Simple Wall Pilates for Seniors – by Grace Clark
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While the cover illustration makes this look a little too simple, in fact there’s a lot of value in this book, with exercises ranging from things like that on the cover, to the “wall downward dog”. But the actual exercises (of which there are 29) themselves are only a part of the book (taking about 70 pages of it with clear illustrations).
There’s also a lot about important Pilates principles to apply, such as breathing, correct body alignment (if you don’t already do Pilates, you will not have this, as Pilates alignment is quite specific), flexibility, balance, stability, coordination, range of motion, isometric exercise considerations, endurance, and more.
Unlike a lot of “…for seniors” books, this is not a watered down barely-does-anything version of the “real” exercises, but rather, would present most the same challenges to a 20-year-old reader; it’s just that the focus here is more on matters that tend to concern an older rather than younger demographic. That 20-something may be busy building their butt, for instance, while the 80-year-old is building their bones. No reason both shouldn’t do both, of course, but the focus is age-specific.
The author guides us through working up from easy things to hard, breaking stuff down so that we can progress at our own pace, such that even the most cautious or enthusiastic reader can start at an appropriate point and proceed accordingly.
She also talks us through a 28-day program (as promised by the subtitle), and advice on how to keep it going without plateauing, how to set realistic goals, how to tailor it to our abilities as we go, track our progress, and so forth.
The style is clear and instructional, and one thing that sets this apart from a lot of Pilates books is that the education comes from an angle not of “trust me”, but rather from well-sourced claims with bibliography whose list spans 5 pages at the end.
Bottom line: if you’d like to progressively increase your strength, stability, and more—with no gym equipment, just a wall—then this book will have you see improvements in the 28 days it promises, and thereafter.
Click here to check out Simple Wall Pilates For Seniors, and experience the difference!
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Broccoli Sprouts & Sulforaphane
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small 😎
❝How much science is there behind sulforaphane / broccoli spirits and its health claims??❞
So, first of all, what it is: sulforaphane is a compound found in Brassica oleracea, of which species broccoli is a cultivar. It’s found in the other Brassica oleracea cultivars too (e.g. cauliflower, various cabbages, Brussels sprouts, kale, etc), but for whatever reason*, most research has been on broccoli and broccoli sprouts.
*Likely the reason is: research begets research—it’s easier to get funding to expand upon previous research, than it is to break ground on researching a different plant, where for the first third of your paper you have almost no existing scientific literature to cite. So once they got started on broccoli sprouts, everything else has been broccoli sprouts too.
And for clarity on what broccoli sprouts are: this means that when broccoli seeds have been germinated and just begun to sprout, they are harvested and eaten. That’s the one-line explanation, anyway; there’s a little more to it than that, so anyone interested should check out our previous main feature:
Good Things Come In Small Packages: Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc
…and for more depth than we have room for in a one-page article, check out this book we reviewed:
The Sprout Book: Tap Into The Power Of The Planet’s Most Nutritious Food – by Doug Evans
One thing that the science is clear on: sprouts of a given plant indeed have much higher general nutritional density than their “adult” siblings. And in the case of sulforaphane specifically, it’s about 100x higher in broccoli sprouts than in adult broccoli:
Broccoli or Sulforaphane: Is It the Source or Dose That Matters? ← we suggest skipping down to the section “broccoli-based clinical trials”
So, that prompts the next question: do we care?
In other words: is sulforaphane really particularly important?
Sulforaphane vs cancer
The most well-evidenced health-giving property of sulforaphane is its anticancer activity:
Brassicaceae-Derived Anticancer Agents: Towards a Green Approach to Beat Cancer
A lot of the research there is epidemiological rather than RCTs, and where there are RCTs, they are mostly small ones, like this 10-person broccoli soup study about bioavailability (rather than the effects themselves):
Bioavailability of Glucoraphanin and Sulforaphane from High-Glucoraphanin Broccoli
To get into sulforaphane’s anticancer potential in seriousness, we have to look at a lot of in-vitro studies trialling it to limit carcinogenesis, or to shrink tumors with it, or specifically targetting cancer stem cells with it, which make for quite compelling reading:
A quick aside: if you’re reading that and thinking “Why is sonic the hedgehog in here?” it’s because after the observation of the influence of certain genes that influence cuticular denticles (the growth of spikes) on fruit fly larvae (bearing in mind the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is used for so much first- or second-line genetic research, being either the go-to or the go-to after the nematode C. elegans) caused the whole group of genes to get called “hedgehog genes” and then it became scientific convention to name each newly researched gene in that set after a different kind of hedgehog. One of them, instead of being named after a real-world hedgehog species like the others, got named after the videogame character.
Unfortunately, this now means that because the gene is associated with a certain congenital brain disorder, sometimes a doctor has to explain to a family that the reason their baby has a brain defect is because of a mutated sonic hedgehog.
Ok, back to talking about cancer. Let’s just quickly drop a few more papers so it’s clear that this is well-established:
- Multi-targeted prevention of cancer by sulforaphane ← this shows how it works on the cellular level
- Cruciferous vegetables: dietary phytochemicals for cancer prevention ← this shows how it works on the population level
However, that’s not the only established benefit:
❝SFN has other beneficial effects in addition to cancer protection. SFN exhibits neuroprotective effects and is implemented in treating conditions such as traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.❞
Source: Sulforaphane in broccoli: The green chemoprevention!! Role in cancer prevention and therapy
Now, after the extract we quoted above, the rest of the section “other health benefits of sulforaphane” includes a lot of speculation, weak science, and/or things attributable to other phytochemicals in broccoli, including various polyphenols, vitamins, and minerals.
About those broccoli spirits
Ok, we know it was a typo, but… Actually, there is something worth mentioning here, and that’s that sulforaphane is only activated when glucoraphanin (its inactive form) comes into contact with myrosinase (an enzyme that’s only released when the plant is damaged).
In other words, it’s necessary to injure the broccoli before consuming it, in order to release the
spiritsmyrosinase. Now, while very few people are out there swallowing adult broccoli plants whole, it could well happen that people might wolf down uncut broccoli sprouts, since they are only small, after all.For this reason, it’s best that broccoli, even if it’s broccoli sprouts, be cut while raw before consumption.
In terms of cooking, heat in excess of 140℃ / 284℉ will destroy the glucoraphanin, and less/no glucoraphanin means less/no sulforaphane.
So, enjoying them raw or lightly steaming them seems to be best for this purpose:
Impact of thermal processing on sulforaphane yield from broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. ssp. italica)
Just want a supplement?
Many studies (including some cited by the research reviews we cited above) deal with sulforaphane in extract form, rather than whole plants, so there’s no shame in taking it that way if you’re not a fan of broccoli.
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎
Enjoy!
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Foods That Cause You to Lose Weight – by Dr. Neal Barnard
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We previously reviewed Dr. Barnard’s “The Power Foods Diet”, and this time his work is about weight loss.
This time there are more recipes (which take up most of the book, so this one could be reasonably described as a cookbook), but not until after nearly a hundred pages of concepts, principles, and tips.
The recipes themselves are again very respectable, even if some may be a little redundant (e.g. the double-page recipe for blueberry muffins is followed by a double-page recipe for banana and date muffins, instead of just saying “or substitute this”—things like that) and run the gamut from salad dressings to hearty main meals.
A strength of the book is that it’s about what you eat, not how much of it you eat, so if you love eating (which is a very healthy trait to have in general), then you’ll enjoy that aspect.
Bottom line: if you’d like to eat more and weigh less, then this is a top-tier book for you.
Click here to check out “Foods That Cause You To Lose Weight”, and enjoy eating!
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What Grief Does To Your Body (And How To Manage It)
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What Grief Does To The Body (And How To Manage It)
In life, we will almost all lose loved ones and suffer bereavement. For most people, this starts with grandparents, eventually moves to parents, and then people our own generation; partners, siblings, close friends. And of course, sometimes and perhaps most devastatingly, we can lose people younger than ourselves.
For something that almost everyone suffers, there is often very little in the way of preparation given beforehand, and afterwards, a condolences card is nice but can’t do a lot for our mental health.
And with mental health, our physical health can go too, if we very understandably neglect it at such a time.
So, how to survive devastating loss, and come out the other side, hopefully thriving? It seems like a tall order indeed.
First, the foundations:
You’re probably familiar with the stages of grief. In their most commonly-presented form, they are:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
You’ve probably also heard/read that we won’t always go through them in order, and also that grief is deeply personal and proceeds on its own timescale.
It is generally considered healthy to go through them.
What do they look like?
Naturally this can vary a lot from person to person, but examples in the case of bereavement could be:
- Denial: “This surely has not really happened; I’ll carry on as though it hasn’t”
- Anger: “Why didn’t I do xyz differently while I had the chance?!”
- Bargaining: “I will do such-and-such in their honor, and this will be a way of expressing the love I wish I could give them in a way they could receive”
- Depression: “What is the point of me without them? The sooner I join them, the better.”
- Acceptance: “I was so lucky that we had the time together that we did, and enriched each other’s lives while we could”
We can speedrun these or we can get stuck on one for years. We can bounce back and forth. We can think we’re at acceptance, and then a previous stage will hit us like a tonne of bricks.
What if we don’t?
Assuming that our lost loved one was indeed a loved one (as opposed to someone we are merely societally expected to mourn), then failing to process that grief will tend to have a big impact on our life—and health. These health problems can include:
As you can see, three out of five of those can result in death. The other two aren’t great either. So why isn’t this taken more seriously as a matter of health?
Death is, ironically, considered something we “just have to live with”.
But how?
Coping strategies
You’ll note that most of the stages of grief are not enjoyable per se. For this reason, it’s common to try to avoid them—hence denial usually being first.
But, that is like not getting a lump checked out because you don’t want a cancer diagnosis. The emotional reasoning is understandable, but it’s ultimately self-destructive.
First, have a plan. If a death is foreseen, you can even work out this plan together.
But even if that time has now passed, it’s “better late than never” to make a plan for looking after yourself, e.g:
- How you will try to get enough sleep (tricky, but sincerely try)
- How you will remember to eat (and ideally, healthily)
- How you will still get exercise (a walk in the park is fine; see some greenery and get some sunlight)
- How you will avoid self-destructive urges (from indirect, e.g. drinking, to direct, e.g. suicidality)
- How you will keep up with the other things important in your life (work, friends, family)
- How you will actively work to process your grief (e.g. journaling, or perhaps grief counselling)
Some previous articles of ours that may help:
- How To Keep On Keeping On ← this is about looking after general health when motivation is low
- The Mental Health First-Aid You’ll Hopefully Never Need ← this is about managing depression
- How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To) ← this is about managing suicidality
- Life After Death? (Your Life; A Loved One’s Death) ← this is about bereavement and romance
If it works, it works
If we are all unique, then any relationship between any two people is uniqueness squared. Little wonder, then, that our grief may be unique too. And it can be complicated further:
- Sometimes we had a complicated relationship with someone
- Sometimes the circumstances of their death were complicated
There is, for that matter, such a thing as “complicated grief”:
Read more: Complicated grief and prolonged grief disorder (Medical News Today)
We also previously reviewed a book on “ambiguous loss”, exploring grieving when we cannot grieve in the normal way because someone is gone and/but/maybe not gone.
For example, if someone is in a long-term coma from which they may never recover, or if they are missing-presumed-dead. Those kinds of situations are complicated too.
Unusual circumstances may call for unusual coping strategies, so how can we discern what is healthy and what isn’t?
The litmus test is: is it enabling you to continue going about your life in a way that allows you to fulfil your internal personal aspirations and external social responsibilities? If so, it’s probably healthy.
Look after yourself. And if you can, tell your loved ones you love them today.
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Why do I poo in the morning? A gut expert explains
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No, you’re not imagining it. People really are more likely to poo in the morning, shortly after breakfast. Researchers have actually studied this.
But why mornings? What if you tend to poo later in the day? And is it worth training yourself to be a morning pooper?
To understand what makes us poo when we do, we need to consider a range of factors including our body clock, gut muscles and what we have for breakfast.
Here’s what the science says.
H_Ko/Shutterstock So morning poos are real?
In a UK study from the early 1990s, researchers asked nearly 2,000 men and women in Bristol about their bowel habits.
The most common time to poo was in the early morning. The peak time was 7-8am for men and about an hour later for women. The researchers speculated that the earlier time for men was because they woke up earlier for work.
About a decade later, a Chinese study found a similar pattern. Some 77% of the almost 2,500 participants said they did a poo in the morning.
But why the morning?
There are a few reasons. The first involves our circadian rhythm – our 24-hour internal clock that helps regulate bodily processes, such as digestion.
For healthy people, our internal clock means the muscular contractions in our colon follow a distinct rhythm.
There’s minimal activity in the night. The deeper and more restful our sleep, the fewer of these muscle contractions we have. It’s one reason why we don’t tend to poo in our sleep.
Your lower gut is a muscular tube that contracts more strongly at certain times of day. Vectomart/Shutterstock But there’s increasing activity during the day. Contractions in our colon are most active in the morning after waking up and after any meal.
One particular type of colon contraction partly controlled by our internal clock are known as “mass movements”. These are powerful contractions that push poo down to the rectum to prepare for the poo to be expelled from the body, but don’t always result in a bowel movement. In healthy people, these contractions occur a few times a day. They are more frequent in the morning than in the evening, and after meals.
Breakfast is also a trigger for us to poo. When we eat and drink our stomach stretches, which triggers the “gastrocolic reflex”. This reflex stimulates the colon to forcefully contract and can lead you to push existing poo in the colon out of the body. We know the gastrocolic reflex is strongest in the morning. So that explains why breakfast can be such a powerful trigger for a bowel motion.
Then there’s our morning coffee. This is a very powerful stimulant of contractions in the sigmoid colon (the last part of the colon before the rectum) and of the rectum itself. This leads to a bowel motion.
How important are morning poos?
Large international surveys show the vast majority of people will poo between three times a day and three times a week.
This still leaves a lot of people who don’t have regular bowel habits, are regular but poo at different frequencies, or who don’t always poo in the morning.
So if you’re healthy, it’s much more important that your bowel habits are comfortable and regular for you. Bowel motions do not have to occur once a day in the morning.
Morning poos are also not a good thing for everyone. Some people with irritable bowel syndrome feel the urgent need to poo in the morning – often several times after getting up, during and after breakfast. This can be quite distressing. It appears this early-morning rush to poo is due to overstimulation of colon contractions in the morning.
Can you train yourself to be regular?
Yes, for example, to help treat constipation using the gastrocolic reflex. Children and elderly people with constipation can use the toilet immediately after eating breakfast to relieve symptoms. And for adults with constipation, drinking coffee regularly can help stimulate the gut, particularly in the morning.
A disturbed circadian rhythm can also lead to irregular bowel motions and people more likely to poo in the evenings. So better sleep habits can not only help people get a better night’s sleep, it can help them get into a more regular bowel routine.
A regular morning coffee can help relieve constipation. Caterina Trimarchi/Shutterstock Regular physical activity and avoiding sitting down a lot are also important in stimulating bowel movements, particularly in people with constipation.
We know stress can contribute to irregular bowel habits. So minimising stress and focusing on relaxation can help bowel habits become more regular.
Fibre from fruits and vegetables also helps make bowel motions more regular.
Finally, ensuring adequate hydration helps minimise the chance of developing constipation, and helps make bowel motions more regular.
Monitoring your bowel habits
Most of us consider pooing in the morning to be regular. But there’s a wide variation in normal so don’t be concerned if your poos don’t follow this pattern. It’s more important your poos are comfortable and regular for you.
If there’s a major change in the regularity of your bowel habits that’s concerning you, see your GP. The reason might be as simple as a change in diet or starting a new medication.
But sometimes this can signify an important change in the health of your gut. So your GP may need to arrange further investigations, which could include blood tests or imaging.
Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Almond Butter vs Cashew Butter – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing almond butter to cashew butter, we picked the almond.
Why?
They’re both good! But, our inherent pro-almond bias notwithstanding, the almond butter does have a slightly better spread of nutrients.
In terms of macros, almond butter has more protein while cashew butter has more carbs, and of their fats, they’re broadly healthy in both cases, but almond butter does have less saturated fat.
In the category of vitamins, both are good sources of vitamin E, but almond butter has about 4x more. The rest of the vitamins they both contain aren’t too dissimilar, aside from some different weightings of various different B-vitamins, that pretty much balance out across the two nut butters. The only noteworthy point in cashew butter’s favor here is that it is a good source of vitamin K, which almond butter doesn’t have.
When it comes to minerals, both are good sources of lots of minerals, but most significantly, almond butter has a lot more calcium and quite a bit more potassium. In contrast, cashew butter has more selenium.
In short, they’re both great, but almond butter has more relative points in its favor than cashew butter.
Here are the two we depicted today, by the way, in case you’d like to try them:
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts
Take care!
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How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
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Rethinking Drinking
When we’re looking at certain health risks, there are often five key lifestyle factors that have a big impact; they are:
- Have a good diet
- Get good exercise
- Get good sleep
- Reduce (or eliminate) alcohol
- Don’t smoke
Today, we’re focussing the alcohol bit. Maybe you’d like to quit, maybe just cut down, maybe the topic just interests you… So, here’s a quick rundown of some things that will help make that a lot easier:
With a big enough “why”, you can overcome any “how”
Research and understand the harm done by drinking, including:
And especially as we get older, memory problems:
Alcohol-related dementia: an update of the evidence
And as for fear of missing out, or perhaps even of no longer being relaxed/fun… Did you ever, while sober, have a very drunk person try to converse with you, and you thought “I wish that were me”?
Probably not
Know your triggers
Why do you drink? If your knee-jerk response is “because I like it”, dig deeper. What events prompt you to have a drink?
- Some will be pure habit born of convention—perhaps with a meal, for example
- Others may be stress-management—after work, perhaps
- Others may be pseudo-medicinal—a nightcap for better* sleep, for instance
*this will not work. Alcohol may make us sleepy but it will then proceed to disrupt that very sleep and make it less restorative
Become mindful
Now that you know why you’d like to drink less (or quit entirely), and you know what triggers you to drink, you can circumvent that a little, by making deals with yourself, for example
- “I can drink alcohol, if and only if I have consumed a large glass of water first” (cuts out being thirsty as a trigger to drink)
- “I can drink alcohol, if and only if I meditate for at least 5 minutes first” (reduces likelihood of stress-drinking)
- “I can drink alcohol, if and only if it is with the largest meal of the day” (minimizes total alcohol consumption)
Note that these things also work around any FOMO, “Fear Of Missing Out”. It’s easier to say “no” when you know you can have it later if you still want it.
Get a good replacement drink
There are a lot of alcohol-free alcohol-like drinks around these days, and many of them are very good. Experiment and see. But!
It doesn’t even have to be that. Sometimes what we need is not even an alcohol-like drink, but rather, drinkable culinary entertainment.
If you like “punch-in-the-face” flavors (as this writer does), maybe strong black coffee is the answer. If you like “crisp and clear refreshment” (again, same), maybe your favorite herbal tea will do it for you. Or maybe for you it’ll be lemon-water. Or homemade ginger ale.
Whatever it is… make it fun, and make it yours!
Bonus item: find replacement coping strategies
This one goes if you’ve been using alcohol to cope with something. Stress, depression, anxiety, whatever it may be for you.
The thing is, it feels like it helps briefly in the moment, but it makes each of those things progressively worse in the long-run, so it’s not sustainable.
Consider instead things like therapy, exercise, and/or a new hobby to get immersed in; whatever works for you!
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