November 2022

YOUR HEALTH

                Here we are in 2022, and I still hear women say, “I don’t do weights.” I understand lifting heavy weights may not be someone’s cup of tea, but we all must be working on our strength or we will find ourselves without any.

                Besides building up muscle and burning fat, resistance training gives us healthy bones. How often do you hear of someone old and frail falling and breaking a hip? It is quite traumatic and can often be the beginning of the end for some. Those who have muscle fair much better when they fall and typically don’t break bones. And if they do incur an injury, they heal quickly.

                Dense bones are a result of muscles pulling on them, forcing the bones to thicken over time. Our bones become thin and fragile when we are not challenging them. In essence, they are wasting away. You don’t have to use heavy weights or big machines., but you do need to challenge yourself. You must feel the resistance with either hand-held weights or exercise bands.

What I like about hand-held weights is that you must maintain proper form and good posture while you are concentrating on a certain muscle, like your bicep. You are also engaging your core muscles as a bonus! The advantage of the weight machines is that they act as your spotter during the exercise and provide an extra level of safety. Exercise bands are awesome because you can travel with them.

                I know some of you are wondering about yoga and if it counts as weight-bearing exercise. Yes and no. Yes, because your body weight is the resistance, but no if you are taking Hatha or restorative yoga. Although gentle forms of yoga do have strength moves in them, they probably aren’t enough. You would still need to incorporate additional weight-bearing exercise to ensure you work your entire body. Spin classes with heavy loads (climbs) are great at strengthening your legs, but they do nothing for your arms, chest, back or abs, which means you need to supplement.

Unless you have goals of becoming a body builder, one to two days of dedicated strength training a week is ample. If you recently learned your bones are weakening, then you might want to increase to three days a week. I would say the greatest mistake people make is going too light with their weights, especially women. You must feel the resistance, and if you are doing a set of 15 reps, you should be fatigued by 13.

My two fitness books (Finally FIT and Fit Over 50) and my Lunges with Lorraine DVD are excellent resources for you with pictures, instructions and ways to build healthy bones through strong muscles safely.

 

YOUR LIFE

          As much as I love this time of year, stress increases! The end-of-year push professionally combined with extra events and tasks on our personal plate can be overwhelming. Before you cancel Christmas, take time to breathe. A wonderful way to combine our attitude of gratitude with stress management is to conduct a body scan.

In the Savasana or corpse pose of yoga (lying on your back with arms and legs wide), concentrate on slowing your breathing down by drawing a deep breath in and exhaling out all the stale air. Continue this while you start at your feet and thank them for all the places they have taken you. You never know how grateful you are for healthy feet until you injure them!

Move up to your ankles, knees, legs, and glutes, thanking them for the ability to sit down and get back up. Appreciate getting in and out of a car and going up and down stairs. I am grateful every day for all the beautiful hikes my legs have allowed me to take through the years. Don’t rush it; think of everything you do on a regular basis and just be aware and grateful. Your hips are a complex, mobile joint and connect the lower part of your body to your spine. Open them up like a book lying on the table and thank them.

You get the picture. Progress up your spine to your shoulders, necks, arms, wrists and hands. Keep breathing deep and slow. If you truly take the time for a full body scan, you will have been de-stressing for 10 to 15 minutes, maybe more, and you will have a heart of gratitude. I encourage you to do this a couple times a week in addition to a full yoga or meditation program.

YOUR CAREER

                 Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if find yourself struggling to find qualified candidates, I suggest you think outside of the box. Back in the day before we put all our eggs in the educational basket, we replied on life skills for the workplace. We looked beyond degrees and investigated into the person’s skill set.

Much of life can be transferred into the workplace, and you are missing out on exceptional workers if you aren’t considering them. If you require a degree for every level job, then you will continue to struggle. Unfilled roles cause stress on existing employees, demanding them to do more. If you aren’t yet, you will have high turnover as a result.

Those who organize weekend hiking, biking or motorcycle groups are organized and great at event management. Moms and dads helping their kids sell cookies and popcorn have marketing and sales skills. A person who teaches Sunday School at their church has leadership skills as well as presentation abilities.

You may not have the time to discover these talents, but if you don’t, someone else will. This is where a talent management specialist and/or professional recruiter like myself can assist you. We drill down below the surface to find the right, qualified candidate for you. If you are relying on HRIS and key-word search programs, you are losing out. Time to fill those roles!

 

MONTHLY FEATURE

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