Journal proclaiming that there was a large number of rowing scholarships available for women, it would change her life. “When I attended Phillips Andover in high school, rowing was available,” Caroline said. “One week in and I was hooked!”

Flash forward and Caroline is not only on the US national rowing team, she’s also a four-time women’s eight rowing champion at the summer Games and a four-time World Champion. Dedicated to her craft, she practices intensely with her team two to three times a day, six to seven days a week—her least favorite exercise being stationary biking. “Every day as I train with my incredibly talented and powerful teammates they push me to be better, faster, and stronger,” Caroline said.

Caroline says much of her success in rowing has come from overcoming mental obstacles. “When your brain is telling you, ‘Stop! It hurts too much!’ You need to tell it, ‘No! We’re going…and we’re going NOW!’ It’s that moment when you push past the impossible, that you achieve it.”

“When I pulled my indoor rowing machine outside facing the lake and the mountains, I had exactly what I needed: the cool, early evening air, and my Shaklee 180 Energizing Smoothee.”

Caroline’s favorite Shaklee products are Energy chews, Physique, 180 Energizing Smoothees, Enfuselle Sun Block SPF 30 and Performance.

There are swimmers in my family of grandchildren. Hanna is on a swimming scholarship at her college in California, SOKA. Daniel and his sister, Elizabeth and brother, Ian both swam their way through school. Elizabeth continued all four years of Calvin college in Michigan. Many of my readers have swimmers in their family. The Shaklee powered swimmers competed in the most difficult feat of all, the pentathlon. Here’s the story of Dennis Bowsher.

In a sport that thoroughly tests both the mind and body of an athlete, Dennis Bowsher is a force to be reckoned with. He finished fourth-place in the men’s modern pentathlon competition at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, which qualified him for the 2012 Games in London. The U.S. Army specialist and four-time national champion competed in those Summer Games.

Passionate about competing—and winning—Bowsher was introduced to the sport of pentathlon while still in high school. The modern pentathlon is a five-event competition: pistol shooting, épée fencing, swimming, equestrian show jumping, and cross-country running.

“It takes a lot of commitment to compete at this high level,” says Dennis. “And it is not just in training, the commitment extends to things you do outside of training. Your body and mind are what are going to get you to the goals you set. You have to be doing everything to make sure your mind and body are in tip-top shape, and making sure you’re getting the nutrients you need is definitely high on the list. You also need to make sure you’re getting the best amount of sleep each night, and you need to keep stress out of your life so you can focus 100% on what needs to be done to achieve your goal.”

Training for the pentathlon is a grueling training program. Dennis regularly runs 60 miles a week, swims 12 miles a week, fences for a total of seven hours a week, shoots for 7½ hours a week, and rides for 1½ hours during the week. “Since there are five sports that we’re training for, we have to create a specific training plan to improve in each of them,” he says.

Dennis’ sights are now set on the 2016 Games in Rio. And you can bet he’ll hit his mark.

“Shaklee has been invaluable to me—I use something from the whole line on nearly a daily basis, and I travel with as much as I can bring!”

Dennis loves the 180 snack bars, the 180 Energizing Smoothees and Shaklee’s Performance.

Personally, I use all these products to enhance my training and favorite sport, hiking. Performance is in my water when I hike. I drink Physique within twenty minutes of my work out at the Xgym with my personal trainer. I use the 180 Smoothee with a beet, carrot, stalk of celery and kale, plus ¼ green apple and ¼ c. raspberries for breakfast everyday (when I’m not traveling) and I wear the Enfuselle SPF 30 daily. The Energy Chews are in my car especially useful in the morning before a long hike when a glass or cup of green tea would send me into the forest frequently. The Chews have the same energizing effect at the beginning of a hike and toward the end when the parking lot is just too far away.

Try them yourself to test the results. You may increase your stamina, speed, over-all performance. If you are not satisfied with your results, get your money back. My cycling friend’s husband just tried her Performance and decided to abandon the drink he’d favored for Shaklee. He likes it better.

Be well, Do well and Keep Moving,

Betsy

Shopping for Shaklee products www.HiHohealth.com

Travel stories, most recently Tuscany and the Amalfi coast www.EmpoweredGrandma.com

206 933 1889

Please leave your sporting comments and don’t hesitate to pass this post along to your favorite athlete. And thank you.