Are Baby Boomers On A Fitness Crusade? Getting Fit After 50 And Beyond

What exactly are the rules for getting fit after 50 and beyond? When you were 20, you didn’t worry about weight and exercise. When you were 30 you didn’t give your fitness much thought. After all, you looked good. When you were 40 you had a pound or two that kept reappearing every time you decided to eat dessert, but nothing to worry about. Then came your 50th birthday and everything started to change. Yes, your body IS different than it was and you can no longer afford to ignore that fact.

Usually around the time you receive the much anticipated letter from AARP, you’ve already started to notice a change or two in your body. Perhaps those pounds that appeared after a chocolate binge haven’t disappeared this time. Or, perhaps you crouched down to pick something up and your legs complained about getting you back up again.

Many of us have accepted as inevitable the weight gain, loss of strength, and unsteady balance as we started to crossover into our 50’s and beyond. But, we have been sadly misinformed. Yes, aging is inevitable, but being the healthiest person you can be is more important than ever before. It’s all about the quality of life – now and in your future.

Now that you’re with me, what exactly do we need to do, you ask. First, remind yourself that you didn’t get this far without being smart. You are 50 plus years old and you deserve to be fit and healthy. You deserve to be the strongest, healthiest person you can possibly be. So, how about we get started by reading the following fitness tips:

Set Your Goal: Remember when you wanted to fit in that swimsuit when you were 30? You starved yourself until you did it. Now, your goals have a new meaning. You want to feel good – no, not good, GREAT! Yes, you want to be trim and look good, but your goal must be something that is focused on your quality of life. Perhaps next year at this time you want to run a 10k race. Maybe you want to get back on a bike and ride with your grandkids. Maybe you want to be able to get in and out of your canoe again. Whatever it is, your goal must encompass a bigger meaning in your life than getting back into those jeans, although that’s cool, too!

Choose An Exercise Program That Fits You: You’ve probably tried a few exercise programs throughout your life and already have a pretty good idea what will work for you. Don’t go back to a gym if lifting weights around people never worked well for you. If floor exercises and free-weights get you hopping, then go for it. If camaraderie and support is important to you, then choose programs that embrace groups of people. If your idea of heaven is walking with headphones on, then you need to get walking. Whatever you choose, make sure you enjoy doing it!

Stick With An Exercise Program: Finding something you enjoy doing is essential. The chances of continuing an exercise program depends largely on whether or not you like what you’re doing. Assuming that you’ve found a program you like, you’ve come to the part where most people fail – sticking with the program. We start a new exercise program only to drop it after about a month. Why? Typically, because we don’t see any results. Make a commitment to your chosen exercise program for at least 90 days and you will have results. Then, if you lose interest, switch to a different program! Whatever you do, don’t just stop!

When you get fit, and stay fit after 50 you are investing in your future. Yes, it will feel good to climb up those steps without getting winded, but it will feel even better when you’re 80! Exercising today and every day is what will give you the strong bones, muscles, heart, and lungs that will carry you happily through your entire life – for decades to come!

If you still think that fitness programs for seniors are too difficult to begin, join us at RemarkableWrinklies.com and check out what folks age 50 and far beyond are doing to stay fit.

How Do You Find The Best All Natural Skin Care Products?

There is a worldwide movement towards more natural skin care products. And there’s a good reason for this. There are now millions of women looking for natural skin care and trying to determine which are the best all natural skin care products.

Slowly consumers are recognizing that our cosmetics and personal and body care products as well as many skin care products can contain ingredients that can potentially be dangerous.

For example lead was found in over 50% of big brand lipsticks tested in a recent study.

And it’s fine to be wanting to look better or smell better, but doing that at the risk of our health isn’t smart. Who wants lead on their lips?

As this is becoming more well known skin care manufacturers are recognizing this trend towards natural skin care and anti aging products and natural cosmetics, soaps and much much more. The are recognizing it and looking to enter the market.

Its no coincidence that L’Oreal has recently bought The Body Shop, a huge seller of all natural personal products.

So back to skin care. Firstly lets ask ourselves what all natural means. First thing to note is that there is no formal definition of all natural when it comes to skin care products, or cosmetics or other products.

Natural means what you want it to mean, and so there are companies making products as “natural” that contain chemical ingredients that most would not consider to be natural at all.

So if there is no formal definition of all natural what do we do? Well lets consider why were looking for the best all natural skin care products in the first place.

Well remember, for most women the reason they are looking for natural skin care products is that they want products that are SAFE to use, as well as work well.

So we can, once we know this, use this information to our advantage.

So, how do we find these products? Lets look at how we determine if a product should be safe. There is a website called the cosmetic safety database. It considers the health risks inherent in a wide range of cosmetics and skin care products and more. It rates the potential health risks of various ingredients in these products.

So you can use this information to search the ingredients of personal products to see if it is considered that they pose any health risk. As an example you could search “parabens” (a popular and cheap preservative often used in personal products) and see what you get.

Then search out the website of the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics. There you can find a compact that any company can sign to pledge them to only producing safe products that don’t contain potentially dangerous ingredients. Get there and you can search this to see if the company that makes the products you use has signed.

And if the company that makes the products you use has signed you know they should make safe products.

So you’ve found a company that makes natural skin care products and has signed. So their products are safe. But how do you know they’re any good? Well to me any company that offers a money back guarantee on their products must have good products. But even amongst the natural skin care companies that have signed getting a guarantee is very rare.

Yes there is a company that has signed the compact and offers a full money back guarantee on their products, and they make the best all natural skin care products.

I’ll tell you which company does this on my website.

Want to find the company that makes the Best All Natural Skin Care Products? Visit Peter’s website that looks at all aspects of great Natural Skin Care

Why You Won’t be Able to Avoid Bio Identical Hormones Through 2010.

This is the year of bio identical hormones breaking through in the media. Last year bio identical hormones really started to take off, with a wider cultural awareness, and this year, they are truly going to hit the mainstream. Why is that, exactly? We’ve gone out and discovered 4 principal reasons for it happening. Check them out below.

#4: They Can’t Be Patented.

You can’t patent something that is biologically identical to what the human body produces anyway, and this inability for the big pharmaceutical companies to earn a large profit off of these drugs is seen as very appealing, and should stay that way.

#3: Natural, whatever it is – is Very Much ‘In’ Right Now.

Just like locally grown food, beyond-organic produce, and sustainable living, eliminating ‘processed’ things in all walks of life is a new and growing interest, especially in the USA. Standard hormone replacement therapy is seen as synthetic and ‘false’ when compared to bio identical hormones.

#2: Awareness is Reaching a Tipping Point. What do we mean by that?

The talk about bio identical hormones has recently reached a media saturation point where it’s now very common to hear them discussed. If you see your doctor or a hormone replacement therapy specialist, talking about bio identical hormones is no longer going to be a fringe or alternative issue like it might have been 5 or 10 years ago.

#1: Oprah Winfrey is Taking Bio Identical Hormones.

Oprah is such a crucial cultural figure that anything she talks about or endorses can become extremely prevalent in the culture. It happened, for better or worse, with the acai berry, but now it’s happening in a good way with bio identical hormone replacement therapy.

Are you looking to put an end to such early menopause symptoms as hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings and weight gain with the help of bio identical hormones? Check out Dr. Erika Schwartz website and find out how hormone replacement therapy can put an end to early menopause symptoms.

Can You Reverse (And Prevent) Sun Damage To Your Skin Causing Premature Skin Ageing?

There’s nothing you can do about aging, and as you age your skin ages with you. One of the worst causes of skin ageing is excessive sun damage from overexposure to UV in the Sun’s rays. Can you help prevent and even reverse skin sun damage?

Too much time spent in the sun is terrible for your skin. Whether you get sunburned or even if you just spend a lot of time in the sun you can age your skin prematurely. Along with another factor, namely smoking, these are the 2 worst things you can do to ensure your skin will show your age earlier.

It is well known that UV rays in sun light can be very damaging to your skin. Of course excessive sun exposure can lead to skin cancer and this can in turn can lead to death, however not so many people are aware that excessive sun exposure also speeds up the effects of ageing on your skin. This is what is known as photo aging.

It can be a little difficult preventing skin sun damage if you go out in the sun regularly. Of course you can always wear a shirt and a hat however it is still possible to get your face burned under a hat, for example by reflection from water. And it will certainly help staying out of the sun in the middle of the day during summer.

Of course there’s always sunscreens however it is also not well known that many sunscreens do not offer complete protection from all the harmful rays of the sun, particularly from UVA, and that it’s still possible to get skin damage from the sun even when using sunscreens.

It is possible to get natural sunscreens. There are a number of components of plants, for example, that will act as a natural sunscreen and help protect you from burning. Not only that but several of these, according to some of the most recent science, can actually help reverse the effects of photo-aging.

Lycopene is one of these ingredients. If you read the health literature you may well know about lycopene. It’s an ingredient of tomatoes and the studies are showing that lycopene can have some beneficial effects on your health. For example there is growing evidence that increasing your intake of lycopene can help prevent breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. On top of this there is now evidence that more lycopene can help reverse the effects of photo-aging on your skin and therefore help reverse skin sun damage you may have suffered in earlier years.

Lycopene is not the only natural sunscreen offering benefits to your skin. There are other natural ingredients also offering similar benefits. Whilst you should not be relying on natural sunscreens alone to help protect your skin they are worthwhile to increase your UV resistance, and it does seem from the science that these ingredients can help reverse photo-aging.

Science is slowly understanding more and more about photo-aging and how it works, and also that one of the 2 most damaging things for your skin is the effects of photo-aging from excessive sun exposure. And science is able to produce new products that can capture the benefits of ingredients such as these.

An example is a new omega 3 supplement recently introduced to the market which includes lycopene as an active ingredient as well as other ingredients to increase your skin’s natural resistance to sunburn and to help reverse the effects of photo-aging. And of course omega 3 essential fatty acids are themselves known to be of a very similar chemical make up to the oil that is naturally produced in your skin and for this reason Omega3 fats are also very good to improved skin health.

If you’re interested in high quality skin care you need to understand the damaging effects of excessive exposure to sunlight, and that there are ways to help prevent this and also to reverse the effects of skin sun damage.

And you also should be aware that new products are slowly becoming available as science finds out more and more about how to keep their skin healthy and looking good using natural ingredients such as lycopene to help prevent skin sun damage.

If you’d like to source omega 3 supplements which now include lycopene as one of the active ingredients then head over to my website.

Want to learn more about the best Natural Skin Care Products? Or more about Skin Sun Damage? Visit Peter’s Website Natural Health-Natural Skin Care.

What In The World Is Functional Keratin In Skin Care?

If you are interested in researching a little about skin care and skin health it won’t be long before you start to read about the role of keratin in maintaining your skins health. But what is keratin?

Keratin is found right throughout our bodies. It is a protein that is extremely strong and it can be found in the hard areas of our bodies like our nails and also in the softer areas of our bodies, like skin. A lot of keratin is found in our nails, teeth, hair and skin.

In our skin keratin is produced by keratinocytes, a type of skin cell in the epidermis, and this keratin has a role in keeping our skin in good health. As keratin cells come to the surface they die, and form a protective layer on the surface. And these dead cells are shed all the time as dead skin cells.

Keratin has some vital roles in maintaining the function of our skin. It produces some waterproofing qualities, for example. But the main function of keratin in our skin is to promote skin strength and elasticity.

Our skin needs these qualities and as it ages it starts to lose some keratin and so lose some strength and elasticity.

So you would be accurate in assuming that if you use skin care products with keratin in them you are restoring your stores of skin keratin and thereby improving your skin strength and elasticity right? Wrong.

You see the keratin that is used in mainstream skin care products is extracted from the horns and hooves of animals and is extracted using acid and heat. This results in the keratin being denaturalized by a process called hydrolization. Denaturalized simply means that its no longer of use to your skin because its form has been changed.

Now what is functional keratin? It is a form of keratin that has been extracted using a different process other than heat and acid and so isn’t denaturalized. It comes from the wool of sheep and is functional in the sense that it is still in a form that is of use to our skin.

One very small company has only very recently perfected this process and has patented it, and puts the functional keratin into a product called Cynergy TK that is used only in the very best skin care products available.

There have been studies done on the effectiveness of products that include Cynergy TK and the results have been impressive with visible reductions in wrinkles and fine lines, and a improvement in overall skin complexion.

Cynergy TK is expensive, and so the big brand name skin care products don’t use it. But it is possible to get skin care products that contain Cynergy TK, and they aren’t more expensive than other skin care products. Why? Because the big brands spend their budget on advertising, whereas the small niche company spends it’s budget on product quality.

The price of big brand skincare products has to reflect the cost of the advertising.

I hope that’s enlightened you somewhat about what keratin is and what it does for the skin, and what functional keratin is.

I write more about Cynergy TK on my website.

Want to know more about Functional Keratin or find products containing Cynergy TK? Visit Peter’s Website Natural Health-Natural Skin Care.