[Fuel] Cancer Responds To Healthy Eating

Here is a fascinating article about a doctor who researched a radical treatment for cancer and had phenomenal results, only to be disallowed from publishing his results and eventually having his research sabotaged. I highly recommend reading this entire article but the basics are:
- eating a raw, organic, green healthy diet tailored to individual metabolic type
- specific supplements, also individually tailored to metabolic type
- detoxification protocols

One interesting part of the article is how this doctors research was not published despite his incredible results.
Read this and judge for yourself: Alternative Cancer Treatment
Remember, you are responsible to take care of yourself and you have a right to make your own decisions about your health. You can do this!

[Fuel] Original Study On Aspartame

I have a short section on the sugar substitutes page about aspartame. This is an extremely dangerous chemical and should be avoided at all costs.

Here is a new study with a twist. The people that did the testing were not supported by aspartame manufacturers or associated with any conventional testing organizations. Additionally, the testing was done in context, i.e. the aspartame that was tested was done with products that we find on our shelves, not separated and studied in an isolated environment. Consequently, it was tested in a form that we find on the shelves and they found that the negative effects are much more pronounced. Here is a quick rundown on what the test found.
- Women may suffer worse effects than men.
- Neurological effects; falling over, difficulty walking
- Paralysis
- Eye disorders
- Skin disorders
- Obesity
The last item in the above list is quite shocking. Aspartame, used as a sugar substitute, is meant to help people lose weight but it seems to have the opposite effect!

The best thing you can do is to remove aspartame completely from your diet immediately.
Read more in the complete article Self-Funded Study Found HUGE Tumors from This Everyday Food.

[Mind] Building Relationships

To keep mentally sharp, maintaining and building new relationships is a key technique. Relationships not only help stave off Alzheimer’s but also make the second half of our lives more enjoyable. And when we do something enjoyable that taxes our brains, we stay mentally sharp.

Here is a great article about how to improve our communication skills. Many people already have good skills but tweaking them can make relationships more enjoyable. For the rest of us, learning good communication skills is a must. This article entitled 7 Ways To Improve Your Communication Skills, gives great tips. Here is the list.
1. Talk slowly
2. Hold more eye contact
3. Notice the details
4. Give unique compliments
5. Express your emotions
6. Offer interesting insights
7. Use the best words

For more ways to keep your mind active, go to the Feel Great After 50 Mental Energy page.

What do you do to keep mentally fit?

[Meditation] Focus On Now

I read an idea today that made me stop and think. Today isn’t preparation for tomorrow. Today is the main event.

Wow! I spend lots of time working on things for the future or working to get things done so that I can be doing something else. Then when I get to the something else, I work through it to get to the next thing. I feel like I am constantly preparing for tomorrow, not thinking about today. This is especially true right now since we are in the process of selling our house and doing some major downsizing.

One of the blogs I follow (zen habits) gives suggestions on how to be more mindful of the here and now. He suggests these ideas.
- just sit in the morning and experience it, maybe drink tea
- do some regular daily activities slowly, thinking about them carefully, including brushing your teeth, eating, washing dishes and going for a walk
- look at someone gratefully and appreciate their presence in your life

From 9 Mindfulness Rituals To Make Your Day Better

I discuss meditation as part of the Feel Great After 50 Lifestyle page but the more I read other sites, the more I think I would like to build a separate page with lots more detail because of how important it is to our emotional and physical health. From the same blog as mentioned above, the page How To Increase Your Focus contains some great ideas (about half-way down the page).

Do you meditate? How does it help you?

[Meditation] Mindfulness Helps Hot Flashes By Controlling Stress

I read an interesting article this morning about help for hot flashes that has a twist I hadn’t thought about. It comes from an unusual source, not the normal health blogs that I usually quote. First, some background.

Hot flashes (and night sweats) are related to the levels of our hormones going up and down which does not allow our body to properly regulate our temperature. Our core temperature actually goes down during a hot flash while our body pushes heat to our skin.

There are many factors that contribute to hot flashes that affect our hormones, including stress, diet, and exercise. I feel much better when I stay away from dairy products and food that shoots up my blood sugar and when I get exercise.

However, the article I read on Fox News suggested that mindfulness training (meditation) helped relieve stress, which did not reduce hot flashes, but allowed the participants to better cope with them. Interesting! I’ve never thought about that side of it but it makes sense. If we reduce stress in our lives, we have more energy to deal with other things. So meditation (called mindfulness in this article) has other benefits than I mention on the Feel Great After 50 Lifestyle Page.

Here is a link to the full article called Mindfulness Classes Help Women With Hot Flashes.

What do you think? What do you do to reduce or cope with your hot flashes (or night sweats)?

[Sleep] Two Insomnia Cure Ideas

I have recently realized that a very big reason I have difficulty with my memory, focus and concentration may be related to my difficulty sleeping. It takes me a long time to fall asleep. I wake up about every 2 hours and have to work to get back to sleep. Then I wake up feeling tired and groggy. Do you have the same problems?

It would be so nice to be able to fall asleep quickly; to be able to stay asleep for 6-9 hours; to wake up feeling refreshed and alive, ready to start another day.

Well, I am now on a quest to improve the quality of my sleep. I want to see what that does to my memory and concentration, as well as my overall health and well-being.

I have done several things to try to improve my sleep including
- moving the television out of the bedroom
- getting rid of the clock on my bedside table
- keeping the bedroom dark and cool
- changing my schedule so that I don’t need an alarm; I wake up when I am ready to
- no longer sleeping with dogs
- simplifying my life and schedule so that I am not under so much stress
- go to bed when I am tired, not at a certain time
- eat smaller meals in the early evening (bigger meal at noon)
- drinking more water during the day so that I am not thirsty in the night

Here are some things that I still need to change
- stop watching television (or playing on the computer) right up until bedtime
- exercising more
- not eating things that shoot my blood sugar up (sugar, white bread, alcohol)

The last couple days, I ran across a couple of articles containing ideas on how to cure insomnia and sleep better.
First, two insomnia cure ideas: hard exercise and replaying my day in my head, in minute and excruciating detail. These ideas came from an article on zen habits called The Simplest Cure For Insomnia.

The second article is from Dr. Joseph Mercola. This article discusses how altering our circadian rhythm can hurt metabolism and make it difficult to learn. I had heard the term ‘circadian rhythm’ but didn’t know that much about it. Basically, our bodies have a cycle of about 24 hours regulating things like body temperature, secretion of melatonin and cortisol. Light is a primary stimulator. Read more here.

When we disrupt the natural rhythm, we open ourselves to all kinds of problems, mentally, physically and emotionally. We have problems with short-term memory. Our immune system becomes compromised, allowing us to become susceptible to flu, colds, diabetes, even cancer. The article Circadian Rhythm Can Disrupt Your Metabolism and Interfere with Learning gives more information.

So, all we really need to do to avoid major health problems and improve our memories is to get great sleep on a regular basis. I’m up for this, are you? Let us know your idea on how you get a good nights sleep.

[Mind] Boost Brainpower

10 Ways To Improve Your Memory And Boost Brainpower
A recent article on the LifeHack blog gives 10 suggestions on how to improve memory and increase brainpower. This list is excellent since, not only do the suggestions work, they work because they improve your health. This is important and is easy to overlook with all the quick fixes out there that may help in the short term but are damaging in the long run. Here is rundown of the list. You can read the entire article here.
1. Exercise (mostly cardio)
2. Eliminate Stress
3. Sleep
4. Write Things Down
5. Listen To Music
6. Feed Your Brain With Proper Nutrition
7. Visualize Concepts
8. Teach Someone
9. Read and Play Games That Stretch The Mind
10. Eat Breakfast Including Eggs

Most of these we talk about on Feel Great After 50! However, let me expand a bit on number 8. Teach Someone. This is one that I am very familiar with since I am a college teacher. When I started teaching, I thought I really knew the material (calculus) well and I would have no problem helping others understand it. But after a few weeks I realized that I didn’t know it as well as I thought and, as I had to come up with different ways to explain the concepts to my students, I learned it more deeply and was able to fill holes in my understanding that I didn’t know were there. This also works similar to number 9 by stretching your mind.

This is a great article and I encourage you to read it in it’s entirety. Also, you may want to follow that blog since it has lots of practical advice about helping you feel great in the second half of your life.
Have you tried any of these techniques or found others that you increase your memory and brainpower?

Category Articles

Starting in the next few days, I will post short blog posts about interesting articles and blogs that I read. I will attempt to post daily and precede the post title with the category that the article corresponds to. For example, if I post an article about exercise, you will find [Exercise] at the first of the post title. This will allow you to know right away if the article pertains to you. In the article, I will summarize the information, give my take on it and then include a link to the original longer article.

Please feel free to comment any time about this idea. I don’t want to inundate you with information, but I want you to have as much information as you need to make informed decisions. If an article does not interest you at the time, don’t worry. I will build corresponding categories here and you can come back any time and read whatever interests you.
Happy Spring!

New Site Design

This morning I posted the new site design and layout for Feel Great After 50. I haven’t been happy with the design from July 2010 and I have been thinking and researching a lot about what to do. Finally, I just sat down last Thursday and Friday and moved all the pages. This design is more appealing (I think) and I have more control over the content, layout and design. I hope you like it.

I will continue to tweak it over the next few weeks to make it easier to navigate. Also, I am still working on the contact page and the sitemap (I hope to have them up and running later today).

Let me know what you think. I value your input.

New Workout Routine

This week I started a new workout routine. I found information about it here and, since I haven’t done much recently other than walk, I thought I would try it. It’s called Peak 8 and involves ‘sprinting’ or short bursts of intense work followed by less intense recovery times.

The routine appealed to me because of how short it is (about 20 minutes) and how infrequently I need to do it (about 2-3 times a week). I must admit, I do have time for longer workouts but I get bored easily. And since most of the rest of the my life is on hold right now (and consequently boring), I don’t have the mental energy to stick to a long routine. Thirty minutes is about all I can handle.

I am also watching what I eat after this workout so that I don’t waste the effort. Watch the video (or read that page) to find out more about it and to see if it might be for you.

I will keep you up-to-date on my progress with this. By the way, the days I am not doing this workout, I plan to start walking and/or doing strength training exercises, most of which I have posted on this site.

Let me know what you think and if you are trying or have tried this type of workout.