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At Building Your Enduring Fitness, Lisa Teresi Harris has written the book Baby Boomers and everyone from middle age to centenarians has been waiting. We all know that exercise and nutrition are important, but all the health and fitness books and exercise programs out there seem to be geared toward the 18-40 age group. We all want to feel good long after that, but we can forget how important exercise and nutrition are as we age, not so that we can look good on the beach as younger generations want, but to compensate for the loss of mass. muscle, brittle bones, disease, and belly fat that threatens to make us old before our time.
Harris has been a registered dietitian since 1978. As the owner of Enduring Fitness 4U, she offers senior exercise classes and home fitness and nutritional counseling. As a result, you have the knowledge, skills, and positive mindset to help anyone improve their health, activity level, and overall satisfaction with life. He has helped hundreds of people and is now sharing his life-long knowledge with his readers in this new book.
Getting in good shape and being healthy, however, is easier said than done. Some people might even think that slowing down the aging process is impossible. Many people believe that they are predestined to gain weight because their parents were fat, to be diabetic, to have heart disease, etc. However, research shows that genetics don’t always have the last word. For example, Harris cites a source that says “only about 10% of the cases [with Alzheimer’s] carry the defective genes for the disease, and only half of the carriers of the genes develop it. Most cases of Alzheimer’s are caused by cumulative brain damage that occurs throughout life. “In other words, disability and illness are not inevitable, despite your genes.
The most important message in this book to me is the need for us to get up and move. Harris asks us if we are sabotaging our health by the number of hours we sit each day. It’s true that we move less with Roombas and smartphone addictions and things delivered to our doorsteps, so she encourages us to find ways we can move more, like walking while talking on the phone.
And Harris’s results are astonishing. Help prediabetic people to change their diets. Helps people with walkers regain mobility. She helps older people to strengthen their muscles and improve their balance so that they can get up if they fall and, better yet, avoid falling completely. It also encourages people to find activities that they enjoy. If you don’t like an activity, you won’t, so she shows us how to find our “exercise bliss.”
While exercise is important, so is nutrition. Harris provides guidelines on how to get the right amount of fruits and vegetables into your diet. She offers advice on when to eat protein, how much to eat, and how to use it to the most benefit. Of course, she is a huge advocate for drinking water.
Many people will find the chapter series “Strengthening Your Defenses Against Chronic Diseases” invaluable. Here he talks about heart disease, diabetes, cancer, dementia, arthritis, and osteoporosis and how to improve the chances that neither of them will be diagnosed. It also explores how to live better if you already have them so they don’t impede your enjoyment of life.
One of the biggest challenges for most people is overeating. Harris realizes that we are all human and we are not going to eat vegetables all the time without occasionally indulging ourselves. I love his advice on what to do when you go out to avoid overeating or when you go on one of those cruises where you feel hostage to a breakfast buffet. Even though restaurant portions have grown in size, Harris offers solid advice on how to enjoy dining out without having to back down. At the same time, he believes in mindful eating, allowing yourself to enjoy food from time to time. For example, she tells us, “Grab that delicious ice cream cone when the urge hits you; savor each bite and then move on. (This is an example of mindful eating, paying close attention to the moment and accepting your feelings, not trying to change them.) “
I’m only forty-six years old, but I loved Developing Your Lasting Fitness because it made me realize that I can take action now so that my senior year provides me with the high quality of life that I desire. I used to exercise regularly, but fell into a depression after my exercise bike broke down a few months ago. Harris encouraged me to get back to doing push-ups, lifting weights and walking more, and even making some changes to my eating. Just in the few weeks since I started, I am already noticing results.
So get a copy of Building Your Enduring Fitness and then get up and get moving. The more you move, the longer, healthier, and happier your life will be.