Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

Yoga

Weight Loss Exercise Strategies

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For those of us who are 50+, our fitness levels are as different as snowflakes. Some of us are strong and healthy, while others have mobility challenges and joint problems. As you read this post, please remember to take precious care of yourselves and see a doctor before beginning any new activities.

When we pass age 40, and even more at age 50, our bodies start to lose muscle mass. This makes weight loss more challenging as our metabolism slows. Any exercise program at our age must include a certain amount of strength training to rebuild muscle mass and thus increase our metabolism.

Also, after suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome from 1996-2001 (with occasional flare-ups for a few years after that), I have learned something interesting about my body. It is essential that when doing cardio, I don’t allow my heart rate to go above that magical 80% of maximum. If I do so, even after all these years of feeling great, I have a flare-up. If I stay within my guidelines and use a heart monitor, no problem. This may be useful advice for you, too, even if you are healthy!

My current physical condition is good, as evidenced by my ability to hike for up to eight hours a day up Swiss mountainsides. The good news is that I’m strong. The question is, then, what do I need in my daily routine in order to lose weight?

My favorite forms of exercise are walking and yoga, both of which have a strong mind-body component to them. I will keep them both around because of the mental health benefits, even though both are great as physical activities. If you’re new to exercise, start with walking, which doesn’t cost any money and is unlikely to cause injury. If you want to try yoga but are 50+ and inflexible, start with a gentle class. I was chatting with a technician recently at the medical clinic who told me she was doing the video Yoga For The Rest of Us. She does her poses in a chair because she can’t yet get on the floor. I think that’s a fantastic place to begin, especially if you have mobility issues.

For me, though, to lose weight I have to do a little more. First, I started to intensify my aerobic activity. My favorite aerobic videos are by Ellen Barrett, who combines pilates, yoga, and calesthenics with aerobic dance to create a fun mind-body workout that feels easier than it actually is. Although Ellen isn’t 50+ and doesn’t market specifically to the 50+ crowd, I would recommend them highly as a safe workout if you’re in good health. I own (almost) every video she’s done since. She’s an absolute treasure!

By the way, if you have an iPad, you can download the FitnessClass app and watch Ellen’s videos there. I take her with me when we travel. At home, we have Apple TV, so I can open the video in the iPad and then send the video to our TV. We’re geeky in our household, what can I say?

To improve strength, try out Eight Weeks to a Younger Body by Joan Pagano. In this book, you create a customized workout of cardio, stretch, and strength. My only caution here is to check with your doctor, especially if you have knee problems, before combining a stepper with weights. You will need some equipment for these workouts, but do the tests before buying anything.

How often to work out? Currently I do cardio 5-6 times per week at about 45 minutes per session. I exercise in the morning after my breakfast digests. Some recommend exercising before breakfast, but that doesn’t work for me — so find what’s right for you. When I had a corporate job, I exercised on my lunch hour or in the evening.

My strength training combines cardio with it, so that’s included in the cardio frequency. I do strength training 2-3 times per week. I do yoga in the afternoons after I’m done with my work, and it allows me to transition from the workday.

Your workouts may vary. If you’re not exercising, I encourage you to begin. The dividends will pay off in better sleep, improved mood, and weight loss.

Okay, so I’ve given you my eating and exercise plan. The only thing left to do is talk about…sabotage. More about that tomorrow!

Hello, Monday!

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I usually start with “good morning,” but it’s getting later and later, even here in Washington State. I’m on Port Townsend time, so I’m running late. A local hair salon indicates on its window that it opens at eleven-ish, so I think I’ll adopt the local lifestyle.

I spent the bulk of my weekend on a yoga mat under the tutelage of Angela Farmer. She affirmed my own approach to yoga, which is more internal, with strength and fitness a byproduct rather than the goal. We spent a lot of time focusing on areas in the body that hold tension, and with love and gentleness, invited them to unwind. My body happily responded to the nourishment; my monkey mind, with its endless chatter, is still trying to “figure out” what happened over the weekend. I shrug and say, “I’m all right,” while mind sputters with “But…but…but…”

With Farmer’s method, we travel with the body into a pose. At the first sign of tension, we stop and hang out for a while, listening to the “voice” of the tension and wriggling the tight area to invite it to release. By not forcing ourselves, and by letting go more and more, the body will use its own wisdom to release, allowing us to go farther into a pose than we thought possible.

The weekend with Angela Farmer and 35 of my new best friends taught me nothing new — and yet, it was worthwhile for reminding me of what I already know, and what my body understands even as my mind argues and frets. Any time we feel stress or strain, we can stop, breathe deeply into our backs, and reconnect our roots with the earth. As we guide ourselves with compassion back to our center, we can do the difficult tasks with a cheerful heart. This week we will do more work to get the house deal done, and I’m glad to have these reminders now!

Normally I have a theme in mind for the week, but I think in keeping with the spirit of the weekend, I”m going to hang loose and see what comes up day by day. It feels good to let go.

 

Thursday Books & Blogs

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Good morning! As we prepare for another visit to our future hometown, we are also in the midst of listing our Houston house for sale. This morning the photographer comes, so the house is eerily tidy. The new house deal remains alive at this time — yay! Yeah, I’ve made peace with whatever happens, as I mentioned yesterday, but I won’t kid you. It’s a cool house, and I really hope it works out. We’ll see!

This coming weekend is my birthday weekend (Sunday is the day!), and I’ve given myself the present of taking a yoga workshop with the legendary Angela Farmer. Angela, now over 70, has been a dynamic force in expanding “feminine” yoga, yoga that expands on ancient traditions taught primarily by males for males. I took a class from her back in 2004 during a conference, and I treasure several moments from that class. I also thought it would be a great way to meet some people in the community in an intimate setting.

By the way, if you like yoga and haven’t seen the Yogawoman DVD, I highly recommend it. Angela Farmer appears in this video as one of many female yoga pioneers.

In books, this past week I finished The Time Travel Journals: Shipbuilder by Marleen Dotterer. The shipbuilder refers to Thomas Andrews, who oversaw the building of the Titanic. In this captivating tale, Sam Altair, a scientist experimenting with time travel, accidentally sends himself back to 19o6. Worse, he unwittingly takes with him Casey Wilson, a university student. I won’t go into how they connect to Andrews, but I will tell you that Dotterer handles time travel in a way I haven’t seen before. Altair and Wilson, rather than trying to avoid changing history, actively work to do so. The tension builds gradually to a powerful climax, and there’s a sweet love story, too! I loved it, and I hope you will, too.

Here’s another treat for you: The Art of an Improbable Life, a blog by Becky Green Aaronson and her husband, Jeffrey, who have created for themselves a unique, rich life that spans the globe. In this blog, you’ll find gorgeous photos and interesting essays. This week’s post shares the story of Lori Robinson, “Africa’s Beautiful Bag Lady,” and it’s a good one. Check it out if you get a chance.

I’m going to suspend Friday Fiction for now, but it will  return sometime after the holiday season. I’m currently revising Blood and Loam and will start posting it once I feel that it’s ready for viewing. Unfortunately, it’s been taking me longer than I expected! This has been a difficult, challenging novel to write, requiring more research than what I’m used to and punching all my personal buttons. If I can pull it off, it will be a fascinating book, but it’s demanding more of me as a writer than anything I’ve ever done.

Have a great weekend! Next week I’ll be sharing adventures from Washington State — I’ll try to include plenty of pics.

Good Morning, Monday! Happy October!

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Chocolate Mint
Fresh chocolate mint is re-appearing after it appeared to be dead!

Day five into my Yoga Journal cleanse, I’m excited about the process. Overall I have felt energized, and not hungry at all. Yesterday I started to get sick of kitchari, but I can hang in there for a few more days.

As I’ve mentioned, we’ve been cleaning out our house, too, and that feels good. A huge stack sits in the front of the den, waiting to be donated tomorrow. Rooting through the “stuff,” we find treasures and memories. Stories emerge. We both feel lighter, happier.

Certainly, resting and cleansing can bring up a lot of old, stuck emotions, but as we pass through them and get to the other side, we find new ideas and make new plans. Life starts to look shiny and new again. This month, we will explore “lightness.” Part of me says, “uh oh,” because I’m a fairly intense, serious individual…but maybe because of the cleansing and cleaning, I feel more ready to play.

Green Peppers
Cooler weather brings out new baby bell peppers.

This morning I spent some time in the garden. The Texas drought destroyed a good bit of my vegetables and even some native plants that were supposed to withstand the lack of rain. A few days ago, a front moved through and at least brought the heat down — our highs are now in the upper 80s, and the air is dryer. The mornings feel downright pleasant!

Sage
New Blooms on the Sage

Anyway, as I wandered the garden, using stored rainwater to give the plants a drink, I saw signs of hope. A tiny new strawberry leaf here, carrot seedlings there, and even a re-emergence of the salvia that looked hopelessly dead. New peppers have appeared, and the sage is blossoming again. It doesn’t take much relief for plants to start coming back!

After a long, difficult summer, change is in the air, healing change. No, the drought isn’t over — it may go on for years, the forecasters tell us — but we are getting a bit of a respite. I’m sick of the drought and sick of kitchari, but hope emerges. The cleanse will end, the heat will lessen, and a glorious season is around the corner. I can hang in there a little while longer.

Salvia
A Salvia Comeback?

Goosebump Moments – Or, “Holy Sh#t!”

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All this meditating, resting, and breathing has gotten me to thinking about things…and this, in short, is why we often don’t slow down! When we get quiet, we start telling ourselves the pesky truth, and sometimes that means making changes. Big changes.

Recently, as I think I mentioned, hubby and I started talking about where we might want to live. I’ve lived in Houston for 30 years, and he’s been here even longer, so these thoughts cause us to sit up straight and perk up our ears. Sometimes he backpedals — “Maybe we could just leave Houston during the summer” — but then we realize that a) summer is lasting longer and longer here, and b) the ties that held us here are gone. Joe and Sarah, my stepkids, don’t live here anymore. Henry’s folks are gone. He still has a sister here, but we don’t see her that often, either. Plus, we do have the freedom to travel and visit.

“Why would you want to stay?” I ask. It’s a fair question. The answer could be, “We like the house and the neighborhood. We have our regular restaurants that we enjoy. Rice University is nearby, and they have a lot of fun things to do.” The real answer, though, is “inertia.” That doesn’t sound like a good reason to me!

Problem is, life is unpredictable. Why spend it in a place that no longer works? Sure, we have both loved Houston, but more and more we gravitate toward mountains. And Henry likes the water, though I can take it or leave it. We have traveled enough to discover that we don’t want to live anymore in a flat terrain where an evening stroll to the wine bar makes us sweaty and stinky.

We have scheduled a trip to Washington State in December. First, it’s a trip to celebrate my birthday. Second, we want to see the area in a less-attractive time to see if we would still like it. It will be colder, rainier, and darker. We picked Port Townsend because the town seems to fill the bill for what we’re looking for: the right terrain, an emphasis on local and organic food, and a plethora of artists and writers to hang out with.

Since we’re “interviewing” Port Townsend, I want to meet as many people as possible. It’s a small town, so it’s important to find people that we wouldn’t mind hanging around. I Googled the local yoga studios to see if anything was going on. Turns out that one of my favorite yoga teachers, Angela Farmer, is doing a workshop the weekend of my birthday. She runs many of her trainings in Greece, but is visiting little ol’ Port Townsend on the first weekend that I’ll be there.

Here I am, on the cusp of menopause, on the eve of a new year of my life, and in the process of making a big decision, now with the opportunity to work with someone who has a way of pulling the deepest truths out of her students. And what better way to get to know some of the locals than to spend time in such an intimate environment?

It was a goosebump moment. You know them, right? I used to always affirm that “I am always in the right place at the right time, successfully engaged in the right activity.” But in a goosebump moment, I really BELIEVE it.

Goosebump moments can remind us that maybe something else is at work in our lives besides our mundane, mental existence. I am giddy. I am scared. Like many women, I have feared my own power for too long, so I hesitate. I remind myself of all the logical reasons not to do the workshop. Then, I stop, I breathe — and I write the check. I want to honor all the goosebump moments of my life and to jump in full-out. Maybe all that pesky stillness is not only opening me to change, but giving me the courage to go through with it.

Discovery Tuesday: Integrative Restoration

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I’ll tell you my dirty little secret about the “daily rest” that I’ve decided to do: the idea came about as a result of trying to lose weight.

Yep, you read that right. At 52, I have found that losing weight ain’t as easy as it used to be. Despite our hours of hiking in Switzerland, I came back three pounds heavier! Of course, I convinced myself that I needed some extra food to give me energy for the hikes, and I suspect that I overdid things a bit, despite my best intentions.

I told Henry that I wasn’t going to travel in October. Besides the fact that I want to plant my fall garden, I also wanted to eat at home, where I can better manage food ingredients and portion sizes. Before we went on our travels, I also did a lot of reading and investigating about losing weight at midlife, so I could come home with a plan in mind.

The net result is this: I will leave my cardio program as is. On a fitness test, I scored in the “excellent” range on cardio, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I also scored well on flexibility, which makes sense since I love yoga so much. As I suspected, though, I learned that I need to add strength training, and I found a regimen to follow in the book 8 Weeks to a Younger Body by Joan Pagano. I’m just getting started, but I’ll report back, hopefully with some fantastic results.

In terms of diet, I still find the Weight Watchers program to make the most sense, though I’m making sure that my meals and snacks have a protein-fat-carb ratio close to The Zone, which has brought me success in the past. My reading has suggested to me that I am probably a bit carb-heavy on my diet.

The other problem I see is that I’m a high-strung sort of woman, and I need to keep my stress levels down. Stress, as most of you know, raises cortisol levels in the body, and this can affect our ability to lose weight. In theory, lowering our cortisol levels can improve our ability to lose weight.

Yoga helps, and I also get regular massages. I’ve gotten back into a meditation habit, but I wanted to do a little more. Hence, the decision to make time to rest on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

One of the best ways to do that is through Richard Miller’s Integrative Restoration program. I’m including the link to his store, as opposed to one particular recording or book, because they are all worthwhile. I’m particularly fond of his six-volume Integrative Restoration program, which provides six one-hour guided yoga nidra practices.

In yoga nidra, or yogic sleep, we are guided into a state of heightened awareness of the various sensations in our body and mind. Miller has us notice the insides of our mouth, for example — it’s a detailed journey that keeps us conscious even as our bodies gain an extraordinary level of relaxation.

Yoga nidra has proven invaluable in therapeutic environments. Soldiers suffering from PTSD, for example, have benefited from Miller’s work. In our day-to-day lives, which have become increasingly stressful, we may live in a chronic revved-up state of tension, and integrative restoration can help us break that cycle — at the very least we’ll feel better, and who knows? Maybe we can lose some weight, too!