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Cut down on the salt. Try your favorite seasonings instead of salt. Also, be sure when you are buying your next batch of seasonings you check for the no salt versions. You can also combine some of your favorite seasonings to take on a whole new flavor. Some varities include mustard, peppers, chili, garlic, oregano, thyme and paprika. So spice up your recipe tonight and leave that salt behind. You’ll be glad you did.

I am celebrating an upgrade in my exercise program, one more  magnificent step on my long Lyme journey, from being almost totally incapacitated to back to my vigorous active lifestyle. I took my own advice of the other day and joined my local Y on Saturday. Yesterday, I enjoyed my first real weight workout in a very long time. Today, I am celebrating the fact that I got up and am not even stiff and sore.

I gave muscles all over my body a good workout, then helped family with a major wood chipping job in the afternoon. What joy to find my body so capable! I took one of my Agel FLX packets afterwards — don’t know if that was the reason I am not stiff this morning but will experiment and let you know.

Now, you may not be ready to do a really intense workout at a gym– BUT, I ssure you your body is ready and waiting to surprise you with it’s amazing capacity! I certainly credit the path to fitness activities I devised while I had Lyme and my history of being a regular exerciser with the delight of finding how fit I still am.

So, my message for this morning is — no matter how out of shape you may be, no matter how old or young you are, no matter how long it has been since you did any “exercise,” no matter whether you like to exercise or not, the time and effort you invest in your path to fitness will pay you dividends way beyond anything you can imagine.

Do yourself a great huge favor — or maybe better said, give yourself a gift of love — MOVE your body more today than you did yesterday. Move a little more or a lot more, but whatever you do move! 

As I write this it’s not quite 4:30 in the afternoon and dusk is rapidly transitioning to darkness. It’s also been very raw and chilly today; we are embarking on the Great Temptation Season, the temptation to eat more and move less. Oh, oh! That’s not good news for the senior exerciser or the senior wannabe exerciser.

But that doesn’t mean you toss in the towel — or the napkin — and imitate bears from now until spring. The major difference between bear hibernating and human hibernating is that the bears stop eating and we eat more.

But, not you, not this year. You are a committed and determined follower of your path to fitness! You will do whatever it takes to stay or get fitter and healthier this winter. There is no reason you can’t greet the vernal equinox with a fit health body and a great big grin on your face because you feel so great.

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Make sure you do some outside walking every day. If you live where it’s sometimes icy underfoot, there are nifty little grippers, sort of mini-crampons, that you can purchase for your boots. Humans have lived in close proximity with Mother Nature for eons; it is my hunch that spending so much time indoors is part of the reason we have so much depression in the US. Research is also consistently showing that we need 15 minutes or so of direct sun exposure on our skin every day to ensure adequate supplies of vitamin D.

Invest in some great outdoor clothing. It will enable you be very comfortable in really low temperatures. Besides being so functional, you’ll look great!

I love being outdoors in the winter; I find the scenery so very beautiful, the quiet surroundings are almost mystical. It’s peaceful in a different way than during the vibrant growing seasons of the year.

2. Join your local Y. The price of membership for seniors is very reasonable. In addition to facilities for a workout, you get trained folks who can help you get the maximum benefit from your exercise sessions. The possibility of new friends will also be found.

3. Use your local mall for walking. Many of the across the country open early to accomodate walkers. A couple of dangers about mall walking: the food court and the damage you can do to your checking account if you add shopping to your walking trips.

4. Find an exercise program on television and become a faithful follower.

5. Soon you’ll be able to purchase my video downloads on www.mypathtofitness.com and learn how to make every day activities exercise and fitness enhancing.

6. Walk around in your house. My grandfather, in his seventies and stricken with Parkinson’s, would proudly tell us about walking a mile every dayi n the circle of his living room, dining room, and kitchen. It must have been boring, but bless him for his courage and determination. My Mom, very visually impaird due to macular degeneration does her mile every day here on the coast of Maine. What great role models I’ve been blessed with.

If you’ve got stairs in your home, climb them as fequently as possible! Lifing your body against gravity is great for preseving and building muscle.

7. Go dancing!

My cozy home is now totally enclosed in darkness. I feel quite snuggled in my cave. I’m going to relax and finishing sipping my light latte. Til next time! 

If you are one of the millions who have that thought… I want to stop you right in your thoughts. Cancel that thought!

If you think of exercise as hard, guess what you’ll never do it. One of the very first steps on your path to fitness is to become aware of the impact your thinking process has on your waistline. Before you change your body, you’ll need to change your mind. If you persist in thinking of exercise as hard or unpleasant, I guarantee you will never, never, ever maintain a vibrant, healthy body for the rest of your life.

Let me give you an example from my own experience. Right now, I’m in the process of really building up my internet business, but like you I wasn’t born with a joy stick in my hand. I am not a techie. I don’t have an inner child that loves to play with machinery, technology, and similar things. But, if I am going to be successful enough in the internet world to keep myself in silk and cashmere, there’s “techie” stuff I have to get good at.

I have been observing myself avoiding activities that need to be done (for me and my benefit!) but because I feel inept, I put them off. Sounds a bit like an exercise program when you don’t like exercise, doesn’t it?

What’s my strategy? I’ve got a couple. One is to stop thinking or saying that I don’t like to do it. I’m re-framing the way I think about it; I don’t have to do it. I’m choosing to do it. I’m staying focused on the bigger goal — a successful internet business and seeing the steps I need to master/manage as steps on my journey. I’m giving myself permission to be inexpert. I’m asking for help from people who love the techie stuff. They are always gracious.

I’m rewarding myself for completing activities. I know that as I get more adept and see the benefits acrue, I’ll more and more enjoy my techie education. It’s the same with exericse! Let’s re-frame that…

When you were a kid, what did you do when you went out to play? Right, you ran around, climbed trees, jumped rope. You were moving and called it ”play.” What physical activities can you add  to your lifeor increase today — or at the very latest tomorrow -and call it play?

From now on, you never have to exercise — ever! I do lovingly invite you to joyously to play every single day for the rest of your life! 

Remember being a senior in high school? Or college? Being a senior was soooo cool. You were the top of the heap; cock of the walk. Totally excited about graduating and moving up to the great adventures in front of you.

Why not adopt that same attitude about being a senior now? Why should being a life senior be associated with being out of shape, boring and decrepit? Why not be, think, and live as a totally fit, life-is-a-blast, I’ve got such great things in front of me, life is an adventure life senior?

As I see it, the only thing I’ve done to become a life senior is not die yet. That is not just a good thing; it’s a great thing! Since most of us don’t want to die, why does the culture hold such negative images about being a “senior citizen?” What’s with that?

I have NO intention of being a “senior citizen!” I choose to be a life senior, having a great adventure, learning new things, being fit — why not be fitter than you’ve ever been before? 

Got anything better to do with your time? Having hosted the organism that causes Lyme disease for the last seven years, I know that life is way, way, way better when one is fit and healthy! 

Lyme has necessitated that I spend a few (thankfully) nights in a hospital. Believe me, I’d much rather stay in a tent — or a really nice hotel. I also know that being really fit before I contracted Lyme disease has been very beneficial in enabling my body to withstand the disease.

I hear some of my contemporaries commenting about buying a one-story house.YIKES! How’s that for making a plan to be disabled? I’d recommend buying a five-story home and running up and down those stairs multiple times a day.

My experience with Lyme has taught me how terribly, terribly important fitness is for life seniors. Enjoy your workout today. Hey, why not have a “playout” today? You’re a senior. You rock!

Hello and welcome to my very first post on our new blog. My path to fitness is a website created just for you, no matter how old you are, no matter how fit or unfit you are, whether you are interested in senior fitness or baby boomer fitness, or just plain interested in living longer and living better.

 Over the weeks and months to come you will get to know me, Rita Losee, Woman of Adventure, Doctor of Success and learn about the amazing places my life’s journey has taken me — including the opportunity to be a part of this website. But right now, I want to refelct a bit on some programming I heard yesterday on the Today Show. The segment was about stress in the lives of Americans.

The figure that caught my ears was that 32 percent of Americans say they are afflicted with “extreme stress.” Yeaow! And to think stress doesn’t really exist, except as we create it in our minds. That may strike you as a radical statement, but did you ever see stress, touch it, bump into it in the middle of the night. Stress isn’t like trees or automoblies, or the sweat that runs down your face after a good workout. It’s something that exists in our minds and in our culture. In one sense, it’s not even real.  And yet, it is related to a very high precentage of doctor’s visits and the illnesses that kill us.

Now, when an automobile nearly runs over me while I’m crossing the street, do I react? Absolutely, I go directly into fight of flight. Thank goodness, or pedestrian fatalities would sky-rocket.  Are the reactions of my body “real?” Absolutely! We can measure the changes in my pulse or in my breathing. It’s my perception of danger that triggers the physiological reaction. Our preceptions are absolutely key to what happens in our lives.

What happens if I go around telling myself and everyone else I’m stressed? You bet. I feel more stressed! And the people I’m interacting with feel more stressed — because even though there’s a probability that I’m making up the danger, perceiving danger, I can still pass it along to everyone one around me — and I don’t even need to say a word. People can feel the stress reaction in others.

We’re putting the emphasis on the thing — stress — we don’t want. We may even be perceiving danger when there really isn’t any and magnifying it by our focus on it. What we want to focus on is what we want! If we want to be relaxed and at ease, we need to think about, talk about, practice, and feel being at ease.

Years ago, I learned how to relax while climbing the face of a rock cliff with nothing but 350 feet or air beneath me. The danger was only perceived as I was quite safely and competently roped up. Did I get tense and sweaty? You bet! But I knew that if I was going to make the move over the seeming abyss, I needed to relax. And so I learned. And you can learn, too. No matter what is “real” in your life or experience.

 Boy! I can cetainly run off once I get into it, can’t I? Just for today, no matter what happens, if you feel yourself starting to get stressed, take some slow deep breaths, really focusing on the act of breathing for 2 - 3 minutes and watch what happens. You’ll feel more relaxed. Another thing you might try is, when you catch yourself feeling stressed, gently remind yourself, “I choose to feel relaxed.”

What you think about and talk about comes about! Larry Winget taught me that years ago. It is a privilege to share that thought and these pages with you!

Enthusiastically, Rita

MyPathToFitness.com is a new site devoted to increasing the health and fitness of everyone, especially those of us striving to enjoy the best years of our lives past 50. We are delighted that Rita Losee, ScD, RN is here to guide us on our path to fitness. Here is to your success as you strive to meet your goals for your own personal My Path to Fitness.

Mike Remer

Administrator