Good Mood Diet Blog

My family lives an old rural neighborhood that used to be “out in the country” when we moved here 20+ years ago. Now, as the building boom progresses, residential communities have replaced tall trees and blackberry bushes. I pride myself in being a forward thinker who likes change. I knew it wasn’t all bad that the road between my house and the freeway was going to be lined with new houses. I knew the new neighbors would be making less carbon dioxide than we did when we mowed our farm-sized yard. But I did worry about congestion on the roads and in the grocery store.

I’m happy to report that just before the summer was over I realized a very positive trait all this new construction afforded me!

Unlike my old rural neighborhood lined with tall trees, culverts under driveways, water-filled ditches and mossy blacktop edges, the newly built areas all have perfectly flat, smooth sidewalks lining both sides of every street. There are no overhanging wet tree limbs to drip on me as I stroll by. There are no ancient tree roots cracking and tilting up the street surface. There are miles and miles of wonderful new concrete that is waiting for people to briskly walk on! So that’s what I’ve begun to do.

Starting this summer, I found I no longer needed to pack my bike into my car and take it to the bike path 4 miles away. I can now ride down my street to the main road and parallel the intimidating traffic for only one block, take a quick right turn and Voila, I’m in workout heaven! Smooth streets, no traffic, and no animals rabidly protecting their properties from women in workout wear. So I spent more time than usual this summer riding on my new “bike path” disguised as the four new streets near my home that used to be woods.

When fall came and my days became somewhat confined to a desk, I really relished the weekend afternoons to go for a brisk walk to see the daylight and be out in the cool crisp air. Again the new neighborhoods near my home became my workout center. I don’t know where the people are that live in these new houses. But they aren’t in their front yards. Their garages are all closed up, their garbage cans are lined up in neat rows in the driveways and their streets and sidewalks are empty – just waiting for me to work out.

So, if you feel a bit resentful about development in your back yard, take advantage of the new scenery. If you live in or near developments with these workout-perfect sidewalks, use 'em. And if you see me, or someone like me, getting their workout on your neighborhood sidewalk, join in!

Alice Lockridge,
Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist

Upcoming blogs from Alice: Favorite workout music and Fitting exercise into your schedule

When I was working out today I heard a song that motivated me and keep me on task. I thought you might like occasional recommendations for workout music.

I’ve taught exercise routines, fitness classes and all kinds of workout styles since I graduated from Kansas University with a Master’s of Science degree in Physical Education degree in 1973. You can imagine the records, cassette tapes, CDs and DVDs I have bought, borrowed, used and collected in that 30 or so years. I have thousands of song that are just the right speed for encouraging physical activity of all kinds. Now that modern technology allows me to put all my music into one little electronic player and manage it with my computer, I can put together collections of songs for any and every kind of workout. I have playlists for Aerobic Bench Climbing, Jumbo Exercise Ball Seated Bouncing, Beach walking, Aerobic workout walking, jogging, and even a collection that works well for my original workout: The Rubber Band Hobble Dance Workout.

The song that I suggest to be part of a fun walking workout is by the Proclaimers, called Five Hundred Miles. I think you’ll find it is just the right pace for a brisk stride and it’s got words that are positive enough to be used for most adult workotu situations.

You may recognize the song, officially titled "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," from the radio in the past few years. If you have RealPlayer and a 56K modem or better, you can listen to the song on The Proclaimers’ official site. It's song #4 on the "Best of the Proclaimers" album. (Warning: it does have one verse that mentions getting drunk and one that mentions “waking up next to you.”)

Here are some of the lyrics, which also may help you recognize the song:

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

When I wake up yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you
When I go out yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you...

Alice Lockridge,
Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist

The Winter of 2007 in Seattle is going to go down in history. Following the driest summer in history, we had the wettest November ever. It’s not yet the middle of January and we’ve had two windstorms causing record-breaking damage to the electrical, phone and cable structures and precious old trees. Then today was the season’s second traffic stopping snowstorm. White-outs in the middle of the afternoon in Seattle causes news alerts because we go several years with no snow at all. It was a very stressful, double-long drive home this evening. My husband and I talked by cell phone repeatedly on the drive just to compare notes about how slick and dangerous the roads were and to reassure each other that we both were safe.

But once I got home, I got to do my very favorite lifestyle recreational/workout activity. I raced to change into snowboots and thermal coat so I could frolic with our dog in the woods behind our house. What a stress break and mood changer this was for both of us. Our 84-year old dog (that’s dog years) sprung off his puffy bed and dashed out the back door with me into chest-deep snow covering our backyard. As we ran through the woods that boarder our back fence, he leapt and spun like a teenager! He made me laugh right out loud, which by the way, is almost as good a workout as the trudging through the snow.

When the laughing and frolicking was complete and we had put our paw and boot prints all over the meadow near our house the second part of my favorite workout began. This is when I shoveled snow. The driveway and sidewalks got cleared and I got to lift weights (shovel-loads of wet snow) for about 30 minutes. I can’t expect to make this a regular part of my fitness plan – but it worked as a great reminder that we should always make room for creativity and take advantage of new opportunities. Do your favorite physical activities as much as you can and keep your eyes open for new and fun ways to move to put you in a good mood!

Alice Lockridge,
Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist

I'd like to share another one of my favorite workout songs! This one’s good for warming up for a walk or for a background song when you are lifting weights. The tempo is great for keeping you moving in a slow controlled pace when doing strength building repetitions.

I have this song programmed as one of the first songs for two reasons. One, it’s the right speed to get me moving as I start to walk; and two, it’s a very positive song about a great father/daughter relationship. (So you can use it as a reminder of your own relationships... or to revise a little history.) I think this song is a great one for men and boys to listen to also. It’s a good model of the way a parent can talk to his child.

I first heard this song when I went to a cartoon movie with a client who is very adventuresome (for a grown-up lady with a job in a corporate office!) The Wild Thornberrys Movie is a cute little animated adventure movie that we loved for several feminist reasons: The hero is a female, her mother is a smart and powerful women, and her father is a smart person that doesn’t have to put down his daughter or wife to make himself feel good. The movie promotes kindness to animals and ecology and the beauty of the African animals and continent. And best of all, this little song written for the movie by Paul Simon, is becoming an anthem for both fathers and daughters and everyone who loves them. So you can see that this song puts me in a good mood and is a great way to combine physical workout and stimulate a good mood.

You can play the song and read the lyrics for free on Paul Simon’s web site. Here's a sample of the lyrics:

Father and Daughter
Paul Simon

If you leap awake
In the mirror of a bad dream
And for a fraction of a second
You can't remember where you are
Just open your window
And follow your memory upstream
To the meadow in the mountain
Where we counted every falling star

I believe the light that shines on you
Will shine on you forever
And though I can't guarantee
There's nothing scary hiding under your bed
I’m gonna stand guard
Like a postcard of a Golden Retriever
And never leave till I leave you
With a sweet dream in your head

I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you'll always know
As long as one and one is two
There could never be a father
Who loved his daughter more than I love you

Alice Lockridge,
Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist

One of the most frequently asked questions I get from new clients goes something like this: They grab some part of their body that is soft and undesirable and ask, “Can you give me an exercise to get rid of this?”

This common question brings up two important topics: body shapes and where your fat is stored and that all-time favorite subject of “spot reducing.” I think of women’s body shapes as represented by three kinds of fruits: pears, apples, and bananas. Today I’m addressing pear-shaped bodies. (Stay tuned for my blogs on “apples,” “bananas” and “spot reducing” because these are some of my pet topics!)

The Pear-Shaped Woman is the typical “hour glass figure” who has a waist smaller than her hips. This most stereotypical body shape for a woman is most people’s definition of female beauty. Pear-shaped women store their subcutaneous (under the skin) fat below their waistline and almost exclusively on the backs and sides of their bodies – on their thighs and hips and buttocks and also on the back of their upper arms.

This is how you think of most of the mature women in your life when you were a child. Most of your grade school teachers, your aunts and the women in the grocery store usually had this shape. Their arms shake when they wave and their rear-ends are wider than their shoulders.

Now for the good news: We all lose fat in the opposite order from how we gained it. When pear-shaped women start to eat and exercise at a level that causes fat loss, they lose the fat behind their necks, upper arms and off their hips. It doesn’t matter which exercise activity they do.

Everyone’s body has a set pattern to determine the order that fat cells will be drained. Doing an exercise that fatigues the waistline (or any body part) doesn’t cause those muscles to suddenly metabolize the fat that is on top of them. Rather, the brain opens up and drains the triglycerides from the “next” fat cell in its pattern with no regard to location. So go ahead and do the exercises that move the most of your body and burns the most calories in the shortest amount of time. These exercises include walking, running, skating, dancing, skipping rope, biking and swimming. The muscles you work will require calories that are stored in fat cells – no matter how close or far away from the exercised muscles.

If you have a pear-shaped body then… Be the best pear you can be by eating right and exercising regularly!

Alice Lockridge,
Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist

One of my favorite songs to walk to is a bossa nova tune that was a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s. It’s the first song on my “beach walking play list.” I use this list when we vacation at a sunny get-away-spot.

But today I listened to it as I did my winter weekend walk and it really put me in a good mood! I was glad to be moving – it was one of those “almost like spring” days that can fool you here in the Northwest. I tore myself away from my home office and left my husband working in the yard and took time to do something that’s really good for me and always puts me in a good mood. I went off with my Ipod and walked in the crisp sunshine.

My 90-minute path is saved for weekend days and I get to hear a lot of my favorite music. This song has a great story behind it and a woman that is a national hero in her South American country for being “The Girl.” She was the only woman in the 60s that was famous for her beach walking. As the words of the song tell us – she walked every day on the beach. This is probably the first (and only) popular song about how having a daily activity program makes you beautiful and desirable to those who watch you pass. I like to imagine that someone is singing it about me as I walk past them! That really puts me in a good mood and makes me laugh as I put on my parka and neck scarf.

You can find more than 60 recorded versions of the song on the web. Listen to the version sung by Astrud Gilberto that topped the charts in the 60s. I hope you enjoy it too!

Here are the words to my workout song suggestion…

The Girl from Ipanema
Words and music by Jobim/Gimbel/Demoraes

Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes - ah

When she walks, she’s like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gentle
That when she passes, each one she passes goes - ooh

(ooh) but I watch her so sadly
How can I tell her I love her
Yes I would give my heart gladly
But each day, when she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead, not at me

Tall, (and) tan, (and) young, (and) lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, I smile - but she doesn’t see
(doesn’t see, she just doesn’t see, she never sees me,...)

Alice Lockridge,
Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist

I recently wrote about pear-shaped women’s bodies. Now it’s time for my favorite shape: apples!

Apple-shaped women are round in the middle and store most of their subcutaneous fat in front of their bodies and above their thighs. If you haven’t guessed, I am an apple shape. We apples have narrow hips and thick waistlines. We store our extra helpings of food in front of our bodies much more like men than stereotypical women. We also share a higher risk of heart disease from carrying extra fat – more like men. So if you hear conflicting research data about women and disease, remember that some of us aren’t so stereotypically “female” in our calorie storage hormones and that may affect how we respond to therapies and how our bodies react in failing health.

If you wonder if you are a pear or an apple, you can figure it out by putting yourself in this fantasy: If you were to go to a beach in a tiny swimming suit (perhaps very early in the morning before others arrived) and sit there until it got hot enough for you to need a cold drink from the concession stand, what would you do to cover up for the walk among the other people?

Would you pick up your beach towel, shake out the sand, and wrap it around your waist (like a sarong) and saunter over to the concession stand with your bare collarbones (clavicles) and arms showing?

Would you pull on a T-shirt and dash to the concession stand with your bare legs showing?

If you are absolutely a “wrap the towel around you” person, then you are probably pear-shaped. If you are more inclined to pull on a t-shirt to walk in public, then you are probably apple-shaped. We instinctively try to hide our “flaws” and highlight our good points. We apple-shaped women know the towel might not go around our middles, with any room to secure it with a knot. I wouldn’t walk fast anywhere with just my swimming suit top on… we apples tend to have lots of fat in our breasts and tend to cover them.

If you are working out, burning more calories, and are starting to eat less than you burn each day, you can expect your body’s muscles to begin to metabolize your stored fat. If you want to watch for it to happen, don’t fixate on your “most disliked” fat; it may not be the first fat to be burned. Also, don’t mistakenly fixate on the fat nearest the muscles that you use in your favorite exercises. Spot-reduction doesn’t happen.

Now for the good news (and a reminder from Part 1 of this series): We all lose fat in the opposite order from how we gained it. When apple-shaped women start to eat and exercise at a level that causes fat loss, they lose the fat that is on their necks, under their chins, around clavicles. It takes longer to burn the fat on your belly. That is the fat your body tends to save for an emergency; your body will only empty those cells when the more peripheral fat cells are drained. It doesn’t matter which exercise activity you do.

Everyone’s body has a set pattern to determine the order that fat cells will be drained. Doing an exercise that fatigues the waistline (or any body part) doesn’t cause those muscles to suddenly metabolize the fat that is on top of them. Rather, the brain opens up and drains the triglycerides from the “next” fat cell in its pattern, with no regard to location. So go ahead and do the exercises that move the most of your body and burns the most calories in the shortest amount of time. These exercises include walking, running, skating, dancing, skipping rope, biking and swimming. The muscles you work will require calories that are stored in fat cells – no matter how close or far away from the exercised muscles.

If you have an apple-shaped body, then be the best apple you can be by eating right and exercising regularly!

Alice Lockridge,
Apple-shaped Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist

In my recent blogs I’ve talked about one of my most frequently asked questions. It goes something like this: The person grabs some part of their body (usually one that is soft and undesirable) and asks, “Can you give me an exercise to get rid of this?”

This common question brings up two important topics: body shapes and where body fat is stored (covered in Parts 1 and 2 of this series) and that all-time favorite subject, “Spot Reducing.” Hint: It’s in quotes because it doesn’t really exist.

You can find claims about spot-reducing everywhere. There are suggestions all over the gym, exercise videos, and in many workout manuals. It seems like common knowledge, but instead is an ancient urban myth. You cannot tell your body where to burn fat when you make your muscles hungry. Your body has an intricate plan that’s set deep in your survival genes. The plan is to put any extra food you might be lucky enough to find, in a storage compartment (adipose tissue cell) in a safe location on your body. Just imagine hundreds of years ago, when life was much more dangerous, that if the plan had been to store our extra groceries on our calves or out on our wrists (instead of safely around our middles). There would have been many mishaps that would have caused our essential food stores to be lost due to cuts, slashes, breaks or loss of our appendages. It just wouldn’t have been as good a plan to put our food way out there on our limbs. Instead there are 3 or 4 typical patterns of how human bodies store their fat. These patterns are the ones that have worked over time and have helped us survive in times when we couldn’t find enough food.

So our bodies are set-up for survival of the human race over the ages, not beauty according to the latest fashion whim. Sure thin waists are popular now, but it was a sign of poverty in the not-so-distant history.

So, with your body possessing this pattern of fat storage it also has a plan for the order in which your fat cells will be drained. It doesn’t involve draining the fat cell closest to the muscle that is hungry. It’s developed around draining the fat cell that is most “at risk” of being drained first. So if I do lots of sit-ups, I’m going to get stronger abdominal muscles and that will help my back be less vulnerable. But I’m not going to see the fat melt off my abs just because I worked them out. Nor will the fat “turn into” muscle. The fat to fuel this new work (doing the sit-ups) will come from the last fat cell I filled up (maybe behind my neck, even though I’ve barely even noticed that fat yet) and the fuel (that’s what fat is) will travel in the blood stream to the exercised muscle to enable it keep working.

Beware! Spot-reduction claims are a sure way to know that someone’s trying to trick you! No new exercise or apparatus can make your body re-direct fat cell drainage. Just stick to the full-body exercises that burn a lot of calories and eat the foods that will help you stay in a good mood.

Alice Lockridge,
Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist

I’ve just starting using the neatest new tool. I’m the kind of person that goes to the grocery store about every third day. I get a few things and then face that difficult decision... paper or plastic? Well, I’ve read all about it. Paper is from trees and we can grow more trees and plastic bags can be reused to make fluffy cloth but either way it’s such a waste of resources to use so many of either kind.

My family is great at recycling! We reuse bags of either kind and of every size but when you look at the huge collection we get in a month and multiply that by the number of shoppers in just the United States, its way too many bags!

We’ve make a decent effort to go back to the store with previously attained bags and we’ve tried using those cloth bags that some stores sell for that purpose. But either the cloth bag was misshapen (it would work great for my library books but not for random shapes of grocery items) or too small or not strong enough.

Last week I found a bag that is revolutionizing my shopping experience. It works so well and looks so good my husband even uses one now.

This bag unfolds to virtually line the shopping cart (keeps the foods that you’re taking into your kitchen off of the dirty cart surfaces) and holds onto the grid wall of the cart to stay open while you shop. When it’s checkout time they can just put your purchased items back in the cart and you can take them to your car.

There’s no need for those odd-shaped cartons the Big Box Stores give you (to recycle for them) to carry your purchases. There’s no need to take multiple trips from the car to the house because my new bag comfortably holds several plastic bags worth of items. The claim is it will hold 40 pounds but most of us won’t be carrying that large a load anyway. Best of all, we’re not going to be contributing to the landfills or the recycle bins that fill up with bags from our shopping trips.

Paper or plastic? I say, "Neither, I have a Shopping Cart Tote."

Keep an eye on my web site – if I can get in touch with the distributor, I’m going to stock them on my web page too! It’s the right thing to do. And don’t you think the Good Mood Foods will work even better if we know we are helping save Mother Earth? So if I do make this next step, I’ll just add to my mantra to have this third part: Eat Right, Exercise Regularly and Respect Earth’s Resources! [Editor's note: Cool acronym - ERERRER]

Alice Lockridge,
Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist

As a fitness expert, I frequently get questions about how to strengthen abdominal muscles and flatten stomachs, particularly after pregnancy and cesarean section. Often people try to flatten their abs by doing lots of sit-ups or crunches. Repetitions (30 or more) of these exercises increase the endurance of the muscles and do burn calories. As I’ve pointed out in previous blogs, exercise does not burn the closest fat cells to the muscles being worked. You can’t target which fat cells to burn - your body determines that.

An interesting note about c-sections: many people think that a c-section cuts through the abdominal muscles. Not so. The surgeon cuts through the skin and connective tissue, but moves the muscles and separates them along their fiber lines – the muscles are intact (very much stretched out from the pregnancy, but intact).

If you want to cause your muscles to flatten your abdominal area, practice exactly that – drawing in your stomach for a long time and repetitively. This is called the “law of specificity of exercise.” You get better at the things you practice.

Doing 80 crunches does burn calories and teaches your abs to bend your spine, but this is not the best use of your time to lower your body fat. Locomotive aerobic exercise (walking, running, skating, etc.) burns more calories per minute and the fat will come off your abdominal area when your body decides it’s that area’s “turn.”

“How long do you think it will be before I see results?” is often the next question I’m asked. My answer: any type of activity that causes you to burn 220 calories more than you ate today will result in a caloric loss equal to about one ounce of body fat. That means it would take 16 of these “negative 220-calorie” workouts to lose one pound of fat. A sound exercise program that increases your metabolism for several hours after the exercise will result in an increased calorie usage in the hours between workouts too. This is probably where you’ll notice the greatest fat loss effect.

So stick with it – eat healthy and work out regularly!

Alice Lockridge,
Physical Activity expert, MS PhysEd, Exercise Physiologist
with
Liz Diether-Martin,
Editor, Good Mood Diet Web site

My husband has had type 1 diabetes for over 36 years – he was diagnosed when he was 14. He’s about the fittest looking person with a life-threatening disease that you’ll ever see. He "lettered" as an athlete in high school and college and wrestled at the 115-lb. weight category. As an adult he plays rugby and soccer, water skis, and goes on 7-day bike trips every summer with his siblings. His biceps bulge and his abs show his 6-pack. No one would call him “sickly.”

He learned his lessons well as a child with diabetes in the '60s. He was taught to avoid foods with “sugar” on the label and found his treats in the higher fat foods (meats and butter and creamy items). He kept really good control of his blood sugar level and became an expert at avoiding those potentially embarrassing low blood sugar episodes. When we met, I thought he must have misunderstood the lessons from his childhood doctors and cryptically warned him that if he kept up his eating habits he’d give himself heart disease too! As a young married couple years later, we went to a week-long camp at a local hospital to learn as a family how to live a healthy life with diabetes. Boy, was I happy to learn that the nutrition lessons had advanced since he’d been taught. We made a few adjustments and knew we were going to help him be even healthier.

And now we’ve been married 19 years. Pat still eats a very healthy diet (snacks on a few fun things and drinks a little alcohol) and visits his doctor on schedule. Several years ago that I became concerned about his response to an afternoon badminton game with some friends’ children. I suggested he get an exercise electrocardiogram (EKG) and helped him push his doctor to request it after his resting EKG was normal. (Just imagine how hard it is for a guy to tell the doctor, “my wife thinks I should have an Max Treadmill test.”)

The maximal test EKG showed what I suspected. Pat had some cardiovascular problems and an angiogram was needed to find out the exact problems. The computer heart vessel drawings showed he had a 90% blockage in one vessel and progressing damage in several other places... all from the long years of diabetes. The cardiologist who showed us the charts said that he was really amazed at the contradiction between my husband’s physique and the condition of the inside of his blood vessels. He told us, "I don't know why, with all that blockage, you don't have heart muscle damage or didn't have a heart attack 5 years ago." In the most dramatic way, my often too-quiet husband turned and pointed at me from his hospital bed and said "because I met my own personal trainer 10 years ago. She's the one that taught me to do aerobic exercise to grow new blood vessels in my heart."

It was so romantic! He’d heard me and was now giving me credit for knowing that sprinting wasn’t the healthy way to work out for the rest of your life. Long, slower jogs are what stimulate your heart to grow collateral circulation (extra blood vessels) to double-cover all the parts of your heart’s musculature in case there is a blockage in any major artery.

The blocking of his cardiac arteries continued (because the diabetes didn’t go away) and eventually it was time to get it repaired. He had open-heart surgery to put in 5 bypasses. Again he was the fittest, tannest and youngest person in the cardiac unit. He was strong enough to get up and walk alone the first day and went home in three days with a promise to not start working out too soon – not the usual pledge elicited from patients in that unit). He recovered well and got back to his usual active lifestyle. When we vacation in Mexico, he’s the only person on the beach who has 72 inches of scar from this kind of operation. Most guys at the volleyball court ask if the scars are from a car wreck! But that doesn’t stop him from playing without his shirt with the other much younger men.

The diabetes is ruining the inside of his vessels all over his strong, fit body. The lesson is, no matter what kind of illness or accident you might have to deal with, the more healthy and fit you are, the better. He's living a full, fun life due to regular visits to his health care providers, monitoring his blood sugar levels multiple times a day, using moderation in all things, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, drinking enough water each day and working out aerobically, as well as doing some strength exercises. All these health habits make for the lifestyle of someone many years younger without a life-threatening disease. Do your best with what you’ve been given.

Eat right, and exercise regularly, and be grateful!
Alice

Are you worried that some exercises don’t really feel very good to do? Maybe you’re doing some of the “outlawed exercises” that professional fitness instructors know are not good for you. It’s common that we remember exercises that felt so bad when our gym teacher made us do them that we think they must be really good for us.

Well, that’s just not so. Exercises should work you out not wear you out. And now you can read about the exercises that are safe and the ones that are not. The Safe Exercise Handbook is a easy to read large-print manual with reference drawings to teach you how to avoid doing the outlawed exercises. For example:

• Toe touches can hurt your back.
• Windmills can compromise the health of your spinal discs.
• Burpees and jumping jacks can really hurt your knees.

Go to exercisexpress.com to order your copy of The Safe Exercise Handbook and monitor your daily workout for safe and effective exercises that protect your joints, improve your heart function, and strengthen your muscles.

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice Lockridge

Exercise balls, also known as “stability balls,” are my most essential exercise equipment. You’ve seen them in the magazines, catalogs and on TV – now it’s time you got one and used it every day. What I like about the ball is that it can change an exercise’s intensity – either make it harder or easier, whichever you need. Here are a few examples:

• Ball bounce seated aerobics is my favorite way to get on the ball. All you need is a professional quality, burst-resistant exercise ball that fits you. Put it in front of your TV or at the computer station at your office or in your home and you’ll be more active while you sit! This is one great way to increase your metabolism and make your muscles work more while you do seated activities. I’m sitting on one right now as I write this blog!
• Abdominal exercises are more comfortable and valuable across a ball.
• Push-ups use more muscles when you use a ball.
• As you learn to do arm strengthening exercises, sit on a ball! You’ll add value by increasing the work while balancing on the ball.

Up to 5 feet tall: 45 centimeter ball
5’ to 5'6": 55 centimeter ball
5'7" to 6’ 1”: 65 centimeter ball
6”2” and over: 75 centimeter ball

• If you have a sore knee, use the next larger ball.
• If you have had a hip replacement, use a ball tall enough that your hip is bent only to a 45-degree angle.
• If you are not very good at balance and want to start gradually, don’t pump your ball up very tight. It should stay squishy until you get used to balancing.
• If you want to get really good at balance, pump your ball up until it’s pretty tight and hard. It’ll be harder to balance on and will develop your skills.

The most common life skill I teach these days is standing in the corner! No not with your nose against the wall like a bad child in school - but turned around with your heels and tailbone against an inward-pointing corner or door jam.

1. Back up to the corner until your heels are on both sides.


2. Let your tail bone lightly touch the point of the corner.


3. Now notice just how far forward your head is. The back of your head should be lightly touching the wall too, as far back as the curve of your butt.

If you’re losing height by curving your neck and upper back forward, your head enters the room before the rest of your body and that’s a bad first impression. Stand up tall!

When you’re driving, remind yourself to pull your head back far enough to touch that headrest. Jutting out your chin, as so many of us do, makes your neck tired and your upper backache. Pull your head back and keep it there!

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice

Are you looking for a way to burn more calories every day but feel stuck to that desk chair in front of your computer? Well you need to get on the ball at work.

I talk with lots of office workers that have to use a little space heater all year long because they are so cold when they sit at their desk. It’s not a temperature problem – it’s a metabolism problem. The more minutes you sit still, the lower your metabolic rate goes. Soon you aren’t burning any calories and you aren’t’ producing any heat to keep your temperature at a normal level. You need to move more because muscle contraction produces heat and burns calories – two things you really want more of.

If you replace your desk chair even a few hours each day with a well inflated exercise ball, you’ll stimulate the muscles of your legs, hips, back and abdominal regions to constantly contract. This, in turn, heats you up and fires up your usage enough to double your daily calories! And that’s hot!

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice

A recent study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that average adults, when attempting to do a weight lifting workout on their own, tend to use resistance that is insufficient to stimulate strength or muscle firmness. The study looked at both women and men who attempted strength training without professional instruction.

This confirms what I notice as I look around weight rooms in the gyms I work in. And it’s exactly as I would expect from the questions and concerns I hear from the public at fitness presentations. Fears, misconceptions and bad advice from non-professional trainers about how to do strength building and weight lifting exercises cause people to use resistance that is too small and this prevents them from getting the results they are looking for.

We are told to lift weights to make our muscles firm, hard, tight and toned and working at a higher metabolic rate. Women tend to be fearful of getting bigger muscles and men are fearful of not getting bigger muscles.

When you are strength building, you want to pick a weight or resistance that makes it really hard to do 8-10 repetitions. Repeat that exercise at least twice a week until it becomes easy to repeat it 10 times. Then begin to use a slightly higher resistance that again makes it hard to repeat 8-10 times.

The journal studies show that “untrained men and women” typically self-select a workload (resistance) for weight lifting that is less than 70-80% of the biggest resistance that they could do once (known as their 1RM). Men typically selected 60% of their 1RM and women used the resistance that was only 56% of their personal 1RM.

Without the resistance large enough to limit the number of repetition you can do and that would cause your muscles to become stronger, you will be able to do more than 12 repetitions.

Never Exercise with a Jerk! Get sound exercise advice and follow the facts of physiology regarding strength building. And check out my article on strength building “Spot Reducing versus Targeting Strength.”

Alice Lockridge

• Find 10 strengthening exercises that use different muscle groups (major ones that move big body parts).
• Do the exercises against some kind of resistance that makes it hard to repeat 10 times.
• Do them at least twice a week.
• Once it becomes easy to repeat an exercise 10 times, use a slightly harder resistance.

1. Stand-ups and sit-downs (squats)
2. Pull-downs, chin-ups, or high pulley pulls
3. Shoulder press
4. Step-ups (up about 8 inch steps)
5. Seated rows
6. Chest press (a.k.a. bench press)
7. Curls-ups on the ball
8. Lateral curl-up on the ball
9. Biceps flexions
10. Triceps extensions
11. Lateral rises
12. External rotation of hips

• Jumbo rubber bands
• Bunge cord style rubber bands
• Surgical tubing rubber straps
• Hand-held weights
• Large cans of food
• Milk or fruit juice jugs (screw on lid tightly)
• Bricks
• Books with straps around them
• Socks filled with rocks (tie at the opening)

It’s time to be horrified! It’s time to work against a terrifying product that will kill more young women than you've read about in any of the latest news stories. Come on, those of you who are beginning to feel good from following the tips you find in the Good Mood Diet book and on this Web site – please do something, anything that you can to stop this danger…

The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the one that asked people to “walk a mile for a Camel” in an ad campaign (kind of a twisted situation for a cigarette company to encourage walking but for an unhealthy reason) has started to market a new cigarette product called Camel No 9, which is aimed at young women. Here’s a quote from the New York Times:

Reynolds, eager to increase the sales of its fast-growing Camel brand among women, is introducing a variety aimed at female smokers. The new variation, Camel No. 9, has a name that evokes women’s fragrances like Chanel No. 19, as well as a song about romance, “Love Potion No. 9.” But don’t look for a Jo Camel to join Old Joe the dromedary on Camel packages, displays or posters. Rather, Camel No. 9 signals its intended buyers with subtler cues like its colors, a hot-pink fuchsia and a minty-green teal; its slogan, “Light and luscious”; and the flowers that surround the packs in magazine ads.

NPR’s Children’s Health Column reports that at a Senate hearing recently, Ohio Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown held up a pink pack of Camel No. 9 ad that was mailed to smokers' homes. "It strains the imagination to think this campaign is aimed at anybody other than 15, 16, 17-year-old girls — something that's pretty morally repugnant," Brown said. R.J. Reynolds denies its ads target teenagers.

Brandweek magazine describes the targeted ad campaign as follows:

The sleek look of the non-menthol's black pack, designed by Gyro Worldwide, Philadelphia, is accentuated with chamfered corners and fuchsia accents, most prominently for its Camel mascot. The menthol pack, actually dubbed "menthe," comes in black and teal. Agency 6, New York, handles POP and print, which runs in March issues of such women's publications as Glamour and Vogue. Internet support includes e-mail outreach to RJR's database of smokers, plus event marketing and sampling at nightclubs. The debut gets an additional push with 50¢ per pack discounts on initial orders from retailers.

Join organizations that are working for a smokefree world. You can find a wealth of resources on the Foundation for a Smokefree America Web site.

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice

I come from Kansas. I grew up in the tiny town next to Greensburg, Kansas, the town that got blown off the map last Friday night. No, I don’t know Dorothy… but I think my mother went to school with her. (Ha!) Since I live on the West Coast (as do my two sisters) and my mother is 92 years old and lives on her own in the house she grew up in, just a few miles from tornado touch-down spots, I was full of worry all weekend. The news cameras showed the town that was most damaged but there is much damage for hundreds of miles from the center of that town.

After talking with my wise ol’ mother all weekend, I am amazed at how much the health and fitness information I talk about every day for work has to do with getting through an emergency like a night of Kansas twisters [or California quakes, or Washington windstorms, or …]. Here’s what we discovered:

Eat right

Eat a balanced meal at appropriate times throughout each day. The Twister Lesson is that you just never know when a disaster or smaller emergency will occur and you will be required to live for hours or perhaps days on whatever the last meal you ate was. A “cola and candy bar” diet won’t fuel you well if the sky is falling and you need to pack up your family and “head out toward Dodge” (that’s the next town to the west of the recent storm center!)

Think back; what was the makeup of the meals you ate in the past 24 hours? Could you survive in a cross-country trek? If you had to hunker-down in the basement? Authorities say we should all have three ways to survive for three days without any help from others. Are you fueled from your past meals in a healthy way? Is your house, car and workplace stocked with food and water for you and your family to live on if you can’t go to the store again for days?

Exercise Regularly

Does your regular exercise routine make you as strong and flexible and capable of moving as you might need to be if there was a disaster about to strike? The Twister Lesson is that crawling out of the rubble or being able to walk across town to get to safety won’t be easy. Are your legs strong enough and do you have good walking shoes with you at work, in your car and when you travel? Are your arms strong enough to help you get to safety or to save other people? My tiny little mother was able to re-stock the basement’s storm room while navigating the 20 or so stairs several times each night. She even practiced slipping off the bed and crouching under it in case she heard the roar of a tornado above the siren. Are you ready for motions like that, in case of an emergency?

I guess I’m just lucky. I had parents that taught me how to be self-sufficient, eat a variety of healthy foods in moderation, and to be active. These life skills paid off for Mother again this weekend and she’s doing fine after the sleepless nights and worrisome days watching the sky and listening to a record breaking number of disaster sirens. She didn’t have to save her own life this time. But she was prepared and though kind of frail and on her own, she was sure she could do enough to be safe and that enabled her to not be afraid. The Twister Lesson for you would be Get Ready. You don’t know what the next day can bring. Health and fitness practices aren’t just for cosmetic purposes; they will extend your life and may save your life in the case of an emergency.

Be safe! Be strong! Stay fit and fueled!

Alice Lockridge, MS Phys Ed,
and as I’m known in St John: Madeleine McMillan’s middle daughter

As a child, my family had a tradition of taking pictures during the holidays. The Thanksgiving picture was at the turkey-topped table, Christmas was in front of the tree, etc. I don’t really know why but my baby book has a series of Easter Sunday pictures of my sisters and me standing in a line in front of the French doors in our living room. What those doors have to do with Easter or Spring or Sunday escapes me but all the Easter outfits were modeled and photographed right there.

This week, I came across and really noticed what must be the first in this series of photographs. I found a black and white picture of my Mother and Father that was taken in 1954 in front of the French doors in that exact same pose and at the same angle where they would soon begin to pose their children. What I notice is that they are thinner, look stronger and have better posture than most of the young people starting families that I work with today. Yes we, as a country, are getting heavier and unhealthier and this picture showed me the difference. My dad lived to be 94 and didn’t have heart disease or cancer. My mother is going strong at 92 and dressed up in a new Easter outfit last month.

My parents tried to teach me many things, some of them I forgot or completely ignored. But I’m really beginning to pay attention to their lessons on how to be able to grow really old and stay healthy. Their ability to be healthy into their 90s started way back when that first family Easter picture was taken. They purchased, prepared and made sure we ate simple foods, never anything fried (except chicken infrequently). They ate small portions, on what most people call “salad plates” for every meal except Sunday dinner. They drank water (brought in from the farm’s well). We only had soda pop on Sunday afternoons and we split a can two-ways. We almost never ate out because the only restaurants were a burger hut out at the highway and a coffee shop that closed at 4 p.m. We even walked home from school for lunch.

Just imagine, I never ate a slice of pizza until I was almost out of high school on a date with a guy who drove me to the next bigger town. So those days are long-gone but when we wonder why we’re not as healthy as we could be, we need to remember how things used to be and could be again in your home. Remember to start fresh and take advantage of the green season to…

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!

Alice Lockridge

Experts say you need to do at least 10 strength-building exercises to keep your muscles firm, toned and strong.

• Find 10 strengthening exercises that use different muscle groups (major ones that move big body parts).


• Do the exercises against some kind of resistance that makes it hard to repeat 10 times.


• Do the set of 10 exercises at least twice a week.


• Use a slightly harder resistance once it becomes easy to repeat an exercise 10 times.

Get started with a simple routine that is easy to remember. Later you can do slight variations on the basic routine and avoid boredom. My favorite top 12 exercises for the general public with no special needs are:

1. Stand-ups and sit-downs (also known as "squats")


2. Pull downs, chin-ups, or high pulley pulls


3. Shoulder press


4. Step-ups (about 8 inche steps)


5. Seated rows


6. Chest press (also known as "bench press")


7. Curls-ups on the ball


8. Lateral curl-ups on the ball


9. Biceps flexions


10. Triceps extensions


11. Lateral rises


12. External rotation of hips

Eat right and Exercise regularly,
Alice Lockridge, MS Phys Ed

Last week I listed my top 12 favorite exercises for building strength. This week I'm letting you know that you don’t need expensive equipment for strength-building. All you need is some way to make your exercises harder when moving against some sort of resistance. You will probably need a different resistance tool for each exercise. The goal is to find a level of resistance that makes each exercise hard to repeat 10 times.

Here are my favorite tools, some purchased, others found around the house or work:

• Jumbo Rubber Bands


• Bunge cord style rubber bands


• Surgical tubing rubber straps


• hand-held weights


• large cans of food


• milk or fruit juice jugs (screw on lid tightly)


• bricks


• Books with straps around them


• Socks filled with rocks (tied at the opening)

Strong muscles are metabolically hungrier (so they burn more calories even during rest peroids) than weak, soft muscles. By making your body strong, you can eat more food without having to worry about it being stored as fat. Hungry muscles are the only thing that burns your body fat and having stronger muscles make them hungrier even when you are resting. The goal is to get stronger so you can metabolize every bit of the food you eat.

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice Lockridge, MS Phys Ed

Stretching is the part of a good exercise program that is often misused or completely forgotten. Stretching to improve the range-of-motion of your joints is a good use of your time. But it’s no way to start working out. Never stretch at the start of your workout or when your muscles are cold. Warm up first with some slow walking and some big, gentle movements with the arm, neck and back.

After you have played a game, lifted weights, or finished your walk – that’s another important time to do your stretches. Warm muscles should be held in a position of only slight sensation of stretch and never pushed, pulled or jerked. Increased flexibility is the reward for stretching correctly.

For a list of essential stretches, see my article, Daily Stretches from Alice.

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice Lockridge, MS PhysEd

I’m the luckiest employee; I have the most fun job, I have the largest “office” in the entire company, and I don’t have to stay at my desk when there’s real work to do helping others learn to Eat Right and Exercise Regularly.

Yesterday two women dropped by the employee wellness workout center where I work. I’ve worked there for 18 years, and knew I’d never seen them before. They were just passing through, one showing the gym to the other. When I introduced myself and asked if I could help show them around, I got blank stares. They both said they’d worked out for years and implied that they knew everything that they needed to know, now that they knew the path to get to the facility. But I’m not that easily put off from my chosen career.

My first lure was to ask them if they’d ever used an exercise ball. But they attempted to deflect me from walking around my desk by explaining that they weren’t dressed to work out; they had spike heels on. I assured them that it wouldn’t matter. We walked toward the ball rack and I picked out ones that would match their heights. I encouraged them to slip off their shoes and sit on the balls. This is when I knew I had them. Their opinion of working out was limited to spend time on the treadmill virtually working out alone in silence just looking around the gym.

As we began to lean back into spinal hyperflexion, they began to squeal and realize they never looked back or moved their backs in this way. Their several “oohs” and “aahhs” and one “Oh that makes my back feel good!” went as if I’d planned them. These hard-working women who sit at computers all day knew they needed to get some exercise but they had only focused on weight loss and walking.

The exercise ball sensations were quickly refocusing their attentions on aches and pains they had ignored or accepted and written off to “getting older.” They were delighted to find that there were fun ways to feel better. They asked outrageous questions like “Could we use a ball at our desk and do this during the day?” They thought I was joking when I said that yes they could, and that others all over the organization were already equipped with balls at their workstations.

We bounced on the balls for aerobic exercise and leg strengthening; we rolled forward and back to stretch our spines in four directions and we used the balls for resistance to build strength in our abdominals and arms. We used the wobble boards and talked about balance being a skill that will come back if you challenge it. We used the chin-up assist machine and found that, will some help, chin-ups are possible for everyone.

What started as a little gym walk-through turned in to a 30-minute orientation to employee workouts by a trained professional. They learned that exercise does not need to be boring, painful and without much noticeable results. I let them go back to work, with smiles on their faces and new interest in learning to use the equipment in our workout center. I’m sure they’ll return because now they know fun and effective activities they can do, even in their work clothes.

A little variety in your workout can help you get the results you are looking for. There’s a lot going on in the world of workout – lots of new exercise toys that will rejuvenate your workout and motivate you to stick to it and make exercise a regular part of your day. Consider a personal training session or search the Internet for training tips. [Editor's note: Start with Alice's Web site for tips and tools.].

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice Lockridge, MS PhysEd

Aren’t you tired of the same old motivational speakers at your office retreats and at the professional association’s annual meetings? Consider adding “activity intermissions” to the agenda.

Three-minute movement breaks between speakers is the best way to make sure your audience takes home more of the material the speakers to cover. Late morning and after-lunch sessions are often real sleepers – not because the subject isn’t interesting but because the metabolic rate of your participants is at the daytime lowest level.

Don’t think of it as a frill or a waste of good learning time. Adults can’t learn much when they’ve been sitting still for over 75 minutes. It’s time to get the blood moving and the brain back into a higher gear. If you’d like some title suggestions, drop by my Web site and click on some of the titles that I’ve found to really stimulate audiences.

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice

I’ve used this title for years to draw attention to the fact that sometimes we all need a little exercise advice or an exercise buddy – but please be careful who you use as a role model. Have you seen people bouncing while they reach for their toes or another stretch? It happens a lot.

Jerking when you exercise can cause you injury and pain that can hurt you more than help you. Stretches should be held and never bounced or jerked. Strength building exercises should always be done in a smooth controlled manner. Jerking a weight around or dropping it when you are exhausted is a sure way to get hurt in your workout.

A good exercise routine should work you out not wear you out. How you do each exercise is very important and poor form has the potential to make a good exercise virtually useless. If you are ready to start exercising or ready to give your old routine a twist, then it’s time you find a trained and certified exercise instructor. Ask for recommendations from friends or family who work out.

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice Lockridge

I love the phrase “United we Stand” but I’m usually referring to my exercise classes when they are doing the #1 most important exercise – standing and sitting for muscle strength.

If you want to have firm thighs and a tight butt and make your body’s biggest muscle groups hungry, then you’ll need to practice standing and sitting for more lower body muscle strength.

Beside all the health and beauty reasons to do what gyms refer to as “squats,” you really want to get good at this activity because it the most important one to help you stay active and independent as you reach a more advanced age. If you can’t get up out of a chair, the bathtub or off of a toilet, you can’t live in your own home any more.

So let’s stand united! You need to learn to stand up for what you want – a firm hip and thigh area or you’ll fall for every uneven surface you walk across.

Eat Right and Exercise Regularly!
Alice Lockridge

Who was it that said that there’s nothing new under the sun? Well, they hadn’t seen this new workout item...

A man from Annapolis has invented (and patented) a new jump rope. The special thing about this one is that you just can’t miss. You can’t trip over the rope because there is no rope! That’s right, it’s a jump rope with out a rope. It’s two handles with short tails and small balls attached. It’s been on the market for about a year and I just found it in my favorite catalog.

It’s called a JumpSnap because the handles make a snapping sound when the rope would normally be snapping against the floor. Like so many of us, this man found the idea of jumping rope is foiled by our inability to consistently make it over the rope successfully. So instead of giving up, he got rid of the obstacle! Without the frustration of low skill level you can keep jumping to your heart’s desire!

I’m sure starting to jump in this no-fail way will help us get better at doing the real thing later. The snapping sound made by the handles gives you a rhythm and an electronic chip counts the number of rotations the ball on the handle makes and, based on your weight, calculates how many calories you are burning – non-stop since there’s nothing to trip over!

This is a great solution for people who work out in low-ceilinged and crowded spaces. There’s no rope burn on your legs from the stinging rope and you have no excuse for getting frustrated from all the missed jumps. So I think you should get a jump-start on your fall workout! Get a grip on the handles and jump a little each day.

Alice Lockridge, MS Phys Ed
PRO♥FIT
www.AliceLockridge.com

Over the past 28 years I’ve owned two small workout studios. I’ve prided myself in teaching fitness programs based on the science of exercise. Sadly, the fitness industry has been filled with scams and misleading fads that promise too much and provide too little. The popular media have told the public about all the latest trends and the hot fitness topics but the whole truth has been hard to find.

The common misconception is that all we need to do is an aerobic workout (like walking) for about 30 minutes a few times a week. About 25 million women participated in the Aerobic Dance craze for a decade with the hopes that they would get everything they needed from the popular group-exercise workout.

The truth is that that’s not enough activity to give you what you need (health, wellness and long life) and way too little to give you what you want (fat loss and muscle firming)! You need more resistance and more activity every day. In August 2007 the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association reminded us of the physical activity guidelines we need to follow:

• Take 10,000 steps each day. This is a healthy level of daily physical activity. You need a pedometer to give you accurate feedback.
• Most days, get 30 minutes of additional, more intense movement that causes an aerobic heart rate response. Pick what you like: inside or out, in 3 10-minute segments or one continuous 30-minute workout.
• At least twice a week, do a strength building routine (10 exercises) that gives resistance training to all the major muscle groups. The resistance should be intense enough to make it hard to do 10 repetitions of each exercise. You need a variety of resistances, rubber band, tubes, hand weight and perhaps a barbell or machine with a weight stack. One pair of hand weight isn’t enough. To strengthen and firm an individual body action, you need to customize the resistance.

Alice Lockridge, MS Phys Ed
PRO♥FIT
www.AliceLockridge.com

I just read a news release that a major corporation has spent a lot of money to do something really good!

Nike (the sports shoe company) recently unveiled their newest shoe – the Nike Air Native N7. It’s an athletic shoe that they’ve designed specifically for Native Americans. The N7 took two years of research, development, and fit testing in collaboration with the Native American community. This is the first time Nike (or anyone) has built a shoe for a specific ethnic group.

The shoe has a unique shape, which was created to fit the greater width and thickness of Native Americans' feet. Nike designers measured feet from members of 70 tribes and found that men and women’s feet were three width sizes larger than the standard Nike shoe. They also found they needed to make the toe box (front of the shoe) deeper.

Now this is a substantial effort aimed at promoting increasing physical activity in a population with a soaring obesity rate. The plan is to distribute the shoes “solely” to tribal wellness programs and schools across the country. They will be able to purchase the shoe at wholesale price and then pass them on to individuals. All profits from the shoes that are sold will be reinvested in health programs on tribal lands where obesity and diabetes are near epidemic levels.

If you are curious about the name – N7 is a reference to the Seventh Generation philosophy in which tribes look to the preceding three generations for wisdom and the three generations ahead of them for their legacy. The shoes have a sunrise/sunset design on the tongue and heel, feathers on the inside, and stars on the sole.

Says Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, “It reinforces the core of the Nike brand, which is: If you have a body you are an athlete.” Doesn’t that just make your heart sing? It does mine!

Alice Lockridge, MS Phys Ed
PRO♥FIT
www.AliceLockridge.com

I have been a big fan of Halloween since I was a child. Dressing in a costume and walking in the dark from house-to-house with my sisters is a favorite memory from my childhood. But as a grown-up fitness professional teaching health lifestyle habits, I'm not really comfortable promoting anyone to go begging for candy and then overeating it too.

So, I began looking for a better way to celebrate the holiday - a new tradition that would be a way provide kids a way to learn to give to others while still getting excited about the prospect of receiving. After a little research, I found it! I've been collecting old, used eyeglasses to give to the needy all over the world through a program that turns “Fright Night” in to “Sight Night.” If you start now, you can be part of this event.

I wish you could see the picture that really caught my attention. It is of two grown men in a third world country hugging each other and smiling. They were both wearing glasses for the first time. One had on glasses that Matt Lauer wore in high school and the other had on a pair of Colin Powell's old glasses. They really reminded me how much I appreciate seeing every day when I put on my glasses.

It’s easy to do! If you shop at the thrift store for your costume, consider picking up an old pair of glasses to donate as well. Ask your friends, colleagues, students and neighbors for the old glasses that they can't use anymore. You can give them some warning now, so they can find them and ask their friends, too. Then in October, when you go out Trick-or-Treating with your kids or friends, go up to the door and ask for those old glasses and fill up your bag with goodies for others.

This is a way to give something very valuable, that you no longer need, your kids will never wear, but that someone else CAN really use them. And it won't cost you anything! For the official details about this program, see Lion's Club Sight Night.

The Lions Clubs are recognized worldwide for their service to the blind and visually impaired. This service began when Helen Keller challenged the Lions to become her "knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness" during the association's 1925 international convention. You can read her inspiring speech.

Have a Happy Sight Night!

Alice Lockridge, MS Phys Ed

As American young adults and children are less fit and heavier, another side effect is going to affect us all. It’s becoming clear to companies that need skilled crafts workers to fill their physically demanding jobs – the young applicants that are applying for jobs today aren’t as fit or able to be active as the applicants were a few years ago. For skilled workers such as plumbers, electricians, laborers, carpenters, iron workers, sheet metal workers, dry wallers, it’s essential for the less knowledgeable young workers need to be strong, hearty and able to work hard for a full day of labor. But today’s youth are not nearly as able to work long and hard as the working class of the last generation.

Public schools aren’t providing daily quality physical education for every student. Only the extra gifted athletes who have enough spending money to participate in after-school activities are getting enough daily physical activity to be called physically fit.

Why should we care? Well, beside the effect to the health care costs – we will begin to notice this trend when the street-workers, pole-climbing lineworkers and gardeners aren’t able to pass the physical components on the entry-level hiring tests. If our local youths can’t pass these tests and be hired into apprenticeships and craft training programs, who is going to be able to do the skilled crafts jobs? You do the math: America’s infrastructure is crumbling – we need a lot of work to be done and about 50% of the skilled crafts workers are within 5 years from being able to retire. It takes between 3 and 7 years to train crafts workers.

America’s obesity problem isn’t just a medical problem or an insult to our fashion sense. Our society needs young workers to be able to do hard, phys