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Choosing a Fitness Program After 50? Speak to an Expert First.

3/10/2019

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Time to Start Thinking About Bone Health

As we head into middle age and beyond, we start to be confronted by health issues that we probably didn’t think too much about when we were younger. One of those issues/conditions is thinning of our bones, which for some people, can become osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis or osteopenia affects around fifty-five per cent of Americans aged 50 and over. This number continues to rise. In Australia, statistics show that there are one third more women with osteoporosis than men. Globally one in three women and one in 5 men in this age group will experience an osteoporosis-related bone fracture.  Looking at just these few statistics shows why a goal to maintain or increase bone density is very important.  

​If you are over 50, bone health is something you really should be considering.  

​Why Do Bones Get Weaker as We Age?

Our bones are not only the solid structure our bodies are built around; they also store calcium and other minerals.  We also have calcium circulating in our blood. This circulating calcium is used in muscle contractions, blood clotting, regulating heartbeat, fluid balance. It’s also used in our neurological system, and for building strong teeth and strong bones. The amount of circulating calcium is very tightly controlled to keep everything functioning properly. Having either too much or not enough calcium can cause problems. Dietary calcium and the calcium in our bones can be called on to maintain the correct levels in our blood. Our bones are continually remodelled, with calcium being taken and replaced to maintain blood calcium levels. When overtime, more calcium is taken than replaced, our bones become weaker and more prone to fracture.

The loss of calcium from our bones caused by advancing age and menopause can put us at a higher risk of fracture. It’s very important to be aware of bone health when you are younger. Having a higher bone density before reaching menopause can lower the risk of developing osteoporosis. Having a diet high in calcium and doing the right type of exercise can make a big difference even if you haven’t thought ahead.  So it’s never too late to make some healthy changes!

We also need Vitamin D for healthy bones.

​Vitamin D is another important nutrient for bone health. Vitamin D is involved in regulating the amount of calcium in our blood. It does this by enhancing calcium absorption from the gastrointestinal tract and reabsorption from our kidneys. We can produce vitamin D in our body from interactions between sunlight, and our skin, or we can get limited amounts from dietary sources (fortified milk and other fortified foods as well as from some animal products). If you for one reason or another you don’t get much time in the sun,  then it might be worth talking to your doctor. They may do a blood test to establish your vitamin D level.

How much calcium do you need?

The Dietary Reference Intakes in the USA recommend that women aged 51 – 70 have 1200mg of calcium daily, and men in this age group have 1000mg. For people aged 71 + the recommendation is 1200mg for both women and men. The recommendation in Australia is only slightly different, instead of 1200mg for women aged between 51-70 the recommendation is 1300mg
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It’s best to get your calcium intake from dietary sources rather than supplements if possible. Dairy products are among the best dietary source of calcium. Just 1 cup of skim milk, 200ml of low-fat Greek yoghurt and 40g of cheese will give you 937mg of calcium. Add to that 100g of canned sardines (with bones), and you’re over the 1200mg RDI with a total of 1477mg of calcium.

Exercise for stronger bone

​Although doing any form of exercise is a good thing, if your goal is to get stronger bones, you need to pick the right type of exercise. For strong bones, some forms of exercise are better than others. Like our muscles adapt to lifting weights by getting stronger, our bones adapt to stress we put them under as well. The type of exercise that strengthen our bones are things like resistance training (lifting weights), jogging/running and sports like tennis or basketball. These types of activities put load on our skeleton through either lifting or holding weight or by our bones absorbing stress caused by the impact from running and jumping activities, helping to stimulate mineralisation.

​Exercises like swimming and bike riding, however, offer very little in the way of stress to our skeleton. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do these exercises; they're still great for your health and fitness and wellbeing in other ways. 

What next?

You are probably thinking; this is where I would give you a specific exercise plan that would help you maintain or improve your bone density. I wish it were that easy! There are just too many differences between each individual. For example, things like pre-existing health conditions, level of experience at the types of exercise I mentioned earlier, and availability of equipment for some types of exercise.

If you are serious about improving your bone health, I would suggest you start by talking to your doctor. All going well, they’ll give you the all-clear to start an exercise plan.  They may recommend an allied health specialist suited to you. Make sure search out a good exercise physiologist or fitness specialist with experience in exercise for bone health to guide you toward strong, healthy bones.  

If you would like some help or advice from me, you can contact me through the button below. I would love to be able to help you!
Contact Fit Beyond Fifty
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Choosing a Fitness Program After 50? Speak to an Expert First.

12/7/2019

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​Planning for Your Health and Fitness

​Are you thinking about starting an exercise routine and improving your health and fitness? If you are, then one of the most important things you should do before you get started, is spend a bit of time thinking about what you are aiming to achieve. I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of things going on in my life. I want to make sure I’m using the precious time I’ve put aside for exercise as effectively as I can. Making sure you’ve really identified what you want out of your fitness plan can save you a lot of unproductive time. Once you’ve worked out your goals, then it’s just a matter of working out the best way of achieving them. Even if you are already exercising, regularly reassessing your plan is a must.

​Identifying Your Goals

There are a lot of reasons people decide they need to start an exercise program: 
  •  Doctor recommends you lose weight and improve your fitness. Being overweight can put you at   risk of a number of diseases and conditions.
  •  Maintain your independence as you age.
  •  Have some things you’ve always wanted to do that require a certain level of fitness.You may have   always wanted to run a marathon or do an ironman race, or some other physical challenge.
  •  Your goal could be just to be fit and health. That’s a really valid goal!
These are just a few of the things that might make you decide to change your lifestyle. Once you have the big picture of what you want to achieve, you need to break it down into small achievable mini goals. Remember any goal is better than no goal at all. So even if you just want to maintain a level of fitness, have a think about what that actually means. It still requires some level of planning!

​Breaking It Down

​Let’s say your goal is to run a marathon. If you’ve never ran before, that’s a massive goal. Breaking it down into smaller more easily achievable pieces will give you a much greater chance of eventually running your first marathon. An example of how you might break it down is by signing up to run a 5k and training for that. Next you might enter a 10k and so on, until the final jump to the 42k marathon isn’t so massive. Another example might be you want to lose some weight. If you don’t want to overwhelm yourself and lose motivation, break it down into small achievable mini weight goals. Each time you reach one of your mini goals you’ll feel a sense of achievement, which will help keep you motivated toward.

Best Path to Your Goal

​This is where it can start to get tricky and confusing. Be careful that you don’t waste time following the wrong exercise plan or falling for the latest fad. Choose carefully where you get your advice. This will save you a lot of time and may be the difference between you reaching your goal or not. There’s a lot of health and fitness information out there for you to digest. Often the simplest plans are the most effective. If it’s too complex, it’ll usually be hard to maintain over the long term. Health and fitness and well-being is an ongoing process, so it needs to be sustainable. If you’re just starting out remember that like most things in life, improving your health and fitness is a process, so don’t be in too much of a rush. You don’t want to build a house of cards, which might collapse at any moment.

​Choosing Where to Get Your Health & Fitness Information

​There are a lot of self-proclaimed guru’s around, especially since the onset of the internet and social media. Don’t just follow blindly. If you see someone on the internet that you think might be able to help you, do some research. Checkout their background, experience and qualifications etc. If you can get a recommendation from a friend who has had a good experience with a trainer that’s always a good start. This might not always work though. Your goal might be a lot different than your friends goal, so still check if their trainer has experience in what you’re trying to achieve. It’s also important that your trainer understands that it’s your goal and not theirs. It’s super important that your trainer understands and is fully onboard with your goal. Remember it’s about you, not the trainer.

​What’s Next

Randomly choosing an exercise plan can very quickly waste your time, and have you end up not heading toward your goal at all. In future articles I’ll give you some ideas of what a training plan might look like for some specific goals.
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If you have a goal that you aren’t sure how to achieve, you can contact me through the link below and maybe I can make your goal the topic of a future article. 
Click here to contact Fit Beyond Fifty
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Good Fat v Bad Fat

16/6/2019

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How does fat fit in to a healthy diet

Over the years fat has received a lot of bad press and has been linked to obesity and heart disease. Although this is true, there’s a bit more to the story than just saying all fat is bad. What surprises a lot of people is that a healthy diet will have around 30% of its calories coming from fats. The important thing is, what type of fats your diet includes. The good news is that although the underlying science behind this is a bit complicated, getting the right types of fat in the right amounts is not complicated at all.

​Energy Density

​It’s true that a diet high in fat is not good for you. Fat has the highest energy density out of all the macronutrients, 9 calories per gram compared to 4 calories per gram for protein and carbohydrate. So small amounts of food that are high in fat can contribute a lot of extra calories to your diet. If you regularly consume more calories per day than your body uses as energy, over time you’ll gain weight. There’s a lot of evidence that shows being overweight or obese increases your risk of developing heart disease, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

Author

Daryl Maddern
If you are serious about getting fit, toning up, losing weight, strength training or competing in strength or endurance sports, this is the place to find Daryl's latest thoughts on these topics. With over 35 years experience training and competing at power lifting, as well as triathlons. Daryl will keep you up to date with the latest evidence based fitness, strength, endurance and nutrition information.

Cholesterol

​But it’s not as simple as lumping all fats into one big group. Some types of fat are health promoting and others, like saturated fats are not so good. Saturated fats have been linked to high cholesterol and an increased risk of heart disease. This is because saturated fats increase the production of Low Density Lipoproteins (LDL) in your blood. LDL, which is often referred to as “bad cholesterol”, is a transporter and distributor of fats throughout your body. Cholesterol is the fat like substance that can cause your arteries to become blocked if your LDL level is too high. Having high levels of LDL means that there is more cholesterol being transported and deposited around your body than you may need, and yes you do need cholesterol. You just don’t want it building up in our arteries! Cholesterol has many important uses in your body. It’s used to produce hormones, bile acid and it’s the structural component of cell membranes. So we definitely need cholesterol and in the right amount cholesterol is good!  Most of the cholesterol in your body is produced in your liver, so dietary cholesterol isn’t usually the culprit when it comes to heart disease. That’s a good enough reason to limit the amount of saturated fats in your diet.

Saturated vs Monounsaturated vs Polyunsaturated

Ever wondered what is meant by “saturated”, “monounsaturated” or “polyunsaturated” fats?  Here’s a quick and very basic explanation. Fat molecules (fatty acids) are basically made up of a string of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms attached to them. There is enough room on each of the carbon atoms for two hydrogen atoms to be attached. Saturated fats are “saturated” with hydrogen atoms, meaning there are no more spots available for hydrogens to attach. This has the effect of straightening the fat molecule. Monounsaturated fats have one hydrogen missing from the chain and polyunsaturated fats have more than one hydrogen missing. Having missing hydrogens changes the shape of the fat molecule by bending it. this change in shape alters the way that the molecule interacts with other molecules in your body. That’s a super basic explanation, but it gives you the idea that it’s the shape of the fat molecule that changes how your body deal with it. It also changes the way they look at room temperature. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature while the unsaturated fats are liquid (oil).  You wouldn’t think one or two hydrogen atoms would make that much difference.

What foods contain saturated Fats?

​They are mostly found in animal products, such as red meat, dairy products and processed meats. They are also found in some plant based foods such as coconut and palm products.  As usual with the food and diet industry, there is always some new trend around. This can really confuse people about what’s healthy and what’s not. Coconut oil has been one of the popular trends over the last few year. Just be aware that coconut oil is actually more saturated than the fat found in animal products so it’s not necessarily the healthiest choice. Having said that, you don’t need to exclude it from your diet, you just need to be aware of what it is and use it sparingly.

Trans Fats

​Trans-fats are another type of fat that you should aim to minimise in your diet. They are produced in certain types of food processing. They have been shown to raise LDL in the same way that saturated fats do. In high intakes they’ve also been shown to lower High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) which may also increase the risk of heart disease. HDL is also a transporter of fat, the difference between HDL and LDL is that instead of depositing cholesterol around the body like LDL, HDL collects excess cholesterol and transports it back to your liver to be recycled or excreted, instead of leaving it in your arteries where it can cause damage. Trans-fats also appear to increase inflammation and promote insulin resistance. There are small amounts of naturally occurring trans-fat in some meat and dairy products. It’s not yet known if these naturally occurring trans-fats have the same effect as those made during food processing. The USA is leading the way on controlling the use of trans-fat in processed foods, and by January 2020 they should be eliminated from all processed foods. In the meantime it’s worth reading the nutrition data on packaged foods.

Healthy fats and where do we find them?

​Monounsaturated oils tend to have the opposite effect on cholesterol to saturated fats. They have been shown to raise the level of High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) in your blood, which helps to keep your arteries clear of the dangerous build-ups of cholesterol that can cause atherosclerosis.  Having the correct balance between HDL and LDL is very important, they both have really important jobs to do and when they work together in the right amounts, they keep things working how they should. Monounsaturated fats are found in olive oil, nuts, peanuts, avocado and some seeds (safflower, sunflower, sesame and canola) and the oils produced from these seeds.

Essential Fatty Acids

​The polyunsaturated fatty acids Linoleic Acid and Linolenic Acid need to be supplied in our diet. They are essential fatty acids. They are essential because our body doesn’t have the ability to produce sufficient amounts to meet our physiological needs. We can however produce the longer chained polyunsaturated oils EPA, DHA and arachidonic from these essential oils. The long chained omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids EPA and DHA are needed for normal growth and development, especially for the brain and eyes. EPA and DHA can also be obtained directly from certain foods. Good sources of these long chained polyunsaturated fatty acids are fatty fish like salmon, tuna, mackerel, sardines and herring. The omega 6 oils are found in vegetables and seeds. They have been shown to have an effect on lowering both LDL and HDL. The omega oils also play a role in controlling the inflammatory response in our body.

Simple Guidance for a Healthy Diet

You’re probably thinking great! Now I not only have to worry about how much fat I have in my diet, I have to make sure I’m getting the right amount of the right types of fats!! The diet and weight loss industry has done a really good job of confusing and over complicating what a healthy diet looks like! It’s pretty simple really. Eat a variety of fresh produce (around 70% of your intake from plant based foods), don’t over eat, and keep highly processed and packaged foods to a minimum. That’s basically what’s recommended in dietary guideline available from governments in the USA, Australia, the UK and most European countries. If you base your diet around these guidelines, you’ll be ticking all the right boxes as far as healthy fats and not so healthy fats go. Links to dietary guidelines for the USA, Australia and the UK are listed below.

 
Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015-2020 https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/
Australian Dietary Guidelines https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines
Public Health England – Eat Well Guide https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/742750/Eatwell_Guide_booklet_2018v4.pdf
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