The Changing Face Of Fitness

With all the hype around National fitness day it got me thinking on how
fitness has changed in our lifetime

Fitness is definitely trending at the moment with everyone offering to get you
fitter, stronger or thinner using the most interesting of methods, class or
gadget with a variety of diets attached to them.

The silliest one I’ve seen lately are people in what looks like gas masks
waggling rather heavy looking ropes up and down. Weird.

Kenneth Cooper it seems is responsible for introducing the concept of
aerobics which is still most popular. However it wasn’t until I hit late
teens in the early 1970’s that the mass culture of fitness came about.

Women started leading aerobics classes, upped the game and interest in
fitness grew as the likes of Jane Fonda ‘the Queen of aerobics’ and
her VHS tapes gained huge popularity with the emphasis as I remember
being on keeping trim.

In the early 2000’s the model of working out to be thin or to be more
muscular (men) began to change and focus on performance (running, cycling

etc) and overall health, which is where us over 60 have more interest perhaps.

Exercise has finally found a base in a holistic way of living.
Not holistic as in “natural,” but rather as in whole and even businesses
and schools are now starting to implement things like standing desks to
help combat the dangers of being sedentary. Even health insurance
companies are giving reductions if we exercises and eat what they consider healthy. Sitting is definitely now seen  in the same light as smoking was!

Peggy recognizes that some types of exercise extremes may be a turn-off to
some over 60’s. She says you don’t have to take it to the extremes.
You can use her exercises from a seated position if you like. They are
all exercises designed to get the body mobile but not strained and to extend
your state of independence. Ella who is now 94 is still very active and puts a
lot of score on how doing Peggy’s low impact exercises have been a great benefit.

We had a wonderful time doing our first ever #fitnessday masterclass last
Wednesday and would like to say a big thank if you who joined us .
If you missed it – why not visit our Facebook page  and join in with
the exercise Peggy did on Facebook Live.

Lets make every day our fitness day

Chat again soon,
Sally

I wanna tell you a story!

Did you know that today it’s NATIONAL TELL A JOKE DAY so it seems a good opportunity to give you a sneak peek into one of Peggy’s
classes and a couple of her little customs

Most of the people in Peggy’s classes know her well having been
exercising with her for several years and the groups are very friendly
and chatty.

Her first little custom is  needed to stop us nattering and to get
us started. Her solution is brilliant – She just starts the music for the first exercise and we all race for our places to join in lest we miss anything…
Then, she says good morning – When she can actually be heard!!  😀

Of course we natter in the water breaks but we are all keen to do our
exercises and love singing along to the music so the classes are
pretty orderly considering the varied bunch of ladies  that we  are and our age differences (anything from 54 to 94!)

Towards the end of our class we always do a few cool down exercises
ending in breathing along to some quieter music. When the music ends none of us moves. We ALL want to hear what Peggy has to say NOW!

We don’t talk or move and just wait for her to find her glasses and
read us some pithy, witty or funny ditty. Woe-betide if she thinks there isn’t time for one! We almost have a granny-riot 😀

It is the perfect end to a perfect class. Not much tops sharing a
laugh with your friends after a pleasant exercise program.

So if you have some of the BeActive BeFit exercises, may I suggest that
you go and do some now, and then come back to listen to her
joke for you today.

It’s been especially recorded to celebrate a day full of smiles,
chuckles, giggles, and belly laughs.

Have a giggle along with all of us here

Till next week, cheerio-oh!
Sally
Website Editor

P.S. If you think your friends might enjoy a little giggle too,
please brighten their day and share this with them. Thank you.

Yesterday I was stopped in my tracks!

Yesterday I was stopped in my tracks when I heard, on the
news that 1 in 4 people in England do less than 30 minutes
of physical activity a WEEK, some only walking 500 metres a
day!

That’s a whopping 28 percent of the population, inactive – How
can we excite the ‘Mr Blobby’s’ of our world today because it’s
important, 1 in 6 deaths are caused by – yes – inactivity!

In my youth I remember being shooed out of the house and
spending many happy hours in the trees in our garden or
running around with my friends playing my imaginary games.

I know there are different safety issues now than when I was
a child but wow this inactivity is frightening. When asked 48% of
inactive adults actually said they wanted to do more exercise.

Sadly due to our general apathy the world’s economies are
suffering as we strain the health care resources of many countries
to their limits.

To try and alleviate the problem, several areas in the UK are
already trying to minimise their costs related to illnesses by
referring patients to the NHS’s ‘Healthy Lifestyle programme’
which offers free gym sessions for people suffering from diabetes,
obesity and depression.

Plus some good news today was that Nuffield Health, a
not-for-profit-organisation, has taken ownership of 35 Virgin Active
gyms to provide fitness and well-being facilities attached to
clinical services and hospitals.

It is fantastic that exercise can have such a positive impact on our
lifestyle  and that it is being taken so seriously by authorities who
can make a big difference.

Our instructor, Peggy at BEACTIVE BEFIT, has been a small voice urging
us to exercise for the last 10 years and she recently decided to up our
game. BeActive BeFit has joined UKactive and we have embarked on an exciting venture which I shall be able to elaborate on shortly.

I’m so excited about this event but I’ve been sworn to secrecy for a
bit longer while all the pieces are put in place so be sure to check
back here because I’ll be back as soon as it’s all set to go live!

I know you’ll want to join in once I tell you what we’re doing 🙂
It’s nothing like chasing Pokémons but a lot about having
fun in a new BeFit way

Till then let’s all BeActive
All the best
Sally

Can Your Teeth Fix Themselves?

This week I digress from fitness to health because my
husband had the misfortune to break a tooth off low on
the gum the other day.

Although not painful it has proven rather harder to fix than
he expected due to some rather contrary goings on at root
level!

Like so often happens when you have something happen
to you, suddenly you see reference to similar problems all
over the place. So it was that I came upon a very intriguing
article explaining how in the not too distant future your
cavity-filled tooth will be able to repair itself with stem cells.

First off I thought surely not but then thinking about it I guess
why not. Our son had his cancer fixed with stem cells from his
brother so I its not such a huge leap of faith to fix a tooth as I
had initially thought.

At present, teeth damaged by cavities can only be fixed up
by drilling out the decay and filling the remaining tooth

with some kind of enamel or metal, now they say this could change. We can look forward to having our teeth repaired with a synthetic bio-material that stimulates stem cells and somehow makes the damaged area regenerate even the hard dentine part of your tooth.

My children went through the root canal era so have many damaged teeth so it is comforting to know that according
to Popular Science in future, all fillings could be made of this material enabling damaged teeth to repair themselves, thus hopefully ending the era of root canals.

It’s good to know that stem cells are becoming a focus for restoration
dentistry so walking into a dentist’s office could be a whole lot
less frightening for our grandchildren 😀

All the best
Sally

Website editor

Exercises you can enjoy with your friends 😀

 

 

 

R U 4 Exercises?

I have always been a great advocator of exercise.
As a teacher in my other life I would encourage children to find
some physical activity that they could enjoy and then do it.

Yesterday when I was reading an article I was delighted to see
I was right, Yay!  –  ‘I love it when a plan comes together’, as they say
in the ‘A Team‘ movies.

Seriously though, Hopefully it was, more importantly,  nurturing the
habit of exercise because according to Alan Gow at the Uni of Edinburgh it
seems taking physical exercise in later life may, contrary to popular
belief, be a better insurance against developing dementia than doing a
crossword!
Who knew?

Scientists are now thinking us lot doing regular physical fitness have
it right because they believe it’s brain shrinkage that may lead to
memory problems and that when they studied people in their 70’s who
participated in more physical exercise they had less brain shrinkage and other signs related to the aging in the brain!

Let me do some exercises NOW!!

In fact a separate Danish study suggests that a Boost to our exercise
intensity is in order. – Not only will we save our brains from shrinking and all
the nasties that brings with it, but we will retain or build our muscle mass and
cut our risk factor for heart disease and stroke by as much as 50 percent compared with people living a sedentary lifestyle.

So if you were thinking retirement is a time to relax maybe you need
to rethink. This is no time to start taking it easy but remember…

EXERCISE MEANS E-X-E-R-C-I-S-E
Don’t kid yourself that your daily wanderings around the house, garden
and mall pass as exercise, it doesn’t!

If that heart ain’t beating a good bit faster than that your walking
will be having little to no impact on your health. Sorry but it’s true.

Workouts are exactly what we all need, _all of our lives_.
Good total body workouts [http://www.beactivebefitover50.com/shop.php]
[http://www.beactivebefitover50.com/shop.php]at that.

So now you’ll be thinking that there’s nothing like the present
to be a perfect time to join Peggy because
EXERCISES R 4 U FROM NOW ON, – Yes?
[http://www.beactivebefitover50.com/shop.php]

Wishing you a funtastic day!
With Exercises you can enjoy!

P.S. Feel free to forward this to any of your friends who
may also need to exercise 🙂

You ARE Amazing!

There is a lot of positivity on the Internet, which I think is very
cool, but, one phrase of positivity caught my imagination. It simply said..

You Are Amazing, Remember that!

I thought about this and decided maybe it was not meant simply as an ego booster but rather as a reality check!

Does this little saying in actual fact refer to the hidden goings on in our body?

I realized that I and possibly you too, just take our body for granted.

Our body does a ton of stuff all on auto pilot and so long as we aren’t
feeling ill we simply don’t give a moments thought to all the behind
the scenes action, and that action is truly mind-blowing!

For example did you know that we get a new set of taste buds every
ten days? Or new nails every 6 months, not to mention new bones every 10 years and a new heart every 20 years.

Talk about mind-blowing.Our brains think 50,000 thoughts each day!
I tell you what, one of my thoughts right now is definitely querying
why, if we loose 1 million cells a day, is my skin looking so crinkled
around them edges! Oh well age is just a word I’m told!

I digress, back to our body. Now the kidneys…. don’t they just hurt
like heck if they are poorly? But when fit and healthy they provide us with a
second-to-none filtering system cleaning up 1,872 litres of blood every single day.

And you know we keep being told how good cardio exercise is for us,
well that heart you think can take care of itself could actually do with a
little help to keep fit. It has to beat at least 100,000 times _a day_ to get that blood of yours around your body, all 7571 litres a day of it.

So come on give it some exercise. Keep it fit. That’s the least you can do,
isn’t it? And there’s more…

We apparently engage our mouth & brain to communicate 5000 words a
day. Such a shame that only 500 of them are of any real value. Ha! ha! I
hope this email is part of that 500!

A final thought: Tonight like you, I’ll snuggle into bed and trust that I shall continue to breathe (17,000 breaths a day) knowing all of this action behind
the scenes will carry on while I sleep. Better still, I know I will feel the same
or better tomorrow – I’ll awaken to another stunning day!

Have yourself a wonderful day in the knowledge that
YOU TRULY ARE AMAZING!

Wishing you a fantastic day!

P.S. Feel free to forward this to any of your friends who are also
Truly Amazing  🙂

How do you stay young?

I’ve been watching the ‘How To Stay Young‘ BBC videos.
It’s fascinating to see how much of our ageing is genetic and how much
is from the way we have lived our lives.

I think the best take-away from the documentary though,was an
experiment they did with two groups of over 60’s.
Group A went to the gym machines to exercise and
Group B went to dance class.

They both had the same music and same amount of time to workout,
however, just watching them I could tell which group was having more fun – Yup you guessed it, the dance group.

When it came to the statistics it turned out that the dance group also had
benefited much more from the workouts over the 6 month period than the gym group.

There were a variety of reasons given for the difference in stats:
Social interaction was one even though in both groups everyone was
working individually, there was more camaraderie in the dance class!

But the best gain came to the dance group because they were giving
their bodies a total-body workout whereas the gym people were only working on either legs or arms etc. at any one time.

The dance group benefited because they had aerobic content at the same
time as working on better flexibility and balance and we all know how
vital they are to us as we get older!

The dancing group had so much fun that they refused to stop after the
experiment was completed and are still doing their classes a year later.
I so know that feeling!
Since I started exercising with Peggy I never miss a class, I love it
too much.

What a wonderful documentary and boy oh boy it really endorsed to me
that you really cant go wrong by having some fun exercising to music and the
cherry on top is that it actually helps you stay young.

Oh another feel good take away.
They have a webpage where you can checkout your physical age
compared to your body age…..
Please excuse us bragging but Peggy and I both came out with the
health of a person ten years younger than our physical ages.
We had a ‘high five’ moment of celebration  🙂

One of the reasons for this discrepancy is simply due to the fact that we
have been doing enough exercise.
If you aren’t already doing some good dance type workouts, don’t put off starting for too long,

Your delay could be costing you years of good life.
BeActive NOW and help your body BeFit to Stay Young!

 

 

 

Exercising Can Seem Too Scary to Start!

I get the feeling from comments I receive, that many people hit 50
and realize that many of you haven’t been exercising as much as
you feel you should have, and that you really want to get started now
but don’t know where or how.

All exercising seems rather daunting when you’ve been out of the
loop for a while and on top of that we all know that we’re not quite
as young as we used to be!

If you are this person I can offer you hope. I too was this person
just a few years ago. Then I was introduced to Peggy’s BeActive BeFit
exercises

I started tentatively because it was not like anything I had ever done
before but, I must tell you, that no one was more surprised than me,
when after the first lesson I realized quite how much I had actually
enjoyed myself.

I have watched the same thing happening over and over again to
people who have joined in. They start rather afraid, but the smiles
soon come as they realize the exercises are easy to follow, fun to
do, and
They do what they promise
You do become fitter and more flexible

I hope this little insight will give you that little Spring Courage you
may need to start your exercising to BeFit 🙂

Chat soon
Visit our web page for more fun BeActive BeFit exercises 😀

What do YOU have in common with One Direction?

I have a new ringtone on my cell phone
I’ve gone back to being a teenie bopper!! Remember them?

I’ve fallen in love with the song ‘History‘  by One Direction
I just love the words of the chorus …

“You and me got a whole lot of history
We could be the greatest team that the world has ever seen
You and me got a whole lot of history
So don’t let it go, we can make some more, we can live forever”

Those words just strike a chord with me…
All of us over 50 do have a ‘whole lot of history.’ We’ve been there, done loads, and some of us even
have the t-shirt to prove it!

But I also like the words on a more personal level.
Pegz and I have combined our histories and together I believe
we have produced a pretty awesome program of exercises

‘We could be the greatest team that the world has ever seen‘ (lol)
YOU, me and Pegz – The Best Seniors Exercise Team!

‘So don’t let it go‘,

Especially this Monday, as the Mad March Hare got to us and there
will be a 50% discount on all our exercises videos

‘We can make some more‘ history with our friends and families
this Easter

And if we stay fit ‘ we can live forever!!!’
Or for a bit longer anyway 😀

Have an Awesome Easter

Growing old is awesome!

A lovely feel-good read