You can choose to have to carve out the time to go to the gym (including drive time) and then coordinate your schedule with a friend’s so you’re more likely to actually go.  Or why not be good to yourself and eliminate those planning steps that eat up your time?  No more having to force or drag yourself there. Your home gym is your very own and the quality and convenience make it SO easy, you can reach your goals and sustain them.  Motivation needn’t be a problem again.

It’s a few steps to the next room. No waiting for the loud-talking machine-hoggers to finish. No model-like bodies reminding you of the short-falls of your own. Read or watch tv while you peddle or stride without noisy distractions. And you can dress and look any way you want.  In your own gym, you make the rules.  Go anytime you want, it’s open 24/7.

With no more monthly dues, over time, you will save money.

Your personal home gym doesn’t have to be big; just enough space for your favorite equipment. No costly additions, no special plumbing or insulation or fancy plans.  Just simple and affordable and ready to use, soon.

Pipe in music or mount a flat screen TV, use the remote from where you sit, stand or lie down. Install a big mirror for some feedback and to make the room feel larger. Hang a rack for items not in use at the moment. Include a shelf or cubbie for your ankle weights, pedometer, or iPod, and a towel or two.   A mini-frig is great for water bottles and sports drinks. It’s easy to make your home gym spacious, inviting and your very own healthy exercise center.

Insure adequate air circulation and decide what kind of flooring you’d like. No mats needed if you have rubberized flooring material which also reduces noise and increases safety. Bring in a treadmill, stationary bike, cross-trainer or elliptical. Include weights, balls, bands and tubes, too.

When you’re finished Sweatin’ To The Oldies, it’s a hop, skip and a jump to your private bathroom, shower or pool. No need to cover up around lookie-loo’s in the locker room.

Penny Spark
So. Cal. Home Improvement Referral Service, Inc. (S.C.H.I.R.S.)

Here are a few heart facts that may surprise you:

• Your heart beats about 100,000 times a day, which equates to 35 million times a year and 2.5 billion times over the average lifetime.
• The force used by your heart to pump blood out to your body is equivalent to the amount of force you’d use to give a tennis ball a hard squeeze.
• Even at rest, your heart muscles work hard…twice as hard as the leg muscles of a sprinter.
• The six quarts of blood in your body circulate through it three times every minute, so in one day, your blood travels a total of 12,000 miles.

What are the takeaways from this? Your heart is arguably the most important muscle in your body…and you need to exercise it just like you would any other muscle. Are you aware that an inactive lifestyle is one of the top risk factors for heart disease? Regular exercise, particularly the aerobic variety, strengthens your heart and cardiovascular system, improves your circulation and heart failure symptoms, and lowers blood pressure…and that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.

The chocolates, flowers and other expressions of love you receive from your Valentine may make your heart go pitter-patter, but they’re no substitute for a good workout. Of course, you should check with your doctor before beginning any exercise regime, especially if you’ve been a “couch potato” for a while.

For a.m. exercisers: When you wake up, it’s dark and cold. Your bed is warm and you want to stay snuggled up. If you do press the snooze button, promising yourself you’ll get up and exercise a few minutes later, you probably won’t.

For p.m. exercisers: It’s dark and cold again when you drive home from work. Even when the days are warm, they’re still too short to allow you to take a nice, leisurely evening walk. It’s easier to shed your work clothes, make a nice dinner, relax and forget about exercising.

While the fact that winter is winter won’t change—even in Southern California—if you allow the time of year to affect your exercise habits, you’re basically just latching on to another excuse to be sedentary. I challenge you to defy the season and remain active! Just a little bit of movement and exercise goes a long way…and even a few minutes of physical activity can lift your mood.

Here are a few tips to get you exercising in the comfort of your home, regardless of how dark and cold it is outside:

• Get a great workout using resistance bands. See the Using Resistance Bands section of my website under Fitness Resources to learn more.
• Be sure to use any home exercise equipment you have for its intended purpose…not as a clothes hanger!
• If you don’t have a treadmill and you seek an alternative to the cardio exercise you usually get outdoors, try walking briskly up and down your stairs.

Don’t let winter make you a couch potato!

On January 4th, I had the pleasure of being the guest speaker at the Thousand Oaks City Council on Aging. What a wonderful group! I had a great time. See the entire meeting, including my presentation at:

http://toaks.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=1285

If you wish to skip to my part, just click on part #4 on the list to the left.

Sarcopenia, which comes from the Greek word meaning “poverty of the flesh,” is the wasting away of muscle tissue. This process occurs naturally as we age, especially in those who live a more sedentary lifestyle. It accelerates after age 50, and for those over 80, is slightly more prevalent in men. Muscle loss can have a serious affect on quality of life; it can result in risks associated with balance and speed of movement (not being able to move quickly enough to avoid injury).

By the time you’ve reached 60, 70 and 80, you’ll lose an estimated 30%, 45% and 80% of muscle, respectively, unless you do something about it. Everyone will suffer from sarcopenia, but you have a choice as to how much you’re willing to let nature take its toll.

Resistance (strength) and nutrition both play a part in how you preserve muscle strength. Weight training, especially progressive resistance exercise, can build muscle and allow you to stay young, active and independent for as long as possible. We’re not talking about getting big and bulky, but incorporating weight-bearing exercises into your fitness program to slow the muscle tissue loss associated with aging and perhaps even regain some muscle function that’s been lost.

In addition to exercising with weights, you can also combat muscle loss by ensuring your diet includes enough high-quality protein (25-30 grams with each meal). A lack of vitamin D and creatine have also been associated with lowered muscle mass, so you may want to be tested to determine if you could benefit from taking supplements.

Use it or lose it! Make 2012 the year you add resistance training to your fitness regime to retain as much muscle mass as you can.

How do you know if you’re dehydrated? The symptoms of mild to moderate dehydration include being tired or sleepy, suffering from frequent headaches or dizziness, and having a lower urine output that’s more yellowish than normal. If untreated, severe dehydration can occur rather quickly; its symptoms include low blood pressure; rapid heart rate; and lethargy, confusion or coma.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, the ability of older individuals to regulate fluid balance in response to fluid deprivation or dehydration is compromised, and can thus lead to increased risk of dysfunction, disease or even death. Our aging systems, especially the kidneys, can partially explain why dehydration is more of a concern as we grow older; hormonal changes, chronic medical conditions, and the use of medication or behavioral adjustments to treat urinary incontinence problems can also increase the risk of water imbalance.

Thirst should not be a determinant of the need for hydration, as this sensory function, like hearing, vision, smell and touch, declines with age. So…how much should you be drinking each day? The “8 by 8” rule (eight eight-ounce glasses of water daily) is a good guide, but you can modify that to include any fluid, since they all contribute to your daily total. Water is always your best bet, since it’s calorie-free and readily available, but milk and juice are primarily composed of water, and even beer, wine and caffeinated drinks “count,” although these beverages shouldn’t be a major portion of your daily fluid intake…

The obvious explanation is that having a blog gives you a reason to return regularly to my website…but there’s a lot more to it than that. A lot of information, and misinformation, is floating around out there about fitness, and most of it is geared toward people in their 20s, 30s or 40s. My calling, and my passion, is working with the 50+ population, so I feel driven to be credible fitness resource for this often-ignored demographic.

This blog will include information about lifelong fitness and health, and it allows me to reach far more people than can be trained in Southern California by my team and me. I welcome your feedback on the topics I cover, along with suggestions on future areas of focus.

Every birthday you celebrate is precious, even more so as the years add up. When you make life choices that support the health of your body and mind, you’ll find yourself laughing in the face of advancing age, and living life to the fullest no matter how old you are.

“Lori Michiel brings a surprising resumé to her position as a fitness class instructor. Were you aware that she has been a New York stock broker and then a banker? She characterizes herself as a peacekeeper and persuader, with a love for seniors. During her career in the financial world, she also volunteered at the Jewish Home for the Aged in Reseda, CA. Here she developed the program which she named FiftyPlus Fitness, and became certified in her “new” career in 2006.

Using music and props to keep everyone interested, Lori is dedicated to personalized instruction. With her private clients and her groups here at University Village, she provides activities which
improve balance and the recovery of past capabilities which may have been lost to illness or general lack of conditioning. Her students report a greater sense of independence, becoming less accident prone and more flexible and disease free.”

Read the entire article.