Adriana Kraft

When it's time to heat things up...

Motivation

Hard Work Pays Off ~ Blood Sugar, Aerobics and Strength Training #LiveLonger #StayFit #IndieAuthor

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I can still hear our now-grown son as he got back in the car on his first day of Kindergarten, in a rush to tell me: “Guess what we learned, Mom? Hard work pays off!” Which may not always be true, but it’s a starting place, at least.

Did I think about working to stay healthy when I was a young adult? Not too much – I just was healthy, without especially thinking about it. I was active, ate reasonably well, didn’t have much flab, and enjoyed activities like hiking, swimming, boating (with a small footwell sailboat, nothing elaborate), bowling on occasion, doing walks for various charities and causes.

Did I ever actively plan to work at being or getting healthy? No. I backed into it. I gained about twenty pounds with my one and only pregnancy; life happened, and I only managed to get ten of those pounds off while that child was growing up.

In 2015, I discovered (or rather my primary care doc discovered) that I had problems with blood glucose levels. My clinic referred me to a six week diabetes education class, where I learned the basics of diet and exercise for diabetes prevention. I’d thought I was a healthy eater, especially after we revised our diet following my husband’s triple bypass a decade earlier. But there were specifics about carbs and fiber that got left out of that training. The exercise information focused on aerobic activities. I bought a Fitbit, started keeping track of steps, and lost the other ten pounds. Living in the Southwest, we have many marvelous options for hiking.

By 2020, those habits weren’t taking care of the problem. I have a genetic load for both diabetes and Alzheimer’s, and I desperately want to avoid having to use medication to control my blood sugar levels. My doc referred me to a year-long weekly class (on Zoom, during the pandemic) which was superb.

There, in addition to further refining diet (and writing everything down while I straightened that out), I also learned about the role of strength training. Strong muscles pull sugar out of the bloodstream and put it to work. After three months of following the new guidelines, I saw my blood sugar drop back down below the threshold. That class ended a year ago, and I’m still maintaining those levels. And the workouts. And the walking.

So I was more than thrilled when Hubs sent me the following article:

Combining weight training with another activity could lower your risk of early death, study finds.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/27/health/weight-exercise-benefits-lower-death-risk-wellness/index.html

Not only am I likely to live longer, I’m likely to be healthy enough to enjoy a lot of those years.

P.S. If any of you readers are concerned about your blood sugar level, you might be able to access the DPP Diabetes Prevention Program I attended. It’s put out by the CDC (US), and in Arizona it was free to participate.

https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/prevention/index.html

8,000? 10,000? How much is enough, and why? #StayFit #Motivation #JustKeepWalking #CountingSteps #MFRWAuthor

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I know many of you – reader and author friends alike – are struggling with health issues and doing your best to stay healthy. I used to blog regularly about health-related issues and how to stay motivated. I never made a conscious decision to quit blogging about it, but life happened. New health challenges arose and I wasn’t as happy with what I was doing – or with the results, for that matter.

In 2015 I got diagnosed with blood glucose problems, leading to a makeover of our eating habits and even more pressure to keep up aerobic exercise. When that wasn’t sufficient and the threat of needing medications loomed, I took yet another class and learned about the role of strength training in managing blood glucose. Strong muscles pull the sugar out of the blood, even more effectively than an aerobic walk. I’m on it. Half an hour, two or three days a week. Most weeks. I’m not perfect…

Sometime around then I dropped back from 10,000 steps a day to 8,000, re-set my Fitbit goal, and was pretty satisfied with how that made me feel. In case you didn’t know, aerobic exercise, among other things, rewards our brains with dopamine and helps combat depression. I like how that feels.

Mr. Kraft is always on the lookout for news articles I might miss that could be helpful. Last week he sent me one whose headline I would probably never chase – it starts out PEOPLE WHO DO THIS ONE THING EVERY DAY… Those lead-ins always annoy me. But because he’d sent it, I kept reading. The rest of the headline reads, pretty much, HAVE HALF THE DEMENTIA RISK OF THE REST OF US.

He definitely had my attention. Both my mother and her father spent their last years lost to us in full blown dementia. If there’s anything I can reasonably do to prevent that future, I will. Major motivation.

The article actually reports scientific research that shows how the risk for dementia decreases with the increase in step count. Here’s the LINK, for those who’d like more detail. Benefits start to show up at about 3800 daily steps, reducing risk by 25%. Getting to 9800 steps daily reduces the risk by 50%. People who walk 30 minutes of those 10K daily steps at a brisk pace (about 110-112 steps a minute) reduce their risk even further, to 62%. So I timed myself for four minutes, and I’m a tad over that. Well and good. Lets do this!

Today is my father’s birthday. He lived to be 101, and he walked extra steps and climbed extra stairs whenever he could, until he became wheelchair bound toward the end. I think he’d be pleased with what I’m doing, and I’m pleased to be posting this and remembering him on his birthday.

The first 2000 steps #MFRWAuthor #Health #Boomers #Motivation

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“Watch that first step, it’s a doozy!” Sometimes just taking that first step towards a more healthy lifestyle is a giant undertaking. But here’s the thing – those steps have to happen over and over, just like Groundhog Day, which popularized but probably did not originate the “doozy” phrase.

Now that I’ve discovered 8000 steps a day is the threshold that makes a discernible difference in my energy level and mental alertness, the challenge is how to fit them in.

I’m an early riser, usually up without an alarm between five and six a.m. I wake with a mental list of the tasks I hope to polish off in the two hours before my husband gets up. I usually wake feeling energetic and motivated, not wanting the rest of my day to get cluttered up with what I leave undone in the early morning.

BUT I’m starting to learn that if I don’t take advantage of the cool morning hours to make a significant dent in my daily 8000 steps, I don’t reach that goal. Polishing off 2000 steps before breakfast seems to be the minimum required to get to 8000 by the end of the day.

Now my marching orders become a little more daunting: I have to fight my urge to “get things done” and decide that staying fit, healthy, energetic and alert outranks whatever I might accomplish short term. It matters more. I have to give up maybe twenty minutes worth of tasks (and feelings of accomplishment) and convince myself that the mood elevation, long term benefits, and yes, feeling of accomplishment from reaching my steps goal is worth it. Every morning. Over and over.

How to motivate myself to keep doing it? I’ve got lots of tactics and will share more about them down the road. Right now, a picture might be worth a thousand words (and it sure helps with 2000 steps!)

We spend much of the winter in southern Arizona. Almost every morning, the Arizona sky puts a smile on my face as I’m walking. That’s a draw to at least set foot out the door – and as I’m sure you know, taking that first step is all important, whether or not it’s a doozy.

So far, so good!