This is a transcript of a podcast episode.  To listen to this episode visit www.silveredgefitness.com/episode76.

 

Intro

Hello and welcome to the Over 50 Health & Wellness podcast.  I’m your host Kevin English – I’m a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach and my mission to help you get into the best shape of your life – regardless of your age – so that you can show up in life as the healthiest, strongest, most vital version of yourself.  I want to let you know that if you enjoy this podcast, I have additional free resources over at www.silveredgefree.com.  There you’ll find my mini guides on nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle.  Today we have another edition of the Coaches Corner – so no guest today – it’s just me, and we’ll be back next week with our regular interview format.

 

Here’s what we’re covering in today’s episode.  I’ll start out with some breaking news on the state of this podcast and then spend a few minutes answering the questions-which is better for fat loss: cardio or strength training.  The I spend a few minutes talking about the basics of human functional movement.  After that I’ll give an update on how things are going with my client Broc.  If you’re not familiar Broc is a podcaster himself – he’s the host of the Midlife Mastery podcast – and he’s hired me as a personal trainer and nutrition coach – and he suggested that we share our journey on our respective podcasts – me from the coach’s perspective and Broc from the client’s perspective.  He’s on a journey to get into the best shape of his life in his fifties, and he’d like to lose 40 pounds and regain some of the strength he had when he was younger.  I cover most of this in earlier editions of the coach’s corner, so today we’re going to pick up where we left off.  Then I spend a bit of time talking about a recent guilty pleasure of mine.  After that I’ll do a quick review of a book titled Diet for Great Sex by Christine DeLozier, and then we’ll wrap up with a brief discussion on my main takeaways from some of my recent podcast guests.  OK, let’s get on with today’s show!

 

This Just In

So let’s start with some breaking news.  At the time of this recording our humble little Over 50 Health & Wellness podcast is ranked the 32nd most popular podcast in iTunes fitness category.  And we peaked at number 23 last week!  Which is incredible – I haven’t looked at these stats in quite a while, frankly because they were discouraging.  This podcast was pretty consistently in the 120s, 130s ranking.  Anyway, I want to thank each and every one of you who are listening today, this isn’t a show without you tuning in.  And I especially want to give a huge shoutout to those of you who have been listening for a while. I published my first episode over a year ago back in April of 2020 – right as the pandemic was getting into full swing – and this show has come a long way since then!  My mission is to continue honing my podcast skills to make this show the best it can possibly be, and I want to sincerely thank you for making this podcast a success!

 

Cardio vs Strength Training

What’s better for burning fat – cardio or strength training?  Everybody knows that cardio is the best way to lose weight and burn fat, right?  Not so fast.  Like many things in the exercise and nutrition universe, the answer is nuanced.  But the prevailing notion of reduce calories and increase cardiovascular activity has been around for a long time… and has proven time and again to be a failure when it comes to long term weight loss.  Now before we go any further in this discussion, let me clarify that you absolutely should do cardio.  There are a multitude of health benefits from regularly doing cardiovascular exercises.  But this prevailing notion that cardio is the best way to burn body fat is simply flawed.

 

And here’s why.  When we consider how many calories we burn in an activity like jogging versus how many calories we burn when lifting weights – jogging wins.  For example, we’d probably burn somewhere in the neighborhood for 350 calories on a 30 minute jog.  Compare that to a measly 100 calories burned in 30 minutes of weightlifting.  Based on that information alone the case is closed.  Cardio is the clear winner.  But here’s the problem with that equation – of all the benefits that exercise gives us, the least valuable thing in terms of long-term sustainable weight loss is the actual amount of calories burned while we’re doing it.  Your body is incredibly good at adapting to stress, and the more you do cardio, the more efficient your body becomes – primarily by paring muscle down and slowing your metabolism.  And this is the exact opposite outcome those of us over 50 want.  We want to hold on to as much muscle mass as possible, and we want our metabolism to speed up, not slow down.

 

So here’s a typical scenario.  You find your self 20 pounds overweight and you decide that’s it, you’re going on a diet and you’re gonna lace up the running shoes and get out for that 3 mile run three or four days a week.  And at first you make great progress (at least as far as the scale is concerned).  You lose those first six or seven pounds, and then you plateau.  Well dang, back to the drawing board.  You decide it’s time to get serious, so you cut even more calories and add even more cardio.  Now you’ve lost another three or four pounds and then you plateau again, and you repeat the cycle.  And lose another couple of pounds and plateau yet again.  Now you’re in this very unhealthy and unsustainable position where you’ve severely restricted your calories, and you constantly running (or biking or aerobics, etc.).  And what happens now is that your body is going into survival mode.  Again, your body is amazingly adaptable and can adjust to almost anything, and now your brain is signaling your body to strip away any unnecessary muscle, store as much fat as possible, and to slow your your metabolism to a crawl in order to preserve energy.  And most likely your miserable at this point.  By now you’re likely hungry most of the time, your hormones are out of whack, you aren’t sleeping as well, and eventually you give up.  And then you slowly gain the weight back – maybe even a little extra to boot.  And now you’re 25 pounds overweight and you decide to start the cycle all over again – you restrict calories and start back the cardio.

 

This unfortunate scenario is played out over and over again, and wreaks metabolic havoc on your body – to say nothing about your emotional state.  Now before we go any further, let’s sped a minute talking about muscle – specifically Type 1 and Type 2 muscle fibers.  Type 1 muscles are known as slow twitch muscle fibers and are commonly used for endurance activities like walking, hiking, running, biking, swimming, etc.  Type 2 muscle fibers on the other hand support quick powerful movements such as sprinting and weight lifting.  Many of you are probably familiar with the term sarcopenia – which refers to age related muscle loss.  And you may even have heard the statistic that we can lose 3-5% of muscle mass every decade after age 30.  Now most - if not all – of that age related muscle loss can be arrested by regular strength training as we age.  But here’s the thing – we preferentially lose Type @ muscle mass as we age.  In other words, our bodies are pretty good at hanging on to Type 1 muscle fibers as we age. So by doing a ton of cardio (and ignoring strength training) we further signal the body to get rid of valuable Type 2 muscle.  And Type 2 muscle is metabolically expensive.  In other words, your body has to rev up it’s metabolism to support this muscle.  And we know that our bodies love efficiency, and if all we’re doing is cardio, our bodies will gladly get rid of that “expensive” muscle tissue… which is exactly what we do not want as aging adults.  Now before we go any further, I had a fantastic conversation with Dr Gabrielle Lyon a few weeks back on this show, and she makes a case that muscle is the organ of longevity.  If you haven’t already check out that episode, I strongly recommend you do.  You can find it at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode72.

 

OK, back to the original question.  What’s better for fast loss, cardio or strength training?  So we’ve shown that the actual activity of cardio burn more calories than the activity of strength training.  But I want to make the case that the number of calories we burn while actually training is the least significant part of the fat loss equation.  When we do strength training, we build valuable Type 2 muscle which directly speeds up your metabolism.  So now let’s imagine that you’ve started a good strength program – and let’s just ignore the scale for now – and you start getting stronger, you start building muscle.  And instead of restricting your calories you start making healthier food choices and prioritizing protein (which is a necessary component of growing new muscle).  Now all of a sudden instead of slowing down your metabolism the way we did when we cut calories and did constant cardio, we’re actually speeding up your metabolism.  You’re now burning more calories, more fat, throughout the entire day – not just while you’re working out.  So picture this – you’ve gotten stronger, you’ve reached your ideal weight, and now you’re actually eating more – not less – than when you started this weight loss journey.  Now that’s a sustainable approach.  Oh, and as an added bonus, you’re now stronger, healthier, more vital and more of a bad ass than you were before.

 

Look, I know that was a bit of a long-winded answer.  But this is one of the biggest mistakes I see people over 50 making.  The prevailing wisdom has been to cut calories and do cardio for weight loss for so long that it’s seldom questioned.  But hopefully this discussion has given you enough information to make you pause and think about the healthiest way to reach your ideal body weight in a sustainable fashion.

 

Functional Movements

I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about functional movements.  You may be familiar with the term functional fitness – the fitness industry loves this term.  But basically functional fitness refers to exercise movements or programs that train the body to complete natural human movements.

 

Your body is an amazing machine! It was designed to move in many different ways. Your body should be capable of walking, running, jumping, hinging, squatting, pushing, pulling, lunging, climbing, picking things up and putting them into overhead spaces, bending, twisting, balancing, swimming, and even pirouetting! You should be capable of short intense bursts of energy, as well as longer slower efforts.

 

Unfortunately, many of us in the over fifty crowd have lost most of these abilities. There are several reasons for this, but the most prevalent reason is inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle. Experts in movement agree that humans have seven functional (or primal) movement patterns. The seven functional movement patterns are: Squat, Lunge, Push, Pull, Hinge, Twist, and Gait.

 

Way back when our ancestors had to master all these movements simply for survival. If you couldn’t make the long trek to the hunting ground (Gait), then throw your spear (Lunge, Twist, Push), then lift and carry (Squat, Hinge, Pull, Gait) your prey back to camp… you were going hungry that night. While most of us no longer need these types of survival skills (Uber Eats will bring whatever you want right to your door), your body has not caught up to these modern times, and the inability to correctly move in these functional patterns can severely impact our health. Take another look at each of these movements and evaluate where you are today, and where you could use some improvement.

 

1. Squat

You should be able to perform a bodyweight squat. To do this stand with your feet shoulder width apart, toes pointed slightly outward. Start the movement by sending your hips back and down while maintaining a neutral spine. Your knees track over your toes and you lower until your hip crease is parallel with (or lower than) your knees. Squeeze your glutes and hamstrings and rise back to standing. If you don’t have this movement available to you, try squatting to a chair or other raised surface and work on getting a little lower as you progress. The problem could be mobility related (as opposed to strength related), in which case see the Improve Mobility section above. If you can do body weight squats, it’s time to add some load and get stronger!

 

2. Lunge

The most common version of this is the forward lunge. Keeping the back and spine neutral, simply step forward with one foot and bend your back knee until it gently touches the ground. Push off the forward foot explosively to return to the original position and lunge forward with the other leg. If you can’t complete a full lunge, practice partial lunging until you’ve mastered the movement. Once you’ve mastered the forward lunge, it’s time to add load to get stronger in the movement!

 

3. Push

The best test here is the humble pushup. Most people are familiar with this movement. To perform lay on the ground with your hands next to your chest. Brace your core and push your hands into the ground until you’ve raised your body and your elbows are locked out. Your ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders should be in a straight line. Lower yourself with control. If you can’t do a pushup, try to do them from your knees until your strong enough to do them from your toes. Once you’ve mastered the pushup, you’re ready to graduate to the bench press to increase your pushing strength.

 

4. Pull

The gold standard for this movement is the king of body-weight exercises – the pullup. This is fairly straight-forward: hang from a bar and pull yourself up until your chin is over the bar and then lower with control. If you can’t do a pull up, you can use a heavy band to assist (or there are machines in many gyms that mimic this), or you can do pullup negatives to practice. To perform a pullup negative, stand on a stool or bench to get your chin over the bar. Remove your feet from the bench and lower slowly. Once you’ve mastered a set of 10 pullups (congratulations!), you can add weight to you body for added resistance.

 

5. Hinge

The best test of the hinge is a deadlift, which is simply lifting an object from the ground. Place an appropriate object on the ground in front of you (this is often a barbell). With feet shoulder-width apart, unlock your knees and hinge forward until your hands reach your knees. From here, keeping your back neutral, hips and shoulders sink down together until you reach the barbell (or object). Now we’ll reverse those motions. Keeping our core braced and our arms straight, hips and shoulders will rise together until the hands reach the knees (your barbell should stay close to your body, even lightly grazing your shins on the accent), at that point stand fully erect. As you get more proficient with this movement, add more load to increase your strength.

 

6. Twist

Twist refers to trunk rotation, and one of the best body weight tests for this is called the wood chop. To perform this movement, start with your feet should-width apart (a little wider is ok) and unlock your knees. Keep a neutral spine (see a pattern here?) and the chest up, clasp hands and lift both straight arms diagonally across your body toward the ceiling, then bring them down to the other side of your body. You should be able to remain stable throughout this exercise; both feet stay planted, and the spine is straight.

 

7. Gait

Gait refers to walking, jogging, running, sprinting…skipping, etc. This is perhaps the most common of the movements and you should be practicing some form of this daily.

 

These essential movement patterns have deep and primal roots and affect your health and wellness in profound ways. Look for opportunities to improve these seven functional movements every day and your body (and your mind) will thank you!

 

Broc Update

OK, so if you’ve listened to any of the other Coach’s Corner episodes, you know that one of my clients is a fellow podcaster.  His name is Broc Edwards and he’s the creator and host of the Midlife Mastery podcast, and he’s on a mission to get in the best shape of his life.  He suggested that we each do periodic updates on our journey together on or respective podcasts.  Me from the coach’s perspective, and him of course from the client’s perspective.  If you’d like to listen to his updates, you can check him out at www.midlifemasterypodcast.com.

 

So just to catch you up, Broc has already been through a 12 week what I call foundation phase.  The intent of this phase was to re-acquaint Broc with some of the barbell movements that he hasn’t done in a while, and to get good at the basic movements.  So the weights were relatively light and the volume relatively high, we were looking more for neurological adaptations more than actual strength adaptations in that phase – although we still applied the principles of progressive overload – that is we added a little bit of weight to his lifts each session.  That phase was three times a week, and each session was a full body workout.

 

Three weeks ago Broc transitioned into his first actual strength phase.  And this is very classic three sets of five reps of the major compound lifts – namely the squat, bench press, overhead press, deadlift and bent over barbell row, with a little bit of accessory work like one arm farmer carries sprinkled in.  We’re still at three sessions per week, and each session is still a full body session, and we’re adding a little bit of weight to each of his exercises every session.  This type of strength training is a basic staple as far as programming goes, and if you’re interested in geeking out on the programming side of things I recently had Andy Baker on the show we did a deep dive into strength training programming and progressions, and you can check that out at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode70.

 

The basic idea in this initial strength phase is to see how far we can go before Broc plateaus.  Obviously we can’t add weight each session indefinitely, sooner or later he’s going to reach his max – he won’t be able to recover enough to complete the next sessions prescribed weights.  And when that happens we’ll change up his programming so that he’s not doing a full body workout every session.  But for now he’s progressing nicely, getting stronger in each of his lifts.  As he finishes up his third week we’ll move into a deload week for his fourth week – which simply means we’ll reduce the weights to about 60-ish percent of what he was doing and give his body a chance to fully recover and get ready for the next wave.

 

Now deload weeks can be tricky for some clients.  There seems to be a temptation to do one of two things: either blow them off completely (since the work seems so trivial), or more common – and worse yet – is to add weight or reps, again since it seems too easy.  But deload weeks are a useful tool with this type of strength training.  Most importantly they promote recovery (remember we build muscle during recovery), but they also help prevent burnout and reduce the risk over injury.  And they can help postpone the dreaded plateau.  So I’ve asked Broc to honor his deload week next week, and just focus on moving with perfect form and allow his body to fully recover and get ready to get back to the heavy weights the week after.

 

Nutritionally Broc has recently plateaued in his weight loss.  He’s down about 12 pounds since we started together, which is fantastic, but his body seems to have settled into this new weight.  Which is not at all uncommon.  The human body loves stasis, and in his case he his body has found a new baseline.  My training software synchs with MyFitnessPal – which is a food tracking app that counts calories as well as macros – protein, carbohydrates, and fats, which allows mw to see exactly what and how much Broc is eating.  In reviewing his recent food logs, it looks like he’s eating about 250 to 300 calories over his daily goal, so we talked about ways he can cut roughly 300 calories a day from his current intake to get the scale moving in the desired direction again.

 

If you’ll remember back in I think the very first Coach’s Corner I talked about the difficulties of working towards a weight loss and strength gain goal simultaneously.  In Broc’s case his primary goal is weight loss, with a secondary goal being strength gain.  Long term I’d love to see Broc get to his goal weight and then maybe switch his focus to strength gain, which would mean actually moving into a slight calorie surplus which would be necessary to support serious muscle gain.  But for now the focus is on getting his weight moving downwards again, and we’ll simultaneously work at getting him stronger as much as possible while he’s in a calorie deficit.

 

 

My Guilty Pleasure

OK, full disclosure here.  I don’t typically recommend processed foods, and I personally try to eat as few processed foods as possible.  But bear with me here.  My favorite podcast is a show called Mind Pump and they do a daily show on all things fitness and nutrition.  And one of their sponsors is this company called Magic Spoon, and they make – in their own words – healthy breakfast cereal that tastes too good to be true.  Basically they’ve created a cereal that tastes like the sugary cereals that most of us ate as kids, except that it’s high protein, grain and gluten-free, sugar-free, soy free, and naturally flavored.  They claim it’s child-like cereal for grownups.

 

Anyways, I listen to this podcast every day, and after hearing this advertisement over and over I thought what the heck – I absolutely love breakfast cereal, but I never eat it because – well… most of what’s on the grocery store shelf is metabolic poison.  So I caved in, ordered a combo four pack, and I gotta admit, these guys are on to something!  The cereal really is delicious, and has that nostalgic taste of childhood breakfasts.  And it turns out they come in a bunch of flavors.  They have fruity (very similar to fruit loops), peanut butter (one of my favorites), cocoa, cinnamon, maple waffle (which is surprisingly delicious).  Let’s see, what else?  Banana, Strawberry, Blueberry, Cookies and Cream (who remembers Cookie Crisps?).  I think that’s all of them.

 

Now if you’ve listened to any of my past podcasts before you probably know I’m not a big fan of processed foods.  And let’s make no mistake – this is a highly processed food.  But let’s take a look at the nutrition info and then dig into the ingredients.  So this is what originally caught my attention – this cereal is legit high protein.  Depending on the flavor, a serving of Magic Spoon cereal ranges from 12-14 grams of protein.  A serving size is one cup, and I’ve never eaten one cup of cereal in my entire life!  I typically eat two or two and a half cups as a serving, which come out to about 25-30 grams of protein – before I add my milk.  Let’s take a look at the nutrition label.  Like I said, the serving size is one cup.  And that cup has 8 grams of fat, 14 grams of carbohydrate – with zero added sugars, and 13 grams of protein, and totals out at 150 calories per serving.

 

Not too shabby for breakfast cereal.  But where does all this protein come from?  And how can it be sugar free and still taste sweet?  I mean, what sorcery is this?  Let’s take a look at the ingredients.  First up is Milk Protein Blend, which consists of whey protein isolate and casein.  If you’re not familiar with casein, this is the main protein in milk, and is commonly used in cheese making.  OK, so that’s where our protein is coming from.  Next up is their sweetener blend, which is made up of monk fruit and allulose.  And now we know where the sweetness comes from.  We’ll give monk fruit a pass, but allulose – which occurs naturally in small amounts in foods like figs and maple syrup – is in fact an ultra-processed artificial sweetener.  While this is of course deemed safe by the FDA, the jury is still out on artificial sweeteners in general, with many being correlated with negative health issues such as poor gut health, chronic disease, and even weight gain.

 

Next up on the ingredient list is their oil blend which is high-oleic sunflower oil and avocado oil, and these both fall into the healthy fats category.  The rest of the ingredients are things like chicory root inulin – which is a form of prebiotic fiber, and things like peanut flour, cocoa powder, vegetable juice, turmeric, and spirulina – depending on what flavor we’re talking about.

 

So I’m gonna give this a thumbs up on the protein and fat ingredients, but a thumbs down on sweetener.  But for what this is – namely a highly processed delicious child-like cereal – I have to admit it’s my new guilty pleasure.  If you’re in a hurry, or you’re having a hard time hitting your protein targets, this is a great option.  Better yet, if you’re eating pretty much any other cereal – or your kids or grandkids are - you might want to consider swapping out for Magic Spoon.

 

Once last thing – just so you know this stuff isn’t cheap… at least not when compared to your average grain and sugar supermarket cereal.  A box of Magic Spoon cereal without any discounts is cost about ten bucks.  And each box has five servings, so that’s about $2 per serving.  As I mentioned earlier, I typically eat two to two and a half servings per sitting, so my cost is about $5 per serving.  And that seems really high if I compare it other cereals.  But I don’t really eat other cereals – because there’s simply no nutritionally redeeming value in them.  But now I can enjoy a nostalgic bowl of sweet cereal guilt free as treat from time to time.

 

 

Book Review

This week I want to review a fun book titled Diet for Great Sex: Food for Male and Female Sexual Health by Christine DeLozier.  Christine was on this show back in May of this year, and you can go back and listen to that episode wherever you get podcasts or at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode49. Christine is an acupuncturist and herbalist who specializes in sexual health. She holds a Master’s Degrees in Acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and counseling - and is a certified Holistic Nutrition Counselor.  She uses scientific evidence to uncover the best dietary habits for great sex by merging modern science with traditional Chinese medicine. In this book she breaks down what she calls the holy trinity of great sex from a nutrition standpoint – and they are hormone balance, nerve integrity, and blood or vascular health.

 

Hormones are fairly obvious and where most of us would start a conversation around diet and sexual health and wellbeing.  And Christine discusses how we should eat in order to optimize our hormones for sexual performance.  Next up is the nervous system, and Christine notes that as we age our nerve impulses become weaker and slower, and take longer to respond to stimuli. What this means for sex is that communication between the genitals, spinal cord and brain is not as good, which can result in less arousal and less pleasure. So she talks about diet tips for older folks to improve nerve conduction and the critical of antioxidants and omega 3 fatty acids for keeping our nervous system healthy.  She then moves on to discuss the role of optimizing your diet for vascular health.  When our blood vessels are damaged they simply can’t deliver adequate blood flow to the sexual organs – and we definitely want that nutrient rich blood to get to the right places at the appropriate time.

 

Of course no book on diet and sex would be complete without a section on aphrodisiacs, and Christine has a great section on both the history and efficacy of common – and not so common – aphrodisiacs. There is a ton of great nutrition advice in this book, as well as some great recipe ideas.  One of the things that struck me was the fact that eating for sexual health looks a whole lot like eating for optimal health in general.  Another thing that surprised me was Christine’s recommendations for date night dinner.  If you’re anticipating a romantic evening with your significant other, what you eat for dinner can have a big impact on your sexual performance.  When I think of date night dinner, I’m typically thinking of something decadent.  Maybe a giant steak, a couple of glasses of wine, and yes please to that luscious dessert.  But none of that is going to optimize my hormones, nervous system, or vascular system.  I’d be much better served having a green salad with a small piece of salmon, alcohol in moderation, and perhaps some pomegranate and berries with fresh ground cinnamon and cloves.

 

This is a great book and deserves a place on your bookshelf.  I’ll drop a link to the book as well as the podcast episode I did with Christine which you can find at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode76.

 

Podcast Recap

Four weeks ago I interviewed Dr. Gabrielle Lyon.  Dr. Lyon’s is on the front lines of the muscle-centric medicine movement and her message is that muscle is the organ of longevity, and in fact she states that our problem is lees that we’re overweight as an older population, but rather the real problem lies in the fact that we are under muscled.    This was a very thought-provoking conversation and I personally took a ton of info away.  One of my main takeaways from the conversation was how much protein people over 50 should be eating per meal.  As a nutrition coach I’ve learned that as we age our protein requirements increase, but it wasn’t until this conversation that I really understood why that is.  But basically our ability to sense protein decreases as we age, and therefore we need to send a stronger protein signal for building muscle, which is why she recommends a minimum of 30 grams of protein per meal.  Anything less doesn’t create a strong enough signal for us to fully utilize the muscle building properties of the protein we eat.  If you want to hear the full conversation and get more details, I strongly suggest listening to this episode.  You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode72.  You can also learn more about Dr. Lyon’s work and practice at her website www.drgabriellelyon.com.

 

Three weeks ago I spoke with Dr. Stefan Zavalin about the dangers of prolonged sitting.  Dr. Zavalin is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and workplace consultant whose mission is to try and change the culture of sitting in our workplace – which for many of us these days is home.  To be honest when Dr. Zavalin reached out to me I was unsure this would be a topic that would resonate – but I’m so glad I had him on the show.  I think we all know that prolonged sitting is bad for us – but I personally had no idea just how bad it was.  Nor did I realize how much we as a society actually sit.  But here was the most alarming thing I heard was that A) the average US office worker sits for 11 hours or more a day, and B) sitting for that amount of time increases your chance of early mortality by 40%.  But here’s the real scary part – when researchers of that study factored in individuals who performed regular moderate to high intensity exercise, their risk of premature death was not lessened! In other words, those of us that are active runners and gym-goers - but then sit for most of the rest of the day - carry the same risk of premature death.  You can tune in to this episode at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode73.

 

Two weeks ago 70 year old Shelly Stettner was my guest.  Shelly actually came up in my podcast with Andy Baker.  Andy is Shelly’s coach and he talked a good bit about how impressive Shelly is as a competitive powerlifter.  Shelly had never touched a barbell in her life before age 65, in fact at that point in her life she considered herself to be a frail old lady and was actually considering retirement home options.  Fast forward 5 years later to today, and she’s a national powerlifting champion.  This was a fun conversation and was so inspiring and really left me with the feeling that you’re never too old and it’s never too late to start.  At one point in the interview Shelly states that she’s stronger than she’s ever been and has more energy now at age 70 than she’s ever had in her life.  Again, you can find this episode wherever you listen to podcasts or at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode74.

 

Last week Dr. Alyssa Kuhn on as a guest and we talked all about arthritis – specifically osteoarthritis.  Alyssa is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and founder of Keep the Adventure Alive where her mission is to educate people that adventure is still possible with arthritis and that surgery is not inevitable.  I personally had very little in-depth knowledge in this area, and Dr. Kuhn talks about the prevalence of arthritis, what traditional treatments are usually prescribed, and gives hope to people who may have been told in the past that pain free movement simply is off the table for them.  If you or a loved one is suffering from osteoarthritis, you don’t want to miss this one.  You can listen to this episode wherever you get podcasts or at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode 75.

 

OK, that’s our show for today folks – I’ll put links to everything we talked about in the show notes and you can find that over at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode76, and don’t forget to check out www.silveredgefree.com for more great free resources on how to live you healthiest, strongest life after 50.  In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you.  You can always leave a comment on this episode page, or feel free to email me with any comments or questions from todays show.  Send emails to coach@silveredgefitness.com.  I want to thank you so much for spending your time with me today, I’ll be back next week with my regular interview format.  That’s it for today, so until next time, stay strong!