What the heck does THAT mean? Don't all bloggers aspire to millions of readers? Hmm. Once again I'm baffled. I searched "Best Blogs" and came up with some really interesting things: ZenHabits.net, PostSecret, and PerezHilton, among others.
I've been trying to figure out if a blog post is supposed to be designed as an article or as a journal entry. It seems that the ones I found were all written from the personal perspective (as in journaling) but... still they had a focus (as in an article).
And how concerned do I need to be about web searches? All these great sites had great names. My crappy site name came from my trying to find the best search term for my subject area. "Psychiatric" had the most searches in one month in regards to mental health and physical fitness.
Anyway...
My Menopausal (aka Anti-Aging) Workout for the Day
2 Hours Total:
1 hour and 15 minutes of CARDIO:
= 30 minutes on the treadmill (set on Manual with walking, climbing, and a short run), 30 minutes on the elliptical machine (again set on Manual), and 15 minutes on the Stair Master. I have a membership at Golds Gym. What's great about that is that most of the machines have a television monitor now and cable TV (something we don't have at home).
In case you haven't figured it out yet, we're cheap bastards. That's probably why we're not sweating the recession as bad as we could be. We have money in the bank! Yes, and it's not because we make great money (we don't). It's because we're CHEAP BASTARDS.
We don't make a lot of money and I've been out of work for six out of the last 12 months. But we don't spend anything... well, groceries. And we get those at the seconds store!
Yes, there are second hand stores for groceries... sort of. What happens is that they take the stuff that's about to go out of date and send it to this store... WAY marked down. We save about $400 a month by shopping there. In the summer we stock up on clothes and other essentials by (what we call) "Garage Sailing". All this frugality, we figure, saves us about $20K a year.
We dine out with "2 for 1" coupons, cut each other's hair, drive used cars, and seek Entertainment with the word FREE attached. And, thanks to Jerry and Esther Hicks, I can truly say that I (we) find joy in every single day.
So, all we have is money in the bank. Which ain't so bad. It's funny because, at the bank, I'm treated like GOLD. And there I am in my little red 1988 Mazda.
Anyway... back to the workout! I digress.
So we have 1.25 hours of cardio (my new MENOPAUSAL STANDARD is a minimum of 1 hour a day exercise!) and 15 minutes of weight lifting (both free weights and machines) and 30 minutes of yoga cool down. Whooh!
Here's the low-down:
In my 20's - 30 minutes three times a week was enough to maintain a flat (a very flat and sexy!) belly.
Then in my 30's - I had to up that to 1 hour three times a week.
In my 40's - 4 to 5 hours a week was plenty.
Then one day, at the ripe old age of 49 I noticed that I'd gained 25 lbs. What? Yes, it had been creeping up for some time at the rate of about 1/2 lb. per month. Virtually undetectable. I started increasing my workouts and nothing seemed to happen.
Finally, after going back on Atkins (which used to work like a charm!) I realized that I'd better take it a step farther. Now I'm counting calories (not something I used to be concerned with) AND I've DOUBLED my workout time. Apparently your metabolism slows down so much during menopause that double is what's needed.
So, in the last month, I went from 4-5 workouts a week to 7-10 AND I've started watching my caloric intake (reducing by approximately 500 calories a day).
Thank God I measured because... in that month's time I GAINED 2 lbs net but lost 5 inches. Yea! Finally some results. I guess the moral of the story is that it gets harder not easier. Pa-dum-pa-dum!
That's it folks.
Oh, P.S., I still watch the sugar and white foods (white bread, pastries, cookies, cake, potatoes, rice, and pasta). For bad health, they're the worst culprits. I wrote a book about my healing experience in relationship to quitting sugar. It's called The Sugar Addict's Diet by S.J. Wise. And, just for the record, it's out of print. Which just means that I no longer receive any money for its sales. Still, I recommend it if you have health issues. This program literally saved my life.
Oh, by the way... nightmares two nights in a row? I forgot to ask myself the key question: Did I have sugar? (It slips back in so easily) Yes!
Every now and then I forget and have a little. I had eaten one, make that two over two days, yogurts with added sugar. Thought I could get away with it, but NO. The nightmares were my clue.
Do YOU sleep well? Try quitting sugar for a while and see what happens. No more waking up at 3am and having difficulty getting back to sleep.
