1. You have the wrong parents. One of the most powerful influences on how efficiently your body burns calories is your genes.
2. You’re an adult. It takes a lot of energy to grow up. Once you’re full grown, you won’t burn as many calories while you sleep or sit as you used to.
3. You’re 5 foot 2. A tall person, with more body surface area, typically has a more efficient basal metabolic rate (BMR) than a shorter person of equal weight. BMR accounts for 50 to 60 percent of the calories expended every day.
4. You’re over 50. As you age, you lose muscle tone. And you know what that means – muscle burns about 8 times more calories than fat.
5. You’re a woman. Men usually have more muscle mass than women. They get the muscle, we get the fat!
6. You’ve lost weight. When you lose weight, your BMR decreases. Your body composition –percentage of body fat to muscle mass – is essentially the same as a bigger person. But their BMR is higher than yours because it takes more calories to carry all that extra weight.
7. You avoid extreme hot and extreme cold temperatures. Who doesn’t? But if you tough if out, your metabolic rate will rise! (Running a fever also increases your BMR.)
8. You’ve gone on a starvation diet. Eating too little will lower your metabolism by as much as 20%.
9. You’ve lost the same pounds over and over again. When you lose weight, you lose muscle; when you gain it back, you gain fat.
10. You don’t exert yourself. You knew that one was coming, didn’t you?

Slow Metabolism Doesn’t Cause Weight Gain. We all know this: we gain weight when we take in more calories than we burn. But we would burn more calories at rest if we had the metabolism of an adolescent male. Even when he’s asleep, he’s burning more calories than a middle-aged woman.

All is not lost, though. Here are 7 ways to increase your metabolism:

1. Fidget. Forget what your mother said about sitting still. Be a little restless.
2. Build your upper body strength. Use hand weights or resistance bands, pushups or stretching exercises.
3. Build your lower body strength. Walk. If you’re already walking, speed it up a little.
4. Eat frequent, small meals. They say this helps because it increases TEE – the Thermic Effect of Eating (10% to 15% of the calories we burn).
5. Drink green tea – or try green tea extracts. Be warned, though. It’s high in caffeine, which may interfere with the next tip.
6. Get enough sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation mimics aging by slowing metabolism.
7. Combine aerobic and muscle-building activities. Aerobic exercise affects ARE (Activity Related Energy), which accounts for 25 to 40% of the calories we burn every day. Muscle-building activities affect our resting metabolic rate.

Sure – you may have slower metabolic rates than you used to. And sure – you’d love to eat like you used to. Maybe the above suggestions will help – not just so you can eat more of what you want , but more important – to give you the energy and stamina to do what you want.

Talk to me: Have you tried strength training? How has it affected your weight and/or eating habits? Any suggestions for getting a good night’s sleep?

Sources:

“Is Your Metabolism to Blame?”by Ahmed H. Kissebah, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and pharmacology and director of the General Clinical Research Center, Medical College of Wisconsin. TOPS News, Volume 61, #8, November 2009.

“Slow Metabolism: Is It to Blame for Weight Gain?” http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/slow-metabolism/AN00618

“Lack of sleep alters hormones, metabolism,” http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/991202/sleep.shtml

Sure – a brisk walk may be more advantageous than a leisurely one for physical health, but sometimes a leisurely walk is better for mental health. You might even learn things – or at least find something to wonder about.

During a recent trip to Nashville [ask about our new grandbaby!], I often took advantage of a nearby walking trail, part of the Smyrna Greenway System.

One sunny Sunday afternoon five of us decided to hit the trail, which lent itself to what I would call a conversation walk.

I love conversation walks. You’re not just sitting and talking; you feel like you’re accomplishing something. You’re going somewhere, even if when you get there you turn around and come back. It takes little physical energy and even less mental energy.

Walking in a group also give us a chance to wonder out loud.

About Horse Apples, for instance…

“What are those big green round bumpy things?”

“I think they’re called horse apples.”

“Why do they call them horse apples? Is it because horses eat them?”

“Are they edible? Why do we see them on the ground all over the place, but rarely in the trees above?”

…Disc Golf…

As we strolled into the more open spaces of the trail, we noticed a strange-looking metal pole about five feet tall. Metal chains hanging from the top gathered above an open iron basket.

Signs along the way indicated this was an area designated for disc golf. Sure enough, we saw some golfers flinging Frisbees not only into the open spaces but through narrow forest corridors.

More questions.

I understood the baskets – they catch the Frisbees. But what are the chains for? If you throw the Frisbee into the chains, do you get more points? How big is the course?

Is it like throwing horseshoes? The closest one to the target wins? Or do you have to keep trying until you get it into the basket, just like “regular” golf?

…and a Red Caterpillar

We also came across a fat hairy reddish caterpillar crawling across the path. I don’t remember seeing a red caterpillar before – is that a color stage they all go through? [Duh. No.] Do certain types of butterflies come from different colors of caterpillars? [Yes, unless they’re moths.] Are they like squirrels – different colors in different parts of the country? [It’s an insect. My eyes start crossing when I get into too much bug research.]

The Cure for Temporary Ignorance

These questions may indicate that up until now, I haven’t been curious enough.

You know what, though? That’s okay!  Because “at my age,” I’m beyond caring that I may sound ignorant. How will you know if you don’t ask – or at least Google it?

So this is my suggestion to you. Sure – walk for exercise. But even if you walk the same route every day, walk also for the discoveries you make along the way. Look up to see if you can find horse apples on the trees or – better yet – to find the source of a bird’s song. Look into the distance to catch a fleeting sunset – or to watch out for flying Frisbees.

Go ahead and look down, too. You may spot a caterpillar, just trying to survive until it morphs into a butterfly – or a moth – and can fly into the sky.

Answers?

No room here for the answers to my questions, except to tell you that horse apples are AKA hedge apples and osage oranges.

For more about disc golf, check out the Professional Disc Golf Association.

And caterpillars? Too many varieties for a simple answer, but I did find some pictures of some very colorful specimens: The Top 10 Most Beautiful Caterpillars.

Talk to me. What discoveries have you made on recent walks? When was the last time you engaged in a significant walk conversation?

Who, me?

Well, it looks like living to 107 is out! A recent blood test indicated that my total cholesterol level is way too high!

Needless to say, I was shocked. I thought I was taking care of myself!

Surely it’s not diet!

I think I eat well: lean beef and/or chicken breast maybe twice a week, no bacon in months, a quarter-cup or so of grated cheese on salads, occasionally indulging in desserts at potlucks, fresh fruits and vegetables always available.

Fried foods? Rare to non-existent in our house. Pasta? It’s been weeks since we’ve eaten either macaroni and cheese or spaghetti, though we’ve had some rice lately.

Maybe it’s genetic.

Diabetes, maybe, but not heart disease. My mother, who admits to being overweight, was diagnosed with high cholesterol in her 70’s, and although he was a paraplegic the last two decades of his life (the result of a high school football accident), my dad’s heart and lungs were still strong into his 80’s.

What to do now?

First thing, see a doctor for a long overdue checkup. We don’t have many choices in this little town, but from what a friend said, I thought Dr. G would not be quick to recommend medication. And I was right.

So what did the doctor say?

No dietary changes, except to recommend plenty of fruits and vegetables – not surprising.

His strongest recommendation?

1) Walking. 30 minutes a day. Every day. Not 45 minutes one day, 15 minutes the next, none the next.

2) One baby aspirin every day.

3) Another blood test in 6 to 12 weeks to see if the cholesterol level drops in that time.

(He’s a good example of what he preaches, by the way. He walks two hours every morning, no matter what his schedule.)

Putting my theories to the test

I have been pretty cocky about my theories of good health, so this blood test is a personal challenge to my simplistic assumptions.

Assumption #1. Good health is simply a matter of eating the right foods and getting enough exercise. Bolstered by the words and work of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, I have believed that – most of the time – when we suffer from a chronic illness, it’s because we’ve broken either a rule of good eating or been too sedentary.

Assumption #2. Long-term medication is meant to make up for our nutrition-starved bodies. They treat the symptom and mask the cause. Rather than taking an aspirin for a headache, for instance, determine what’s causing it and, if possible, fix it.

Test time

I say I’ll do anything to avoid becoming dependent on a pill. We’ll see about that, won’t we? But here’s the plan:

1) More walking. A quick check of my pedometer shows 139 minutes in the last seven days – an average of 20 minutes a day. Not that great!  Why not make this a real challenge and double my current walking time to 40 minutes a day – 7 days a week, rain or shine, sleet or snow? (There’s always the walking track at the high school gym.)

2) Oats for breakfast most mornings, not just a couple of times a week.

3) Fish oil supplements, maybe?

4) Lose weight. Though I’m not considered overweight, I’m 6 or 7 pounds heavier than I was 20 years ago. Three months is a reasonable length time to shed that extra weight.

And if it doesn’t work?

Accept the situation and take the medicine. Be thankful it’s available. Determine to maintain healthful lifestyle habits. Never, ever adopt the attitude, “It’s okay to abuse my body or neglect my health – there’s a medicine that will take care of it.”

Talk to me: You’ve no doubt overcome greater health challenges than I’ve mentioned here. Were diet or exercise part of your recovery?

Ever since listening to Krista Tippett’s interview with Stuart Brown this past Sunday morning, I’ve been observing and thinking about the value of play. Play is not only helpful in the physical, social, emotional and mental development of children, but without play, even adults don’t function as well as we should. According to Mr. Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play,

“[Play] is uniquely and intrinsically rewarding. It generates optimism, seeks out novelty, makes perseverance fun, leads to mastery, gives the immune system a bounce, fosters empathy and promotes a sense of belonging and community. Each of these play by-products are indices of personal health, and their shortage predicts impending health problems and personal fragility.”

Observing the Young. It’s been a good week for my daughter and her husband to visit us. I’ve watched their playfulness with each other, their fun with table games, their need to get out of the house and go for a swim as they take advantage of their vacation time. We borrowed a basketball so Marvin could shoot hoops, and soon he was in the front yard playing kickball with our Jack Russell terrier. We didn’t know Potjie (pronounced Poykey) could push a basketball around with such adroitness!

But our terrier’s need to play, to run and to bounce through the middle of the retention pond across the street is why we enjoy having her around. It’s also one characteristic of children we find so attractive – their amazing abilities to create fun out of a cardboard box or to imagine themselves into other worlds.

I have been guilty of looking at adult playfulness as non-productive, of being passively critical of those who don’t get down to business as quickly as I think they should. After hearing the radio broadcast, I apologized to my husband for not appreciating his “adolescent” need to kid around.

Redefining Play. Last week, I might have told you that I don’t know how to play. By that I would have meant the get-down-on-the-floor, rough-and-tumble kind. By nature I am cautious and tend to think only of the physical injury that type of play could cause.

But now I have re-defined what I considered to be play. Brown suggests that if you want to re-kindle your sense of play, remember what brought pleasure to you as a child. For me, it was the freedom I felt from running barefoot. I ran everywhere in the small town where I grew up and have the scarred knees to show for it. I enjoyed “playing” the piano and singing in harmony with my siblings.

You probably won’t see me running around town as I did when I was ten, but from now I will consider walking at a faster clip not as exercise but as fun. When I’m tempted to finish computer sessions with FreeCell, I’ll play Mendelssohn instead. And I’ll recognize occasions to sing in harmony as fulfilling a personal need to play.

Irresponsible? Playing is not equivalent to irresponsibility. But I suspect your responsibilities will be easier to handle if you take a break once in a while and do “what makes you happy, what transports you beyond a sense of the clock, your schedule, that deadline — beyond time” (Krista’s Journal).

What play activities make you lose sense of time and place? Are they are from your childhood, or are they new discoveries?

Infancy: Grabbing Independence

My son and daughter-in-law have produced a video of their baby girl’s attempts to crawl. She rocks back and forth, happy yet apprehensive, not knowing quite how to start. She tries, falls on her face, gets up and tries again, while her mother holds out her hands in encouragement. [Cute, isn't she?]

What if she had given up after the 15^th or 20^th or 30^th time she tried? Would she be pulling herself up now, about to walk? Why has she kept on, when each stage is so difficult, sometimes taking weeks or months from when she first tried it?

Why? Because somehow she knows that if she doesn’t turn over, doesn’t keep trying to crawl, or to walk – despite the danger of falling – she will always be physically dependent upon her parents.

Childhood and Adolescence: Slowing Down. Maybe if we could remember through our childhood, adolescence and young adulthood what a struggle it was to gain our physical independence as infants, we would pay more attention to keeping it.

In America, that’s not happening. A study by the National Institute of Health indicates that adolescents between the ages of 9 and 15 decrease their level of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) from 3 hours (180 minutes) per day to 49 minutes per day, with only 35 minutes per day on the weekend. The recommended minimum is 60 minutes a day (2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans). At ages 9 and 11, more than 90% were meeting that minimum. At age 15, only 31% reached the minimum on weekdays, 17% on the weekends.

The Middle Years: Spreading Out. You’ll find a calculator at Discovery Health that estimates your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), the number of calories you’d burn if you slept all day. By entering each age in the appropriate box, you’ll see that at age 21 you burn about 100 more calories per day than at age 41.  That means – at 3500 extra calories per pound gained – if you continue to consume the same calories you did at age 21 -without increasing your physical activity – you’ll gain about 10 pounds a year. [Sound familiar?] At the same time, you lose stamina and strength – not easy to recover.

The Later Years: Feeling the Neglect. We cannot overcome some aspects of our aging bodies. In a study of “Australian independent urban-dwelling women” between the ages of 20 and 89, researchers found that “Age was the most potent predictor of muscle strength, and even the strongest women in each age group were unable to maintain the strength of the young women.”

However. In their comparison of active and inactive women, they concluded that an active woman can have a 10-year advantage over one who is less active. If you’re active, everything’s easier. The stronger your muscles, the less effort it takes to do what you need to do.

Unfortunately, this is often the age when we stop moving. Even at a rate of only one pound gained a year, we’re 40 or more pounds overweight, with hip and knee problems. Often we just don’t feel like it. Been there, done that, and now it’s time to rest.

Maybe we can learn from our youngest grandchildren. They happily engage in the struggle, knowing it’s worth it in order to gain physical independence.

Can’t we work just as hard – with just as much enthusiasm – to keep it?

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