Artslim, weight, life, health management.

 
 
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What is the one exercise we women most need to do yet are least willing to talk about or want to remember to do?

A kegel  is an exercise to strengthen a specific muscle in the pelvic floor, the pubococcygeus or PC muscle. This muscle is in the pelvic floor, under the perineum on your body. These muscles help you control the flow of urine, Strengthening the PC muscle can help eliminate or alleviate symptoms of incontinence.

To do this you need to identify the muscle and you do this, by stopping the flow of urine, that's the muscle you need to work on strengthening, when you are not urinating. You should slowly squeeze this muscle together and hold it for a count of ten. This, should be done three times a day or even up to 50 times if you can fit them in.
For best results, do it, once while standing, once while sitting and once while lying down.

Most people, including myself, have difficulty remembering to do the exercise. I make specific times to do them. If I wake during the night to roll over, I do the Kegel exercise then.  When I am driving the car, and out on a highway where I do not need to concentrate on the traffic, I will do my Kegel exercise. When I am walking, anywhere I try also to think, ‘time to do a set of Kegel exercises’, and I do them.  My life style is not one of routine, so sometimes days go by when I forget them, then, I am back remembering again.

Here are some suggested good times to do your Kegel exercises.

1.       Kegel whenever you are at a red light.

2.       Kegel at TV commercials.

3.       Kegel while waiting in line.

4.       Kegel while checking email.

Doing these exercises faithfully will help you tremendously. But remember that it can take months before you notice the muscle strength changing. It is never too late to begin strengthening your pelvic floor muscles, even if you already need incontinence products you will benefit learning how and routinely doing your Kegels.

I hope that my writing this blog about this very important exercise, that I will be more consistent about doing my Kegels, more often.

For those of you who are slimmers and eager to have a great figure, why not add a few core strength exercises, that are done while standing, sitting or laying down, at the same time you do your Kegels? If you do core strength exercises,  as well, you will be able to ‘see’, the difference  as you strengthen your body’s, natural girdle, while you are also strengthening, these unseen and too often neglected, pelvic floor muscles. Combining the two exercises is easy, and you are more likely to do an exercise you feel you are getting a visible result from doing.

 
 
 
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On Tuesday and Thursday, I used the caravan steps and my adjustable weights to do three lots of 50 step ups.  I then use the weights to do a range of three lots of ten exercises that I learned from the Osteoporosis Association of Australia,  I then went for intermittent power walking and sprinting or a 400 meter jog alongside the Tarra River.

)n Monday, Wednesday and Saturday I do my Cardio Workouts using my Wii, Biggest Loser, Interactive, full body workout and on Friday, I do my Yoga exercises. I do some walk running six days a week and also my stretches. 

I do not always have a place as beautiful as Tarra Valley to workout in (last week it was beach runs),  but while I have it I just have to share the beauty and inspiration of the place :-).
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The three Michelle Bridges books and her 12WBT on line program are my current favourite reading reference material.
I love interesting reading material. I love good books.  I do not have as much time, as I would like to read, given my creative outlets, of writing and painting and striving to find time to make exercise a priority, in my life, these days. That reminds me I still need to do my yoga session for today. I have found a few, shortcuts, to help fit some books, into my busy lifestyle.

I am listening to audio book novels as I drive the car, these are the popular modern, new classics, usually unabridged and it distracts me from wanting to nibble while I drive, so lol, audio books are good for my waistline. J

I do buy reference books, the sort of books I like to keep to look things up in regularly and I usually take a few away with me on every tour. I often research available books that might interest me, on Amazon books, then I check out the best price I can get them.  In the shopping malls I know that if you can find the books in the chain stores like Target or Big W, they are often cheaper than they are in the main book store, or I sometimes ask when the book stores are having a sale and shop then.  I have also bought books on line and have found they arrived quickly, it was an easy way to shop for them

I once went on one of those shopping tours and we went to a bookshop that has every book in the store at $4.95.  While it was cheap, you are stuck with what they had in stock and the truth is I prefer to pay top price if I have to, for books I really want.

My current books I have on tour with me are the Michelle Bridges, Crunch Time cookbook, and her Crunch Time book and her small calorie counter. 

Reg has brought away a few paperback novels he reads and he just recycles these over and over, wherever we find a book exchange, he will swap the book he has read for another book, I seem to never need to buy him a novel,he just isn’t fussy about his reading material, the way I am.

My favourite source of reading is here on the internet. I think I could live without books but I have so missed my internet use during this last week while I was restricting my usage while enjoying Tarra Valley.

Reg and I are visiting his sister  in Maffra tonight and I am so happy to have my normal wireless internet connection turned on and to know I can go to bed tonight after my usual on line read and I can wake up and read my morning ‘paper, the internet’, in bed with my wake up coffee J.  Yes I could give up books, but never the internet, I am truly hooked. J, surfing the net, has to be my favourite reference library.

Tonight my week two of my 12-week body transformation program, has been released, on line, so I have heaps and heaps of on line reading waiting for meJ, and I am going to enjoy having full access to it this week.  

What sort of reading do you enjoy?
 
 
 
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Yesterday was my second day ot the 12 week body transformation program I an doing.
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This photo was taken alongside our camp.

Today I did part of my fitness assessment.

Instead of doing the 400-meter jog, planned as my 'final burst', for the day I did a timed one-kilometre run.

This was supposed to be timed on a flat surface and done at the same place ever four weeks and I am in the mountains, there is now where flat in Tarra Valley or surroundings, so I took the last timed trial I did as my starting entry level.  I recorded an 8.8 kilometres for 1 kilometre last November, on the flat, pushing myself as hard as I possibly could.

I also did my ‘’how many push ups could I do in one minute test and I disappointed myself by collapsing in a heap after 15 push ups from the knees and 35 seconds

The caravan step and those adjustable weights were my main exercise equipment for day two.

 
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That is Reg, beside the camp fire at our camp, eating the Thai Curry, I cooked as our evening meal, yesterday. It was delicious and HOT.

With Reg and Indigo relaxing today beside Tarra River and our caravan home, I did three sets of fifty step ups on to those caravan steps in the photo, holding those weights.  Reg was most impressed, reminding me that a few years ago I could not have stepped on to those steps without holding on to the door handle and hauling myself up them or asking for help.

I also told myself that if I thought three sets of 50 step ups and down, were hard to do, I would need to be fit enough to do 2,500 of those step ups if I was to be fit enough to climb to the top of the Pinnacle in the Grampians Victoria, ever again :-). Wouldn't that be a thrill to achieve once more?

I did the series of upper and lower body weight exercises, I have been doing on alternate days, since last May, I just upped the intensity a litte, doing three sets of eight each.
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300 to 350 Calorie Breakfast.
Half a large banana, 1/3 punnet blueberries, 8 strawberries, 30 gram of Aldi organic Muesli, 100 gram of low fat, unsweetened, live culture, natural Greek style, yogurt.
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100 to 150 calorie Snacks x two, Morning and afternoon tea: 
Morning Snack was:-Fresh summer harvest juicy white flesh, peach and a few seseme seeds and the skim milk powder I add to my morning coffees. 
Afternoon snack, (see photo) was an assorted salad with my favorite measured quantity, Paul Newman, Classic Salad Dressing on it and the skim milk in my afternoon cup of teas.

Contrary to advise for most people, I have the lxury of drinking tea and coffee with my meals to block iron absorbtion, as I absorb too much iron.
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300 to 350 calorie Lunch was 2 slices of toasted Burgen Lin Soy bread. with low fat ricotta cheese topping, carrot, tomate, spring onion, rocket leaf and capsicum, sprinkled with extra sharp parmisan cheese and freshly grated pepper.
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300 to 350 Dinner 
Thai Curry at Tarra valley.
It was too hot for my taste, so Reg ate the larger serve of it, I had about 1/3.  Reg he loved it. :-)

Tarra Valley ~ Thai Curry

Brown in a non stick sauspan, 200 gram lean minced meat, carrot, capsicum, onion, add I packet of fresh bean shoots and 1 tin of Valcom authentic Green Curry (Gaeng Keow Wan).

Contents, Cocout extract, Bamboo shoots, Eggplant, Chilli, Shallot, Lemon grass, Garlic, Galangal, Sweet basil, Kaffir lime, Shrimp paste, Coriander sead and things I don't like but will accept as a once in a while inclusion for convienience. 

 
We finished a perfect day, in bed together, in the caravan, all three of us, Reg, Indigo the poodle and I, watching 'CATS', on DVD. :-). 
 
 
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Monday, was the start of my 12 week body transformation, on line program I have joined with Michelle Bridges the Bigest Loser, AU., female trainer as the on line trainer for this 12WBT. 
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 I have been following close to the program for the past six days.
Results since last Thursday are the man and I have both lost  600 gram lol, putting my man offically underweight by 200 gram and the dog has lost 200 gram, lol, she tries to keep up with me in some of my jogs.

I did think of my mother, not approving of anyone running in a rain forest and missing the subtle things, you see when you are slow silent and intent on watching for the signs of nature.

I also thought of how, I once was on the downhill slide to an early death, as my own mum had from emphysema and heart disease. I thought, 'mum, just look at me, I am older than you were when you died, and I CAN RUN'  :-).  Mum I know you have to be overjoyed at that, I AM.'
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The track to Cyathea Falls was well constructed. I can recall the leach infested overgrown path that Reg and I took to go to this falls together, forty-one years ago.  Yes, it really is that long ago since we have been here.  I was on this area once before, with my mother, and sister when I was fourteen.  My mother taught me to appreciate nature. She taught me to walk quietly, treading lightly through a rainforest following the sounds of the lyrebird. The lyre bird mimics all the other bird calls so that's the sound you follow, the assorted bird calls and by walking softly, in silence, towards the call, if you are lucky you may find a lyrebird, dancing on it's mound, to attract a mate.
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I cannot fault my mother's teaching of me, about appreciation of nature and so it slightly jarred my consciousness to decide this track was firm enough under foot to be a perfect place to run.   I had already planned on a 400-meter jog today and as there is only rainforest around, no football ovals, this was the perfect place. 

The exhilaration of running and deeply breathing the clean rainforest air, with a running stream beside tree ferns and tall mountain ash, all around,, me was just the most amazing feeling. 
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I was cautious.
 
I am aware I have osteoporosis.
 
My aim is to maintain and build strong bone, not risk a wrist or hip fracture.

I chose to run because the track was covered, with a small stone surface, my shoes had a sound grip as I ran and I was running well within my ability to pull up, if the surface changed to a less safe sure grip tread. 

Wrapping myself in cottonwool, least I fall, is going to make my osteoporosis worse, running  when it is safe to, will (along with a healthy eating plan,) strengthens my bone.

I must not be afraid to run.
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I felt so exhilarated after the 1.2 kilometre round up and down hill jog to Cyanthea Falls, I ran the 1.2 kilometre down hill track to the suspension bridge then walked the 1.2 uphill scenic track back to the car park without stopping for breath.  I arrived back at the car exhilarated and drenched in sweat.

Reg and I then went to the short trek, up and down a flight of steps to view, Tarra Falls.

It was a 'first ever', for me.  This trip so far has been filled with 'first time ever achievements'.  Never in my life have I been capable of jogging that far.  never have I been capable of walking uphill for that long, without resting.  I am not saying it was easy, it wasn't, I was huffing and puffing, and telling myself I could keep putting a foot in front of the other, but I DID IT! :-) and I am THRILLED :-).

Reg found the uphill trek back from the suspension bridge, hard going. Just a few years back, he was the physically fit one. He made it though and actually had LESS pain, after the exercise that he had before, so other than, watching he does not over do things, I know we are doing the right thing, striving to provide an environment on tour that encourages him to keep very active :-).
 
 
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My weekly shopping, description and pictures, of a typical weeks food supply for two and our dog.
I shop for fruit and vegetables in season and meat when it is on special and I usually buy canned food at the SPC factory outlet in trays of 12 that last me a year, not in the shops.  I did this shop up from a shopping list and I found it cost me at least $50. extra to shop for set items in a one week quantity and not necessarily on special and I also found shopping with a list was terribly time consuming.  As I am not a person to impulse buy junk food and I understand the concept of healthy nutrition and calorie management, I may only do this shopping to a set, modified, shopping list for a while. It's main advantage is that I can record, what Reg and I eat over a week.
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My weekly shopping

I have planned our menu a week ahead based on simple, nutrition’s and easy meals I can prepare in the caravan and  I have brought a new recipe book to try out, the Michelle Bridges, Crunch Time, cookbook.  

My diet is high in multi coloured vegetables and fruit. Low in refined highly processed carbohydrate, it contains neither added sugar nor white flour products. I do not buy processed food like muesli bars; I do eat fresh unsalted nuts and seeds.

I add low fat dairy, usually powdered skim milk (powdered because of our caravan lifestyle), low fat cheese and unsweetened natural live culture yogurt.  

 
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  I include animal, poultry and fish, in my diet in moderation along with plant protein sources, legumes, nuts and seeds.  I value the plant proteins in my diet as the high vegetable-based diet helps maintaining a pH conducive to protecting bone density.

There are many reasons I try to avoid processed food. I have read that the high heating of cereals to make breakfast cereals and biscuits renders these carbohydrates carcinogenic over time. I also find that a great deal of commercially processed food will have refined dead nutrient value sugar, salt, very unhealthy corn syrup or saturated fatty acid, added in the processing. Not the healthy way I want to eat. So-called health foods, and breakfast cereals marketed for their added nutrient value have things like mineral iron, added which is frankly TOXIC for some people, including myself.  Yes, some people need extra iron.

Mineral iron is not, the best way to get extra iron if your reserves are low, so much better to get it by eating the foods it occurs naturally in like red meat, sardines, apricots, plus not drinking tea or coffee close to meal times. You further aid the absorption of iron, by having some high Vitamin C foods with your naturally iron rich foods, I actually do the reverse of that advice as I have an iron overload.
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Nuts and seeds are a well-balanced food; they contain protein, carbohydrate and fat and have a pH that assists bone mineral absorption. One thing, I have learned, in recent years, it is not how much nutrient, we take into our body, but how well we absorb that nutrient. Nuts and seeds remain a valuable addition to my food intake, even though they have a higher calorie value mainly due to the fat content, which, must be allowed for, in a weight loss, or weight management-eating plan.

My favourite bone density-protecting nut is almond and seeds, is sesame seed, because it is high calcium and low pH, encouraging the absorption of calcium into the bone. I have recently discovered Flaxseed, which is high in nutrition and my interest in it is in its anti-inflammatory properties. I am trying many foods with anti-inflammatory properties, such as ginger, now, to help my husband with the fibromyalgia he has. I add seeds and nuts to the muesli, I make us from my rolled oat base and when I can buy flax seed, I include this in our muesli. If you are buying flaxseed, it looks very similar to sesame seed, a little larger; there is no nutritional difference between the brown and the golden varieties of the flaxseed. . “What is flax?”

Because most seeds and nuts are rich in omega 3 oils and as I smile -) recalling Michelle Bridges, say ‘your bum does not know the difference between good oil and bad oil’, I always weigh and count, portions. I add nuts and seeds to muslie, stir fries or salads or eat them as part of my fruit, seed and nut snack. Like avocado, raw fresh unsalted nuts and seeds are a storehouse of the fat-soluble vitamins essential for the health of the body.  Just be aware that even good fats pack double the calories per weight as any other food group and watch the portion control so you can enjoy the addition of nuts and seeds in your eating plan, without reducing

While I read healthy recipe books, I do not usually use recipes, I have been cooking for so long, I just look in the fridge, choose a combination I think will work well, prepare and cook. That usually works well.

I am working on providing three meals a day, of about 300 to 350 calories per meal. In addition, two snacks a day of 100 calories each, these are usually a piece of fruit and a few seeds or a couple of nuts.

I have a 100-calorie allowance for the skim milk I do have in my coffee or tea, which I have with my meals for the very reason most people are best avoiding drinking tea or coffee with meals, because it inhibits the absorption of iron, of which I absorb too much.
 
 
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I never thought that I would ever get excited when I saw a football ovel and view it as a potential, 400 meter running track for me. 

This is my own prepared plan, for my week one of my twelve week program I am currently working at.
I have put this program togeter to suit me, based loosely on the suggested, Gym or Home or Outdoors exercise schedual in the 12WBT program I am doing. I needed to amend that suggested program to suit my caravaning lifestyle and this is what I have set for myself.



Monday Warmup: 10min power walk Cardio &Abs Full Body Workout

Final Blast: 400m jog/walk (one lap oval) Stretches Hold each stretch for 1min. Keep breathing and try to sink deeper as you exhale.

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Tuesday  Warmup: 10min power walk  Strength Train & Toning Weights.

Final Blast: 400m jog around oval. Stretch

Hold each stretch for 1min.

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Wednesday  Warmup: 30 min power walk Cardio  & Abs Full Body Workout

Final Blast: Do 7 x short jogging efforts (30-60sec or until you need to stop)

Stretches  Hold each stretch for 1min. Keep breathing and try to sink deeper as you exhale.

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Thursday  Strength Train & Toning

Caravan. Weights.          

Outdoors Warmup: 10min power walk

Final Blast: 6 × 15m sprints.

Stretch

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Friday  Outdoors Warmup: 10min power walk, Yoga
This is the day we will be relocating, I will be towing the caravan to the next site. 

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Saturday  Outdoors Warmup: 45min power walk

Cardio & Abs Full body Workout

Final Blast: Do 7 x short jogging efforts (30-60sec or until you need to stop)

Stretch
I May be substituting Sunday's day off to be on Saturday and do my Saturday work out on Sunday as we may be visiting family.  The main thing is there will only be oneday off, from planned exercise in the week, and even that day I will be being active.

As this is week one I feel it is very important not to get behind schedual eraly in the 12 weeks or i may not be able to catch up.


 

 
 
 
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We are heading towards Tarra Valley in the morning leaving Phillip Island where we have stayed at a small caravan park with a solar-heated swimming pool that has been great for me to exercise in twice a day.

This has been the quietest and most layback, Caravan Park I have stayed at.  When we arrived and I went to enter the office, the manager greeted me at the door with a most unusual, ‘what do you want’, question and appeared surprised by my request to want to book in.  That surprised me. They were after all a caravan park.

Then they made a mistake of $35. In our favour, adding the bill up, which though we paid the correct amount. She ran the credit card through on a small yellow plastic receipt printer that frankly looked like a flimsy toy.  When I was in business, they were made of sturdier stuff than that.

Well we were here all through the week, and there has been hardly a person around I‘ve had the luxury of having the pool for myself, and I sure have made the most of it.

I have joined the Michelle Bridges, 12 Week Total Body Transformation and I have been following her Crunch Time cookbook information, which is the way I love to eat ~ healthy, anyhow. I am applying her 3oo to 350 calories a meal  x three meals a day and 100 to 150 calories a snack, x 2 snacks a day, rule and increasing my exercise, going for beach walks every evening and even doing beach jogs beginning with 100 meter jogs on Monday night increasing to a 400 meter jog on Thursday evening.

Tonight Friday, lol, I am actually a little tired from this week of exercise and the giving my all to my jogs.  Next week will be a total change, bushwalking in tree fern gullies, Will that be easier or harder or just different.  Whatever, it will be funJ. .

 
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Medium:pastel, Blue and gold: portrait of Dorothy Sutherland (1908) by Jane Sutherland.
One of the artists whose work I most admire is Jane Sutherland. I have written a full article about her in my ‘A Creatvie Life’, blog, see side bar for link. Check out my artist’s category.

Jane Sutherland 1853-1928 was an artist and art teacher. I have added this profile of a great artist to my healthy living and fitness blog, because it inspires me that this wonderful artist did some of her finest works, after suffering a stroke. She continued to paint, teach and exhibit even as an invalid requiring care. NEVER Give up. :-)
There is greatness in people who also have disability.

Around 1904, Jane Sutherland suffered a mild stroke, after this, she stopped painting large on location landscapes and adapted to painting small  oils and pastels, of her garden local surroundings and portraits. She needed the care of family members and could work with her paper and a few pastels on her lap, with very limited movement. She had more determination of spirit than freedom of movement.
It was during this time she painted beautiful portraits while very disabled, and little hand movement and continued painting, exhibiting and teaching art, with the assistance of a family member, up until 1911.

Many disabled people live very effective lives and these days are able to maintain a greater degree of independence thanks to mobility products . You can research the sorts of products that might help people maintain mobility despite varying degrees of disability, at mobility compare , and please check out my Kathy-shell.net website to read more about this inspiring artist, Jane Sutherland.
 
Turning Points. 02/21/2010
 
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I have had a few in my life.
Each one beginning, at a low in my life or a point where I felt I was stalling. Lows and stalls are wonderful spring boards to success. Each one kick starting a goal, a strong motivation an action plan that then sparked the daily to do actions that has set me off onto a new positive path that has brought me not only to but beyond the goal I was seeking.

Some of these turning points only seem to be small ones, when I begin them. Some have been start stops, some are start and all go. J. 

My current start in the 12WBT feels so very right , so very perfectly timed for me, here at half way through my own body transformation journey and wanting to work with people who will stimulate me to reach my full physical fitness potential.

I blogged about my turning point from three years ago, in my Life Inspiration blog, 'Bloggers Muse'

I am now ready for the new body transformation in 2010 :-).
Will you be doing a body transformation too?
What was your turning point?