Want the health benefits of strength training but not keen on the gym? Try ‘exercise snacking’
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
The science is clear: resistance training is crucial to ageing well. Lifting weights (or doing bodyweight exercises like lunges, squats or push-ups) can help you live independently for longer, make your bones stronger, reduce your risk of diseases such as diabetes, and may even improve your sleep and mental health.
But not everyone loves the gym. Perhaps you feel you’re not a “gym person” and never will be, or you’re too old to start. Being a gym-goer can be expensive and time-consuming, and some people report feeling unwelcome or awkward at the gym.
The good news is you don’t need the gym, or lots of free time, to get the health benefits resistance training can offer.
You can try “exercise snacking” instead.
What is exercise snacking?
Exercise snacking involves doing multiple shorter bouts (as little as 20 seconds) of exercise throughout the day – often with minimal or no equipment. It’s OK to have several hours of rest between.
You could do simple bodyweight exercises such as:
- chair sit-to-stand (squats)
- lunges
- box step-ups
- calf raises
- push-ups.
Exercise snacking like this can help improve muscle mass, strength and physical function.
It’s OK to hold onto a nearby object for balance, if you need. And doing these exercises regularly will also improve your balance. That, in turn, reduces your risk of falls and fractures.
OK I have done all those, now what?
Great! You can also try using resistance bands or dumbbells to do the previously mentioned five exercises as well as some of the following exercises:
When using resistance bands, make sure you hold them tightly and that they’re securely attached to an immovable object.
Exercise snacking works well when you pair it with an activity you do often throughout the day. Perhaps you could:
- do a few extra squats every time you get up from a bed or chair
- do some lunges during a TV ad break
- chuck in a few half squats while you’re waiting for your kettle to boil
- do a couple of elevated push-ups (where you support your body with your hands on a chair or a bench while doing the push-up) before tucking into lunch
- sneak in a couple of calf raises while you’re brushing your teeth.
What does the evidence say about exercise snacking?
One study had older adults without a history of resistance training do exercise snacks at home twice per day for four weeks.
Each session involved five simple bodyweight exercises (chair sit-to-stand, seated knee extension, standing knee bends, marching on the spot, and standing calf raises). The participants did each exercise continuously for one minute, with a one-minute break between exercises.
These short and simple exercise sessions, which lasted just nine minutes, were enough to improve a person’s ability to stand up from a chair by 31% after four weeks (compared to a control group who didn’t exercise). Leg power and thigh muscle size improved, too.
Research involving one of us (Jackson Fyfe) has also shown older adults found “exercise snacking” feasible and enjoyable when done at home either once, twice, or three times per day for four weeks.
Exercise snacking may be a more sustainable approach to improve muscle health in those who don’t want to – or can’t – lift heavier weights in a gym.
A little can yield a lot
We know from other research that the more you exercise, the more likely it is you will keep exercising in future.
Very brief resistance training, albeit with heavier weights, may be more enjoyable than traditional approaches where people aim to do many, many sets.
We also know brief-and-frequent exercise sessions can break up periods of sedentary behaviour (which usually means sitting too much). Too much sitting increases your risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, whereas exercise snacking can help keep your blood sugar levels steady.
Of course, longer-term studies are needed. But the evidence we do have suggests exercise snacking really helps.
Why does any of this matter?
As you age, you lose strength and mass in the muscles you use to walk, or stand up. Everyday tasks can become a struggle.
All this contributes to disability, hospitalisation, chronic disease, and reliance on community and residential aged care support.
By preserving your muscle mass and strength, you can:
- reduce joint pain
- get on with activities you enjoy
- live independently in your own home
- delay or even eliminate the need for expensive health care or residential aged care.
What if I walk a lot – is that enough?
Walking may maintain some level of lower body muscle mass, but it won’t preserve your upper body muscles.
If you find it difficult to get out of a chair, or can only walk short distances without getting out of breath, resistance training is the best way to regain some of the independence and function you’ve lost.
It’s even more important for women, as muscle mass and strength are typically lower in older women than men. And if you’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis, which is more common in older women than men, resistance exercise snacking at home can improve your balance, strength, and bone mineral density. All of this reduces the risk of falls and fractures.
You don’t need heavy weights or fancy equipment to benefit from resistance training.
So, will you start exercise snacking today?
Justin Keogh, Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University and Jackson Fyfe, Senior Lecturer, Strength and Conditioning Sciences, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes – by Ginger Vieira
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
If you or a loved one has Type 1 Diabetes, you’ll know that exercise can be especially frustrating…
- If you don’t do it, you risk weight gain and eventual insulin resistance.
- If you do it, you risk dangerous hypos, or perhaps hypers if you took off your pump or skipped a bolus.
Unfortunately, the popular medical advice is “well, just do your best”.
Ginger Vieira is Type 1 Diabetic, and writes with 20+ experience of managing her diabetes while being a keen exerciser. As T1D folks out there will also know, comorbidities are very common; in her case, fibromyalgia was the biggest additional blow to her ability to exercise, along with an underactive thyroid. So when it comes to dealing with the practical nuts and bolts of things, she (while herself observing she’s not a doctor, let alone your doctor) has a lot more practical knowledge than an endocrinologist (without diabetes) behind a desk.
Speaking of nuts and bolts, this book isn’t a pep talk.
It has a bit of that in, but most of it is really practical information, e.g: using fasted exercise (4 hours from last meal+bolus) to prevent hypos, counterintuitive as that may seem—the key is that timing a workout for when you have the least amount of fast-acting insulin in your body means your body can’t easily use your blood sugars for energy, and draws from your fat reserves instead… Win/Win!
That’s just one quick tip because this is a 1-minute review, but Vieira gives:
- whole chapters, with example datasets (real numbers)
- tech-specific advice, e.g. pump, injection, etc
- insulin-specific advice, e.g. fast vs slow, and adjustments to each in the context of exercise
- timing advice re meal/bolus/exercise for different insulins and techs
- blood-sugar management advice for different exercise types (aerobic/anaerobic, sprint/endurance, etc)
…and lots more that we don’t have room to mention here
Basically… If you or a loved one has T1D, we really recommend this book!
Order a copy of “Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes” from Amazon today!
Share This Post
-
Forget Ringing the Button for the Nurse. Patients Now Stay Connected by Wearing One.
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
HOUSTON — Patients admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital get a monitoring device about the size of a half-dollar affixed to their chest — and an unwitting role in the expanding use of artificial intelligence in health care.
The slender, battery-powered gadget, called a BioButton, records vital signs including heart and breathing rates, then wirelessly sends the readings to nurses sitting in a 24-hour control room elsewhere in the hospital or in their homes. The device’s software uses AI to analyze the voluminous data and detect signs a patient’s condition is deteriorating.
Hospital officials say the BioButton has improved care and reduced the workload of bedside nurses since its rollout last year.
“Because we catch things earlier, patients are doing better, as we don’t have to wait for the bedside team to notice if something is going wrong,” said Sarah Pletcher, system vice president at Houston Methodist.
But some nurses fear the technology could wind up replacing them rather than supporting them — and harming patients. Houston Methodist, one of dozens of U.S. hospitals to employ the device, is the first to use the BioButton to monitor all patients except those in intensive care, Pletcher said.
“The hype around a lot of these devices is they provide care at scale for less labor costs,” said Michelle Mahon, a registered nurse and an assistant director of National Nurses United, the profession’s largest U.S. union. “This is a trend that we find disturbing,” she said.
The rollout of BioButton is among the latest examples of hospitals deploying technology to improve efficiency and address a decades-old nursing shortage. But that transition has raised its own concerns, including about the device’s use of AI; polls show the public is wary of health providers relying on it for patient care.
In December 2022 the FDA cleared the BioButton for use in adult patients who are not in critical care. It is one of many AI tools now used by hospitals for tasks like reading diagnostic imaging results.
In 2023, President Joe Biden directed the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a plan to regulate AI in hospitals, including by collecting reports of patients harmed by its use.
The leader of BioIntelliSense, which developed the BioButton, said its device is a huge advance compared with nurses walking into a room every few hours to measure vital signs. “With AI, you now move from ‘I wonder why this patient crashed’ to ‘I can see this crash coming before it happens and intervene appropriately,’” said James Mault, CEO of the Golden, Colorado-based company.
The BioButton stays on the skin with an adhesive, is waterproof, and has up to a 30-day battery life. The company says the device — which allows providers to quickly notice deteriorating health by recording more than 1,000 measurements a day per patient — has been used on more than 80,000 hospital patients nationwide in the past year.
Hospitals pay BioIntelliSense an annual subscription fee for the devices and software.
Houston Methodist officials would not reveal how much the hospital pays for the technology, though Pletcher said it equates to less than a cup of coffee a day per patient.
For a hospital system that treats thousands of patients at a time — Houston Methodist has 2,653 non-ICU beds at its eight Houston-area hospitals — such an investment could still translate to millions of dollars a year.
Hospital officials say they have not made any changes in nurse staffing and have no plans to because of implementing the BioButton.
Inside the hospital’s control center for virtual monitoring on a recent morning, about 15 nurses and technicians dressed in scrubs sat in front of large monitors showing the health status of hundreds of patients they were assigned to monitor.
A red checkmark next to a patient’s name signaled the AI software had found readings trending outside normal. Staff members could click into a patient’s medical record, showing patients’ vital signs over time and other medical history. These virtual nurses, if you will, could contact nurses on the floor by phone or email, or even dial directly into the patient’s room via video call.
Nutanben Gandhi, a technician who was watching 446 patients on her monitor that morning, said that when she gets an alert, she looks at the patient’s health record to see if the anomaly can be easily explained by something in the patient’s condition or if she needs to contact nurses on the patient’s floor.
Oftentimes an alert can be easily dismissed. But identifying signs of deteriorating health can be tough, said Steve Klahn, Houston Methodist’s clinical director of virtual medicine.
“We are looking for a needle in a haystack,” he said.
Donald Eustes, 65, was admitted to Houston Methodist in March for prostate cancer treatment and has since been treated for a stroke. He is happy to wear the BioButton.
“You never know what can happen here, and having an extra set of eyes looking at you is a good thing,” he said from his hospital bed. After being told the device uses AI, the Montgomery, Texas, man said he has no problem with its helping his clinical team. “This sounds like a good use of artificial intelligence.”
Patients and nurses alike benefit from remote monitoring like the BioButton, said Pletcher of Houston Methodist.
The hospital has placed small cameras and microphones inside all patient rooms enabling nurses outside to communicate with patients and perform tasks such as helping with patient admissions and discharge instructions. Patients can include family members on the remote calls with nurses or a doctor, she said.
Virtual technology frees up on-duty nurses to provide more hands-on help, such as starting an intravenous line, Pletcher said. With the BioButton, nurses can wait to take routine vital signs every eight hours instead of every four, she said.
Pletcher said the device reduces nurses’ stress in monitoring patients and allows some to work more flexible hours because virtual care can be done from home rather than coming to the hospital. Ultimately it helps retain nurses, not drive them away, she said.
Sheeba Roy, a nurse manager at Houston Methodist, said some members of the nursing staff were nervous about relying on the device and not checking patients’ vital signs as often themselves. But testing has shown the device provides accurate information.
“After we implemented it, the staff loves it,” Roy said.
Serena Bumpus, chief executive officer of the Texas Nurses Association, said her concern with any technology is that it can be more burdensome on nurses and take away time with patients.
“We have to be hypervigilant in ensuring that we are not leaning on this to replace the ability of nurses to critically think and assess patients and validate what this device is telling us is true,” Bumpus said.
Houston Methodist this year plans to send the BioButton home with patients so the hospital can better track their progress in the weeks after discharge, measuring the quality of their sleep and checking their gait.
“We are not going to need less nurses in health care, but we have limited resources and we have to use those as thoughtfully as we can,” Pletcher said. “Looking at projected demand and seeing the supply we have coming, we will not have enough to meet demand, so anything we can do to give time back to nurses is a good thing.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
Share This Post
-
Balanced Energy Cake Bars
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Unlike a lot of commercially available products, these bars won’t spike your blood sugars in the same way. There’s technically plenty of sugar in them, mostly from the chopped dates, but they’re also full of fiber, protein, and healthy fats. This means they can give you an energy boost (along with lots of gut-healthy, heart-healthy, and brain-healthy ingredients) without any crash later. They’re also delicious, and make for a great afternoon snack!
You will need
- 1 cup oats
- 15 Medjool dates, pitted and soaked in hot water for 15 minutes
- 3 carrots, grated
- 4oz almond butter
- 2 tbsp tahini
- 2 tbsp flaxseeds, milled
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
- Optional: your choice of dried fruit and/or chopped nuts (mix it up; diversity is good!)
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Steam the grated carrots for 3–4 minutes; pat dry and allow to cool
2) Drain and pat dry the dates, roughly chop them and add them to a bowl with the carrots. Because we chopped the dates rather than blended them (as many recipes do), they keep their fiber, which is important.
3) Add the oats, seeds, almond butter, and tahini. Also add in any additional dried fruit and/or chopped nuts you selected for the optional part. Mix well; the mixture should be quite firm. If it isn’t, add more oats.
4) Press the mixture into a 10″ square baking tin lined with baking paper. Refrigerate for a few hours, before cutting into bar shapes (or squares if you prefer). These can now be eaten immediately or stored for up to a week.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
Take care!
Share This Post
-
Purpose – by Gina Bianchini
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
To address the elephant in the room, this is not a rehash of Rick Warren’s best-selling “The Purpose-Driven Life”. Instead, this book is (in this reviewer’s opinion) a lot better. It’s a lot more comprehensive, and it doesn’t assume that what’s most important to the author will be what’s most important to you.
What’s it about, then? It’s about giving your passion (whatever it may be) the tools to have an enduring impact on the world. It recommends doing this by leveraging a technology that would once have been considered magic: social media.
Far from “grow your brand” business books, this one looks at what really matters the most to you. Nobody will look back on your life and say “what a profitable second quarter that was in such-a-year”. But if you do your thing well, people will look back and say:
- “he was a pillar of the community”
- “she raised that community around her”
- “they did so much for us”
- “finding my place in that community changed my life”
- …and so forth. Isn’t that something worth doing?
Bianchini takes the position of both “idealistic dreamer” and “realistic worker”.
Further, she blends the two beautifully, to give practical step-by-step instructions on how to give life to the community that you build.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Feta or Parmesan – Which is Healthier?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Our Verdict
When comparing feta to parmesan, we picked the parmesan.
Why?
It’s close! Looking at the macros, parmesan has more protein and slightly less fat. Of the fat content, parmesan also has slightly less saturated fat, but neither of them are doing great in this category. Still, a relative win for parmesan.
In the category of vitamins, feta is a veritable vitamin-B-fest with more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B9. On the other hand, parmesan has more of vitamins A, B12, and choline. By strength of numbers, this is a win for feta.
Minerals tell a different story; parmesan has a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Meanwhile, feta is not higher in any minerals. A clear win for parmesan.
Both cheeses offer gut-healthy benefits (if consumed regularly in small portions), while neither are great for the heart.
On balance, we say parmesan wins the day.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Feta Cheese vs Mozzarella – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
World Menopause Day Health News Round-Up
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
In order to provide variety in this week’s round-up, not all of this is menopause-related, but it is all important:
Menopause & CVD
Untreated menopause is associated with higher incidence of heart disease, and higher mortality. People often forget about how much estrogen does for us (well, for those of us with a physiology running on estrogen, anyway; gentlemen, your testosterone is fine for you), and think it is “just” a sex hormone, but it’s a lot more.
Read in full: Menopause transition linked to increased heart disease risk
Related: What Menopause Does To The Heart
Extraterrestrial medical technology
The much lower gravity in Earth orbit has allowed for tissue engineering techniques that Earth’s normal gravity imposes limitations on. This is big news, because it means that rather than replacing a whole liver, tissue implants could be grafted, allowing the extant liver to repair itself (something livers are famously good at, but they need enough undamaged base material to work with).
Read in full: How liver tissue from the International Space Station may transform tissue engineering
Related: How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
One thing and then another
As if endometriosis weren’t unpleasant enough in and of itself, the endothelial dysfunction inherent to it also raises cardiovascular disease risk. This is important, because while endometriosis has (like many maladies predominantly affecting women) generally been shrugged off by the medical world as an unhappy inconvenience but not life-threatening, now we know it comes with extra existential risks too:
Read in full: Understanding cardiovascular risks in endometriosis patients
Related: What You Need To Know About Endometriosis
Push-button meditation
Unlike mindfulness meditation, listening to music is a very passive experience, and thus requires less effort from the user. And yet, it has been associated with lower perceived pain levels, lower self-reported anxiety levels, less opioid use, and measurably lower heart-rate.
Read in full: Listening to music may speed up recovery from surgery, research suggests
Related: Nobody Likes Surgery, But Here’s How To Make It Much Less Bad
Cholesterol in menopause: quality over quantity
Much like previous research has shown that the quantity of LDL is not nearly so predictive of health outcomes in women as it is in men, this study into HDL and menopausal women shows that quantity of HDL does not matter nearly so much as the quality of it.
Read in full: HDL quality, not quantity, contribute to the first sign of Alzheimer’s disease in women
Related: Statins: His & Hers? ← consistent with the above, statins (to lower LDL cholesterol) generally help more for men and produce more adverse side effects for women. So again, a case of “the actual amount of cholesterol isn’t so important for women as for men”.
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
