Your Bone Health After 50

FabOverFifty recently polled 100 women from our community to learn about your bone health.

How To Maintain Joint Health

Dear FOFriends: Osteo Bi-Flex has compensated FabOverFifty for this blog. I assure you that the content is factual and valuable, and all opinions are my own! – Geri Brin

After working out with Vann recently, I felt stiffness in my left knee when I walked up and down stairs. Uh oh. What’s going on inside that knee? What causes me to have occasional joint stiffness, and besides, what’s a joint anyway?

Vann told me to take it easy on the knee and instructed me to do a specific stretching exercise, which eased the stiffness rather quickly. But I wanted to learn more about my joints, so I called Osteo Bi-Flex, which manufactures a broad line of supplements for joint health. I’d been seeing their TV commercials a lot lately, and we had started to work with the brand because joint, bone and health concerns surely can impact our lives. (more…)

OMG, I’m Exercising Again! [Sponsored]

I am spectacularly out of shape.

Ever since I decided to work from my apartment, almost three years ago, I’ve become a slave to the computer and sometimes don’t get outside until I walk the dog, around 6:30 PM.

I know I’ve got to do exercises to keep my bones, muscles and heart strong, and eat foods that provide the proper protein, vitamins and minerals, but the treadmill bores me to tears and it’s not always easy for me to get the proper nutrition during a busy day. I started to get the nutrition part under control when I heard about Ensure’s new line of Active High Protein nutrition shakes that can provide the right balance of nutrients and protein, and with great flavor. Ensure,has been addressing adult nutrition needs for over four decades, so I trust it.

But the exercise—that’s a different story. If my life was in jeopardy, I couldn’t jog my way to safety. I haven’t consistently done any exercises for my muscles and bones since I stopped yoga four years ago.

Woe is me, I thought. I’m going to wind up a shuffling old lady if I don’t get off my duff and do something.

Then an email popped up that got my attention, from Vann Duke, a trainer in L.A., who calls his business Second Half Fitness & Wellness because his clients are 50+. He wanted to advertise on FabOverFifty. Hmmm, I said to myself, as I sent back a reply: “Lets talk.” Talk we did, on Skype, and I immediately liked Vann’s style, philosophy and approach. “A woman [or man, of course] over 50 needs to embrace the idea that she has a whole second life to live,” he told me. “Look at your body, look at your lifestyle, and figure out what’s important to you, now, to operate in your life. What physical capabilities do you need to get to where you want to go?”

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Developing Epilepsy Later in Life

This post is sponsored by Cyberonics, Inc.

Pamela, 62, spent a frightening decade with migraines, dangerously high blood pressure, forgetfulness, and tingling throughout her body.

During this time, her symptoms progressively worsened and included transient ischemic attacks (ministrokes) and weakness throughout her legs. Despite numerous lab tests, doctors in Atlanta couldn’t get to the root of Pamela’s problems and speculated that she had everything from multiple sclerosis to Lou Gehrig’s disease and Treacher Collins syndrome. They also prescribed medication after medication that proved ineffective. It wasn’t until Pamela took a sleep EEG, an exam that monitored electrical activity in the brain while she was asleep, that a neurologist was able to correctly diagnose her with epilepsy. Imaging of Pamela’s brain activity showed that, at times, she was experiencing as many as 80 seizures in a two-hour timeframe.

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder causing “sudden surges of electrical activity in the brain,” or seizures, according to the Epilepsy Foundation. Symptoms of seizures include loss of awareness (blacking out), confusion, loss of consciousness, tingling throughout the body, visual impairment, and many other bodily changes.

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Don’t Swallow Another Supplement Until You’ve Read This! [Sponsored Post]

Women can be funny creatures.

Fanatic as we may be about staying in shape, by exercising and eating intelligently, we often skip entire meals because we’re A) just too busy, B) not hungry or C) hungry, but figure it just doesn’t hurt to skip a meal now and again.

Oh, but it does. It really does. Think about newborns and infants. They require a certain amount of milk (breast or formula) each day, in order to grow bigger and stronger. If a mother decided to simply eliminate feedings, here and there throughout the week, the baby wouldn’t get all the nutrition it needed. Of course, women over 50 don’t need to grow bigger (we sure don’t!) , but we must make certain to maintain good health and keep up our strength. When we deny our bodies the proper nutrition they need each day, it decreases our chances of doing either. So while a svelte bod may look good on the outside, it’s probably not working so well on the inside if it doesn’t get the proper vitamins and minerals, not to mention things like omega-3s fatty acids and antioxidants.

Let’s stop here, you’re saying to yourself about now. Practically every day, you read or hear about another dietary supplement that one expert or another claims you MUST take. Calcium and D3 for bones; Vitamin C for collagen; Vitamin E to fight cell damage; magnesium for energy and to help your muscles, arteries and heart to work properly. And how can something called “fatty” be good for you? One look at the packed vitamin shelves in the drugstore sends you into a tizzy, and there’s no one around to help. The shops that specialize in vitamins aren’t any better, since the salespeople try to push everything on you, having no idea what you need. What you really need, you’re convinced, is an advanced degree in nutrition to understand all the gobbledygook thrown at you from every direction.

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