Maybe I should get serious

Do you sometimes feel as if you are being targeted by specific commercials for your age group?  Well, you probably are.  I am in that age category that still watches the evening news at 5:30, just like my parents did, and it seems to me that there are a particularly large number of commercials regarding health. For example, fruit and vegetable capsules for those of us who do not eat enough fresh vegetables and fruit.  

Yet, the AARP magazine that also targets us warns that it is impossible to replicate what real food provides by taking a supplement, which lacks not only the full complement of nutrients but also the fiber that fresh produce provides for what the gut needs to keep us healthy.  

Not only what we eat but also what we do is important to our health. I have friends who obsess over getting 10,000 steps a day, wearing a watch that counts their steps to make sure they are meeting their goal.  Good for them!  AARP reported that research  found that walking 3,865 steps a day "can reduce your risk of dying from any cause" and "500 steps was linked to a 7% reduction in dying from cardiovascular disease."  The article also emphasized the benefits of even lessor amounts as well.

All of us need exercise, even as we age. including Aerobic exercise, Strength training, Stretching, and Balance. We may no longer be able to do what we once did, but if possible, we should try to find less stressful substitutes.  For example, Aerobic exercise speeds heart rate and breathing, which helps relax blood vessel walls, lower blood pressure, burn body fat, lower blood sugar levels, and when practiced long-term, other benefits.  Such things as brisk walking, swimming, jogging, cycling, dancing, step aerobics and marching in place are examples.

Strength training helps build back muscle mass, which might help with such things as carrying groceries, gardening, and climbing stairs.  It can improve balance and posture, reduce stress and pain in the lower back and joints, and improve balance.  A physical therapist might be needed to design a strength training program.

Age leads to loss of flexibility in muscles and tendons, and Stretching may help maintain flexibility and reduce the risk for muscle cramps and pain.  Before overdoing, warm up your muscles with things like arm circles and marching in place, then moving to static stretches.  But, always be careful not to push a stretch into the painful range.

Finally, Balance exercises help you feel steadier on your feet.  As we age, we certainly want to avoid falls!  You may need to consult a physical therapist to help you determine your current balance abilities and to prescribe specific exercises for areas of weakness.  

What I need to do now is take my own advice! 

P.S.  It is not just those of us with gray in our hair that need to exercise.  Even young children are getting less exercise than they need, as well as those between the young and the old.

Have We Given up on Exercise?

Once, labor kept us fit.

This blog was inspired when I read a government Centers for Disease Control & Prevention article which said that children ages 6 to 16 should do 60 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily to allow the development of strong bones and muscles, and to help control their weight.   Believe it or not, the article also said that meeting those exercise goals would reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.  Here is the bad news.  Less than 1/4 of kids in that age range meet that goal. 

A report in Time Magazine said that less than 5% of adults participate in 30 minutes of daily physical activity. and as we age, we become even less active.  The Center for Disease Control warns that ignoring physical activity can lead to heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes.  So, what am I doing?  I am sitting at my desk exercising nothing much but my brain and my fingers.  We own a tread mill and a stationary bike, but it has been longer than I can remember since I used either one.  The best thing I can say for myself is that my office is upstairs, so I make several trips a day going up and down.

I came upon an article by Michael Easter, that said that early humans had the running capacity of today's competitive cross-country athletes.  His article went on to say that big game could outsprint humans, but humans developed attributes geared toward endurance running.  The game they hunted could outsprint them, but humans developed endurance, allowing early humans to chase animals for miles, eventually wearing the animals down.  The humans had less hair and larger sweat glands, which kept them cooler as they ran, while the hair on the animals made them hotter, which begin to slow them down.  The name given to that was "persistence hunting."  Remember the old saying, "strong and steady wins the race"?  Records from ancient time indicate that people kept fit running, jumping, wrestling, and throwing heavy stones.  It is estimated that they walked 6 to 16 kilometers a day, and walking remains the most natural exercise today to help keep us trim.

But, how long did our sturdy ancient men live?  In the Early Neolithic age, life expectancy at age 15 was about 28 to 33 years.  By the early and middle Bronze Age it was 28 to 36.  We are a little more familiar with the Athens Agora & Corinth age, but at age 15 their expectancy was only 37 to 41.  Most of the Greeks and Romans died young. 

Before we get too proud of ourselves, we need to be reminded that our longer lives may have more to do with the modern health care than our diligence in taking care of our bodies with exercises.  Even we old-timers could help ourselves with 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity, like brisk walking, swimming, or dancing.  Are you ready?!

How We Shop

When Ladies made their own clothing

My Mother was a talented seamstress, and although we went to the department store every Fall and Spring to shop, we did not go to buy.  We browsed the new dress designs in the stores during the morning, relaxed in the car at lunch to enjoy the sandwiches Mother had brought from home in the ice chest, and then we went to the fabric shop to buy the patterns and fabric we would select to copy the dresses we had admired that morning in the department stores.

We sometimes bought our fabric and patterns at Jetts' department store in Pratt, but we rarely bought clothing there, since my mother was a seamstress.  The dime stores were where we bought our undergarments, costume jewelry, and cosmetics. Sweaters, jeans, and clothing Mother could not make were probably purchased at J.C. Penney.  After High School, when I lived in Wichita for a few months, I did a lot of shopping in the department stores, but the only thing I remember buying was an umbrella, which I considered a very sophisticated change from the clear plastic rain bonnet I tied under my chin.  

After I was married and we lived in New England, I loved the big Department stores, and we sometimes went to New York City, where stores like Bloomingdales, Macy's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Bonwit Teller, B. Altman, Lord and Taylor, and Gimbels were a tempting delight to visit.  Today, I believe, only the first four department stores that I just listed are still there.  

I did buy clothing for myself, but I also made my own clothing.  I even made my husband a tuxedo!

Times changed, and shoppers were drawn to the big box competitors like Walmart and Target.  The pandemic reduced enclosed malls.  People in urban areas got home delivery groceries and increased shopping online.  Not only are stores having to deal with online shopping and fewer customers buying the more formal clothing people once bought, but some businesses are also now threatened with Smash-and-grab robbers and break-ins, requiring the added expense of guards and expensive safety measures.  Unfortunately, those safety measures often make shopping seem less inviting, discouraging the impromptu visits that had sometimes led to sales.

The days of lovely fabric stores for talented seamstresses, elegant department stores, and customers' closets with a wider variety of clothing for different occasions have nearly passed.  

Our changing world has taken away many things we enjoyed, and the replacements may not always provide the equivalent enjoyment.  However, on the other hand, we now take for granted new things that we have come to believe we cannot live without.  However young or old we are, shopping is teaching us to adapt.  

Emerson's Weather Report

Emy on window sill checking the weather

 Sometimes I am not sure whether we train our pets or they train us.  I grew up on a farm with lots of animals--always cattle in the unplowed prairie pasture, hogs one year, a lamb one year that a neighbor gave us when it needed to be bottle fed and he did not want to take the time, chickens, and a mean banty rooster we got from somewhere one year.

We were given a water spaniel named Brownie when I was about three years old, but she was a distraction to every male dog in the neighborhood, and her litters were always large.  When we had given puppies away to everyone we knew, she was finally given away too, but we kept two male pups from her last litter--my dog Curlie and my brother's dog Jack.  Curlie was my buddy from the time I was three until my senior year in high school. 

There were always cats.  The one most special was Mrs. Silk.  There were a few other cats, but they were barn cats, and they never lasted very long.  I wonder now if they might have met a sad ending when they were out hunting.  My parents did not allow pets in the house, and I am not sure if they were regularly fed other than table scraps and milk until our last milk cow, Old Red, went to the sale.

I knew nothing about house pets until I married and my husband brought home a beautiful kitten from the college farm where he worked that first year of college.  Since then, we have almost always had a pet or two, and they lived in the house.

But this blog is about the weather.  Our dogs were never "trained" but we talked to them as if they understood, and fairly quickly they acquired vocabularies.  Our cats pretend to ignore human language and prefer to train us...which brings me to Emerson's weather report.  

I enjoy sitting outside, just taking a break to listen to the birds and the 'petty coat' rustling of the leaves on the cottonwood trees.  I didn't have a particular time nor did I always make time to go outside, but whenever I went outside, our cat Emerson would hurry to the door to join me.  However, the miserable heat this summer has meant that if I fail to go outside early, it will be too hot to be enjoyable by 9 or 10 o'clock.

Emerson has taken the responsibility of leading me to the door every morning, to make sure we do not miss getting outside when it is cool, and before a wind that could knock you over picks up, as the winds have been so many days this summer.  We watch the birds dash through the air catching bugs, and listen to all of the sounds of a country morning, and we make our prediction of just how hot it will get.  This summer, Emerson's weather prediction is almost always hot and windy, and most days he has been right!