Health and Aging

I have been thinking about getting older A LOT lately. First, our parents are getting older - my mother is 80 and had a TIA last year (she is doing great now!) and my father just turned 90. My husband's parents are in their 70's and have their health issues, particularly with mobility. I think a lot of aging issues have to do with health and health has to do with diet and exercise. Since I hit 40, things have gone downhill. I have gained weight despite exercising and watching what I eat. I have also noticed joint pain, back pain, stiffness that is not constant but bothersome. Because both of my parents have had joint replacements, I feel that any high impact activity is not in my best interest. I have done running and pretty much hate it. I like how I feel afterwards but one time a few years ago when I tried to start training for a long run, I had a hard time walking one day and I don't want to damage my joints. I love swimming and need to get back to it. I have struggled with just finding time to exercise. Yesterday I walked to work and walked home, about 5.5 miles total. My knee bothered me the whole time. But I told myself if I lost the extra weight, there would be less pain on my joints. So I am going to continue that. I also started PureBarre in January (www.purebarre.com/lexington) and I love it. I think any middle aged woman has to be intentional about doing weight bearing exercises and core strength exercises - to keep muscle mass, etc. PureBarre is less cardio and more strength exercises for all of those areas women need to work on - thighs, seat, abs. It is expensive but completely worth it in my opinion. My plan is to do PB 3x a week, and be active the rest of the time - walking, swimming, housework (I have an almost 6000 sq. ft. home so cleaning it is a workout for sure!). I have been reading voraciously about diet and trying to figure out what is the best diet for me. I think every body is different. You have to keep in mind what your health issues are. EVERYBODY should be eating more vegetables. I think for some people a vegan diet is ideal. Have you seen President Clinton? He is doing great since converting to vegan diet. If I didn't have boys in the house, I probably would be vegan. But I do have boys in the house and I want to fix homemade food for them that they will eat rather than eat fast food which they do, particularly my 19 year old since he can drive himself to places and has his own money to buy those things. So meat is on the menu. I try to only buy meat that has been humanely raised - I get my pork from the farmer's market and they raise their pigs in open pastures, using no antibiotics or hormones (http://www.hillsideheritagefarm.com/index.htm). I have just partnered with Good Life Ranch to get chickens and I have a cow on reserve for 2015 tentatively (http://www.goodliferanch.com/). We have a cow share to get raw milk. I pretty much cook all homemade food and whole foods. I have been reading Make Shift Happen (http://www.makeshifthappen.org/) and it makes a lot of sense - this particular author went from a vegetarian diet to a paleo diet and it worked for him. I am trying to eat a lot less grains/carbs because I do think for me that they contribute to weight issues for me. I have watched a lot of people around me lose weight and gain weight back and I have always believed that they way to permanent weight loss is not a diet but a food plan and that is what I am trying to work on. My family has a history of obesity so I do think that being thin is probably not in the cards, but I just want to get to a comfortable weight and I am not there right now. I want me to be healthy and happy AND I want my family to be there as well. I don't want my children to struggle with weight issues, I don't want my husband to have heart issues, I want my mother, who lives with us, to be around until she is 100 or more. That is a tall order, but I am working on it. How about you, how have you managed to stay healthy as you get older and keep your family healthy? And by the way, if you are in your 20's or 30's, and you are thin and healthy, umm, sorry, that doesn't really help me. I think this whole post is not about diet and exercise - I understand that and when I was in my 20's and 30's - it wasn't a struggle! It is now, with a declining metabolism and many more responsibilities than I had then, that is the struggle. IF you aren't 40 yet, I don't think you get that. You can disagree with me but I don't know many women my age that aren't struggling. I see Marie Osmond for example, that was able to lose weight, but I personally don't think it was healthy food, and I don't think she made it a family affair. So that is not what I am looking for. Anyway, I obviously have thought a lot about this and I have a lot of opinions, but I am really open to ideas. Hope you are too!

Weekends

I came across an interesting new book about what successful people do in the morning - What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings--and Life by Laura Vanderkam (Author). I think the short answer is the foundation for the day is set in the morning. Many working mothers talk about getting dinner started in the morning, exercise is done in the morning, starting laundry, etc. I have always been a morning person so getting stuff done in the morning is pretty intuitive to me. The items I accomplish on the weekends are more of a work in progress right now and I am eager to hear others philosophy on the weekends. I am able to send my oldest child out during the week to grocery shop so that is one less chore for me on the weekends. Because we are in the process of transitioning to traditional foods, which can take more forethought and preparation, I tend to do some of that prep work on weekends. Saturday morning I woke up at 2 am and decided to get up and do some baking! I am now grinding my own wheat and so I had to do that before I could do any baking. Our house is pretty big and we have lots of room divider doors so for the most part, I can do something really noisy such as grinding wheat, roasting coffee beans in the early morning hours without waking anyone up. I have been working with sourdough and I find that is a new skill for me. I am used to instantaneously making baked goods but sourdough, old fashioned sourdough is about patience and timing. So feeding the starter and building up the starter is a weekend and even a pre-weekend task. I like to do some fun things on the weekend and my daughter and I were able to go apple picking. We picked 45 pounds of apples and I now have to figure out what I am going to do with all of those. We have finally gotten settled in to our lives here in Kentucky that we can do more things out of the ordinary on the weekends. The state fair just started and I really want to get to that next weekend - I have always loved looking at all the farm animals, but now that we are raising our own, it has taken on a whole new level. We went canoeing a couple of weekends ago, and hope to do some more canoeing around the state, especially before it gets too cool to do that. Church is usually a part of our weekends. Now that we have gotten quite a bit more active at our church, going is sort of like getting to visit with family, and we enjoy it so much. My husband took part in a charity golf tournament on Saturday with some men from church. This weekend was the quick off of Sunday school and confirmation, so there was quite a bit of excitement in the air. This week starts our homeschooling year again so I must finish this post and prepare my daughter's assignments for the week. Our oldest child is going to community college so I don't have to do as much school planning for him. We have a woman come in who is getting a Ph.D. in special education, and she works with the boys on life skills (both boys are autistic - highly functioning, but still challenged in various degrees). My middle child is almost 16, and struggling with what he wants to do with his life and motivation to do school work. He thinks he would like to work with computers so we have told him math is essential and he agrees with us for the most part. He wants to find, surprise, a computer math program, so I need to do some more research there. Exercise is also squeezed into my weekends but that will be the topic of another post. Let's just say it is a priority and also a work in progress. What about you? What do you do on the weekends to lay the foundation for your week? Share your best ideas! Peace, CEM

Multi-tasking

For working mothers, there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish what we want to accomplish. So we try to find a way to sneak stuff in when we are doing other stuff. Working on a knitting project while you are waiting at the Dr.'s office would be an example. But too much multi-taking takes us away from being present in the moment. Watching TV while you are eating, especially if you are eating with family, is not a good idea. The conversations you are able to have with your kids and partner are an important part of reconnecting after being away from each other all day. Another part of the equation is what tasks can we just let go so that we don't have to multi-task? I don't balance my checkbook and I haven't for a long time. That's another discussion. I try to exercise when my family is sleeping - not really multi-tasking, but I don't like to take away any more hours from them than I need to. I pay bills at work during breaks because I am at the computer all day. What are your ideas on multi-tasking? What works and what haven't you figured out? I am still a work in progress. Some balls just get dropped. As I have said before, people have asked me how I do it all? The answer is I don't.

Introduction

Hi all, I spend most of my day in front of a computer for work. It is also the place where I make connections, find out about all sorts of topics, do much of my shopping, etc. I have had in the back of my head an idea for a blog and thought what have I done and what do I do that I can help others with? I became a working mom 2 1/2 years ago and at that time also did a whole bunch of things concurrently - I moved from Kansas to Kentucky with 2 of my children while living in a graduate student apartment. I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation. I homeschooled my kids. I went house hunting without my husband (although he did a lot of research online) and found our house without him. I coordinated a move of the rest of our household including my middle child, my mom, our pets, our household belongings, and my husband. I defended my dissertation. I did a lot of things that most people do if they are not working - most graduate students are paid by their advisor while they are writing their dissertation, at least in chemistry, which my degree is in. All they do is write. Not homeschool. And have a full-time job which is not in dissertation writing. I personally try to read everything I can on that work-life balance; how do working mothers do it all (or not), and so on. I thought I would offer my insights and start a discussion on how do you work and have a life? We have recently started working towards more sustainable food - starting a garden, started raising chickens and ducks. Let me tell you - these things are also tasks that take more than part-time effort! SO I would love to hear from others your thoughts on working and living. What do you do? What do you not do? Peace, CEM