Happiness Is Fitting into a 'Free Size' Dress

Have you ever thought about the dress sizes? I certainly have. One of the most bizarre size they have is the Indian 'Free Size' label. I have often thought: what does it mean? Who are these people who can fit into them? What size are they? Now I know! They are somewhere between small and medium size people. 

So, I have lost some weight. It is given. Contemplations on active aging has gotten me into thinking about my health and about my size as well. It has taken nearly four years, but now I can say that I fit into 'Free Size'. It is also proven by that fact that I recently acquired a free sized dress and it looks good on me. 

It is a wondrous feeling to take a dress from the rack, put it on and I fits. Yes! With the big exclamation mark. That's how it feels. On the other hand, the free size can also look like a house on you. And after putting all that hard work into completely changing your lifestyle by discarding everything you knew before and re-educating yourself about what you could eat and not, I want to enjoy my size. 

The only way to do it, is to put on a dress that is the right size. And then it is a question if a 'Free Size' is the right size. Hah! It fits. How wonderful.

So, here are two people wearing the 'Free Size' dress that fits them both. The other one is small and the other one is now a medium size person. Of course neither can really fit their breasts in as the dress is from India and obviously declares that Indian women have smaller breast size that the Western women, but you get the idea. The dress is the same, but it looks different depending on the size of the person who put it on. 

I am so happy, I tried. Now I know that I am a real person and if anyone says that I am not the right size, I will answer: but, but, I do fit into the 'Free Size'. Do you? 

Obviously, it is debatable if the free size is the size we should aim at or not. But it was good fun anyway. And now that I know, I know that I might live longer because people who fit the free sizes can smile at the dress shops. And smiling makes us more positive and positivity makes us live longer. Right?  

So, I am obviously promoting good health, here and now, and greatly enjoying the experience of fitting into 'Free Size' at last.

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Listening to Rowena on Fitness and Active Aging

You know how sometimes when someone asks you about how you are and you just feel like saying to them that it is none of their business or really shocking them and saying that you are not well instead of being polite and saying with a non-expression that you are fine, thank you!

Well what about saying: "I am happy, feeling good and having a awesome day and in a business of infecting my awesomeness to everyone around me?" Not only that, but you do it on Monday!

Rowena Szeszeran-McEvoy stands in front of the eager audience from the Westside Business Women's Breakfast gathering at Springfield Hotel and urges us to spread the message of health and happiness like if it was "telling the truth in advance." It is not lying; it is about resetting yourself with a new program! It is about deciding your own future by choosing how you feel right now.

She heads the MAX International College for Fitness Professionals and is at present apologizing for her business which of course is the fitness profession. She is inspiring us into choosing a new and simple approach to health and fitness that can really make a difference.

Rowena explains that since she started in the fitness business at the age of 14, it has become obvious that the model the fitness industry is advocating to the public is not working. It is proven as we all know that people have become fatter and unhealthier in the last few decades. The complicated equipments and the confusing nutritional advice we have gotten from the industry is not showing expected results.

She stresses that we are also in a need of an attitude shift about aging. We now know that it is not about slowing down but maintaining and keeping up.


We were given a 'high performance vehicle' at birth, she says. It needs 'high performance fuel' to be maintained in good condition. We do it with our car, why not with our body!

At the age of 20, we have a jet engine, at 30 a V8 engine, at 40 a V6. Then we have a 4-cylinder and as we age it declines to a lawn mower. Her tips are about maintaining the size of the engine. It is a simple plan:

1. Change your attitude - Be Happy! Sing it with the beat!

Rowena urges you to look in the mirror every morning telling yourself that you feel good. With the song. This actually makes you feel good and happy and works on resetting your attitude about the day ahead. Good fun!

2. Drink more water till you got clear wee.

According to the industry advice we need 1 liter of water per 25kg of weight. The easy way is to check your wee and if it is clear, you are doing great.

3. Eat more fruit and vegetables.

How you know that you are not getting enough of fiber? Every child knows it. You need to be doing number twos in the toilet, once or twice a day. If not, eat more fruit and vegetables. How simple rule is that.

Rowena urges us to eat "for performance and for pleasure": the rule is to eat 3/4 out of the ground and 1/4 whatever. It is not that anything is really prohibited. It is about the portion size. Too much of the good stuff makes you feel uncomfortable, like 3kg of broccoli makes for a really bad day, she says demonstrating with an example.

4. Human body is meant to move - get buffed four times a day for a minute.

The easiest attitude for everybody to pick up on fitness is the "as little as possible" attitude. We are better off getting smart about it.

According to Rowena, we do not get fit unless we 'buff'. Instead of walking 30 minutes, get buffing. This is not to say that walking is good for you. Implementing the same attitude to getting fit as brushing your teeth gets you started. For a few times a day (she recommends four), run in one place with high knees until you buff. It takes only four minutes of your day. For it is not in the length of the exercise but in the effectivity of it.

5. Muscles respond to overload - lift heavy things once a week.

A few decades ago, 1/3 of women had osteoporosis at the age of 65, now 1/3 of women have osteoporosis at the age of 45.

According to Rowena it is like fine tuning your engine. It is about maintaining the size of it. This is where we need the change of attitude about aging.

The easiest thing for falls prevention is to stand on one leg. We should do it every now and then to test for balance. The other thing is to lift heavy things once a week. It forces the muscles to get stronger. Lifting your own body weight by doing push-ups once a week is suggested.

Rowena concluded with urging us to take the common sense attitude to fitness and health. It is all in the attitude and making yourself believe in yourself and your own capacity to make your own decisions about your own health and aging. How inspiring is that!

So, girls lets put on a new attitude and change our lives. Lets get what we want and surprise the doctors and the world.

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It Gets Better With Age With the Help of the AgeLoc Technology Or So My Mother Says.

Recently my mother called me. She declared that she just wanted to tell me that she wasn't going to pass away very soon at all. In fact, she said that she would see her great grandchildren grow to adulthood.

This whole getting old and if it was getting better by age business started with me traveling to Finland to support my daughter for the birth of my grandson.

At times like this, it often seems, people think about the passing of the time, the generational flow and our journey on to the next life. This is quite natural.

In our family, however, we are used to longevity and do not expect our elders to die before the age of 100. So, if my mother will make it to the age of 105, like her own grandmother did, my grandson will be 24 years old.

Good for her!

In fact it will be a little miracle, according to the doctors. However, I am inclined not to believe in miracles and I would say that it would be a scientific success story.

As it is my mother is basing her declaration on the success of an anti-aging science called AgeLoc Technology. Products that are developed in line with the approach identify those most important genes that affect our aging process, compare the old and young gene expression and screen for natural ingredients that can be used to reset the old gene expression to behave as if it was young again.

It is like if you came home and found it flooded. What would you do? Find a bucket or a mop and start shoveling water away or would you actually go shut the water flow? Go to the source?

That is what AgeLoc Technology does. It targets the sources of aging or whatever it is looking to repair, the genes that change their expression as we age. All the other anti-aging approached take on the task of mopping and only touch the surface of the issue.

There is a lot of science behind the AgeLoc approach. Many pairs of identical twins have been examined and the question raised of why, despite their identical genes, they end up looking different as they age. The solution is that their life choices have contributed to how their genes express themselves and resulted in different looks. The other one might have smoked, eaten too much sugar or otherwise had unhealthy lifestyle while the other has really taken care of his/her health.


So, my mother has a very bad chronic pain due to her long existing back problems. She is a favored medical case and eats a lot of strong prescription pain killers. Something that would make a normal person fall on their face right away. There is real concern there about the possibility of long life, there. Well, she has already made it to 80.

With the medication, comes many side effects. One being sweating. She cannot lie down, stand or sit without pain. Walking somewhat eases the pain.

Last year I suggested that she start taking AgeLoc Vitality from Pharmanex. It had been very successful in helping me, so I thought mum would also benefit.

It took her a couple of months to negotiate her way to a full dose of six tablets each morning. She said that already four of them was helping her to be more alert.

However, we all insisted that she take the full recommended dose.

Not even a week had gone and she called me to report that her sweating had been subsided and now was more like a normal person would have.

I commended her and said that she should definitely continue, if the results were so beneficial.

When she called me a few weeks ago to tell me that she was confident that she would have many more years ahead of her, she had just been to the doctor to hear the results of her blood tests.

Apparently, the doctor had been amazed that the results were so good, like with young people.

My mother immediately linked it to her Vitality as that was the only thing that had changed since the last tests were done. How cool is that!

I am so happy to hear my mother so happy. It goes around in generations and the positivity of it flows through the whole of our family, downwards from generation to generation. And she hasn't even tried R2 yet.

So, with the right healthy approach, it can get better with age even with some grave difficulties. I definitely recommend looking into trying the products developed with AgeLoc Technology.

Here is a link to where you can get some:
www.activeaging.nsedreams.com



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Interpreting My AgeLoc Vitality Diary

Lessening of vitality is something most of us relate to as we age. I often find that by the time I have encountered all the hassles of the world during the course of a day, my energy levels are down and I find myself sitting on the couch, not wanting to get up, unable to take new initiative. I feel the need to just lie down and do nothing. According to research this is because of the Mitochondria, the energy power plants in the cells decline as we age.

Previously, the popular way to boosting our wellbeing and energizing us to live a more fulfilled life have been a few.

Exercise, that is one thing. It releases endorphins in the body and you feel better and fresher. But what if you just feel too tired to make the initiative? Just sitting on that couch is hard enough after a long day at work.

What about vitamin supplements? They ensure a good base of minerals in your body. Everybody should take them, it is said. There is a huge industry from pharmaceuticals to herbal remedies to choose from. But what if they only seem to give you an easier mindset and a good excuse to stay put on that coach with a false security in pretending that you have done something to boost your health. That is positive hey, and can in it's turn contribute to your wellbeing as positive outlook in life boosts your energy. But what if, after all that you still feel that you lack initiative to move from that couch? Well, join the club. It used to be my story.

Now, I am writing a new one with a powerful ingredient called Vitality, created with AgeLoc technology by the most cleaver minds in the world. And I am keeping a diary of my daily vitality rate in effort to see if the stuff really works. They give you your money back if it doesn't, so there must be some proof of it's superiority for otherwise the guarantee wouldn't be there.


In fact, in his uTube presentation 'Cellular Energy and Cellular Purification: The Science (two parts), Dr Mark Bartlett explains the human cellular Mitochondrial decline in plain English with an analogy from the symphony orchestra. According to science, there are clusters of genes that affect aging. The gene expression is like a symphony orchestra which as it is aging gets 'out of tune'. It needs returning. According to him, the new AgeLoc technology with it's advanced nano technology has been able to do just that by resetting the Mitochondria to a more youthful gene expression.


So far what I have experienced is proof enough for me of its superiority in the market. My experiment is positive and so uplifting that I decided to blog about it to share my good fortune.

I started to take Vitality (by Pharmanex) five weeks ago. I take the recommended dose, six tablets a day first thing in the morning. I have also shared vitamin supplements called LifePac with my daughter but will now start taking the recommended dose of LifePac Prime. It is specifically designed to supplement the vitamins and the minerals for the body of a person over 45. I also take Optimum Omega tablets.

To make my life as easy as possible I have downloaded Vitality App to my iPad. It includes diary where I can keep track of my vitality. I even get to grade it day by day from 1-5 and see the continuous graph moving along the top of my diary entries. What is really handy is that the App also reminds me three times a day to record my vitality score and feelings.

After starting to take the tablets, I had to experiment with the suitable dosage for me and when it was the best time to take them. I found that taking all the tablets in the morning, first thing, worked best for me.

I started from the drooping number 1 ( a man is basically sleeping in the picture) and after a week I had hit number 3, where the man is at least standing up and not falling. Steadily my vitality rose and by week five I am at number 5 and feeling fabulous.

I really felt the difference the other day, when we went to the city with my daughter. I have not been able to go shopping there for a long time because just being at the mall has been too draining. On Saturday two weeks ago, I not only spent a full day shopping, dining and walking in the crowded city, but afterwards when we came home I was ready for more. "Let's go to the movies", I suggested to my daughter. Her jaw literally dropped as she has not heard of such an incident for years. "Wow, mom, what's happened to you?"

Not only that, but now I come from work and ask her: "What are we going to do tonight?" This new development is making a huge difference in our lifestyle as I am still ready to rock after hours as well, just like I used to be in my younger days. Last week, I even felt compelled to buy me a new exercise outfit. So, now I am ready to walk the dog in a faster pace and look the part as well.

This is not all. At work, I get complements from my workmates on how I seem more energetic and happier. I even got an very nice complement from my doctor. He said that I look "years younger."

So here is some proof that we can age younger if given the right kind of ingredients. And I am hearing that there is a new tablet coming to the market in Australia called R2. This new invention from Pharmanex has two components, vitality through the day and detox at night while we sleep. Honestly, I cannot wait to see how it will be changing my life for the better, just like the Vitality has done.

I highly recommend this to everyone. Just email me on ejuusola@bigpond.net.au and I will organise some for you, too.
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Contemplating on Sugar Consumption as a Challenge to the Ideal of Active Aging

There has seldom been a book that is so widely discussed in my acquaintance than Sweet Poison; Why Sugar Makes You Fat by David Gillespie. It might be possible that people in Queensland are especially well acquainted with the book. It is written by a Brisbane lawyer who wanted to live a healthier life. Just this week the book has come up in my discussions with friends and  workmates at least twice daily.

In February, I had been told by my doctor that if I do not do anything to lower my sugar levels I would have Type II Diabetes and would have to start eating tablets. He said: “I believe that you can fix this, though”. So, I took his confidence in me seriously and thought that if it is about sugar, I should not eat any or at least the least amount possible.

What happened was that I started to lose weight without any apparent reason. It must be the sugar, I thought. I was quite happy about it, too. I thought that if losing weight is that easy, why not go for it with my whole being.

While discussing my experience on the my new sugarless life with a friend, she told me about Sweet Poison. She said that she had read it and that she found it really informative. I asked her, if it made her quit eating sugar. She said: “No, but it made me think!” Her enthusiasm about the book made me buy it and I also bought the Big Fat Lies, the third and the most recent book David Gillespie has written. It talks about fats and the diet industry. The second book The Sweet Poison Quit Plan; How to Kick the Sugar Habit and Lose Weight that includes recepies and a practical guide for quilting fructose from your diet is also a worthy buy.  

Sweet Poison is a book you cannot put away after starting it. I read it at one go and was totally rapped by the information it gave me. The book proves beyond doubt that there is a clear connection between sugar consumption and many modern illnesses. Something fishy is going on in the phenomenon that the type of sugar we produce and eat is slowly making us suffer from many previously unknown decides.

David Gillespie outlays the history of our sugar industry in a way that truly makes sense. The reader can draw connections between many agendas to sell products to us. On the other hand it is also a history of stubbornness of the researches to hold on to their convictions and leading whole generations to a single path of dieting vicious circle instead of being open minded about other researches’ findings. In the end it is all about money, anyway and who gets the highest profits through the industry.  I was of course already converted through my previous experiences with quitting my own sugar habit and found myself applauding my own smartness, which makes reading a book quite enjoyable.

Sweet Poison got me thinking how I had twice earlier lost a lot of weight and how the diet that I followed on both occasions was devoid of sugar. As a young woman in my late 20’s, I joined the Weight Watches and lost 22kg. My weight slowly built up again after family life and new children came along. However, before reading this book I had not realised the connection with sugar that the way I had planned my eating plans 30 years ago did not include it and that might have contributed to my weight loss without me acknowledging it as a factor.

The second time was a few years back, when I spent a few months in India. The vegan diet that I followed there at a retreat was also very low on sugar. I do remember going to McDonalds and drinking Coca Cola, once or twice, but I lost 7kg anyway with no apparent effort from my part. Not even a thought.

So, it turns out and according to this book “in the space of 150 years, we have gone from eating no added sugar to more than a kilogram a week”. And while once the sugar was “such a rare resource” that our bodies did not think to build an ‘off-switch’, we now can eat sugar to our hearts content with no natural control. Sweet Poison goes a long way to explain why this is so and how to become sensible about your sugar consumption. As with my friend, it might not make you quit your sugar habit, but it will challenge you into making a serious attempt in reading supermarket labels and becoming frustrated on how they are written.

On the other hand, if it challenges you to quit sugar, the second book, The Quit Plan is there to help you to overcome the sugar addiction and the third one is there to take your challenge even further on by contemplating on the fats you eat as well. If you are the kind who goes into these things with your whole being you might want to discuss this with your friends and swap experiences.

Just yesterday, I was talking to a friend, an older volunteer at work who had just experienced an operation. He was following the sugarless plan and was very enthusiastic about it. He had done the same I did and bought several books to his family. The only complaint he had was that the recommendations of the Heart Foundation were in opposition to the sugarless diet as it lays out the theory that it is the fat in our diet that causes the heart disease. He was persisting, though by following his reason. I was left thinking about my own aging challenge and  was very inspired by the wisdom he showed with his thoughts on actively aging younger by being sensible about all the directions we get through authorities that contradict each other. We have our own choises to make.

As I lay my already read books on the self, I know that they will not stay there to collect dust. In fact I may put the quit plan directly with my cook books and try the new type of Anzac Biscuit recipe with my new knowledge of the sugars we eat.

Here is a good link to finding about cooking with dextrose instead of sugar:

http://www.squidoo.com/cooking-with-dextrose#

Have fun and enjoy!

Reading “The Aging Myth” by Dr Joseph Chang

Not so long ago, I went to visit a friend who introduced me to the AgeLoc Technology. That is the skin care and pharmaceutical products that are produced by the approach of finding solutions by targeting ‘the source of aging’, which are the youth cell clusters in our body that affect our aging process.

It turns out that the cellular ‘power plants’ called Mitochondria fuel our cells with energy. As we age the number and the effectiveness of Mitochondria declines and our gene expression loses its youthfulness and we begin to look and feel older. This is what I learned from a demonstration of the Nu Skin products at my friend’s house.

Being a research oriented person, I immediately launched into an investigation through the Internet and through asking enormous amounts of questions from those friends who know about these things, like doctors and such.

It did not take me any time at all to find books about it. The one above the rest was easy to spot as it is a New Your Times Best Seller called The Aging Myth; unlocking the mysteries of looking and feeling young by Joseph Chang PH.D.

Dr Chang is the Chief Scientific Officer at Nu Skin and has an experience, spanning decades in research and development of medicines for many illnesses. According to him, at some point he lost the interest to cure deceases and instead started concentrating in finding ways to keep people healthy without ever having to fall ill in the first place. His aim is to give humanity a possibility of a long and healthy lifespan that allows for a meaningful life until we die healthy. It would also save enormous amounts of money in healthcare costs worldwide.

I was extremely impressed by his and his company’s approach. It makes sense to prevent and care instead of trying to fix something that is broken. In my mind this approach is analogical to the positive psychology movement that also believes in maintaining the human mentality at high rather than trying to fix the low. It is a well researched phenomenon that a sum of the effort of a group is more than its parts and anti-aging industry has certainly come a long way with its most advanced methods that benefit humanity in finding solutions to keep us healthy and happy longer.

Dr Chang’s quest is to change the aging paradigm from being our destiny to being a choice of a lifestyle that nurtures and maintains the human body healthy by preventing and supplementing rather than curing and fixing.

I must say that I took the book to bed and started reading and never stopped. I was very intrigued and inspired. I actually immediately afterwards bought several of them to loan and send to friends and relatives to spread the good news.

It is a phenomenal feeling when one finds something that ‘clicks’ so well within that it prompts to immediate action.

In my case it is into active aging action as I feel the need to try and see if I can beat my great grandmother’s 105 years of active and healthy living. The book really made me remember her story. The introduction to my great-grandmother's story is now on the second page of this blog for everyone to see. It is my challenge and my inspiration.

I recommend Joseph Chang’s book to you as a great inspiration. It is a book with great science behind it but so easily read that it allows you to contemplate on what you should do to take up a challenge of active and graceful aging.

I will start the story of my great-grandmother Iida and keep adding to the challenge as I go on in my own quest for growing older, younger and healthier.

Useful references:

BARTLETT, M. R. 2010. Nutritional and Genetic Strategies for Longevity. Anti-Aging Medical News, Winter.

CHANG, J. 2011. The Aging Myth; Unlocking the Mysteries of Looking and Feeling Young, Aylesbury Publishing.

Contemplation on how the slogan ‘Aged to Perfection’ fits with the slogan ‘Growing Younger’

Lately, most frequently popped up slogans of my Internet searches on active aging have been ‘Aged to Perfection’ and ‘Growing Younger’. It has lead to me thinking a lot about their meaning in relation to active aging. Somehow they seem to be in opposition to each other but at the same time I am suspecting that they co-operate to form a meaningful framework for the dignified aging paradigm.

For me the term ‘Growing Younger’ has two connotations. The first implication is that the age we are in is not acceptable and that as an aging person, especially a woman, we have to abide by the popular culture of our western world and by the Hollywood model which encourages us to do whatever we can to look younger and to keep up appearances that youth is desirable over mature age.

The second suggestion is more positive, as I am sure the slogan was meant to be, that we as aging persons are not bound by the destiny but instead can by our own actions keep our health into older age. In fact that is how I found this slogan.

It first popped up to my consciousness from the realage.com while doing ‘the real age test’ that tells you what your age is in relation to your health.  The suggestion in doing the test is especially to make people aware of their health situation that can affect the process of aging if not attended to.

The slogan ‘Aged to Perfection’ calls to that personal  and fundamentally positive and humorous mindset that always sees the world through the ‘pink classes’ allowing the positive experiences counter the negative experiences . It ensures that despite the pitfalls of the aging process, it is our own attitude that dictates how we tell the story of our lives. In fact it first showed up in my consciousness while searching for suitable cards to send to friends celebrating their mature age (the 80^th) birthdays. 

This week, I have also been reading an interesting book called Positivity by one of the leaders of ‘the positive psychology movement’, namely Dr Barbara L. Fredrickson. I have been really impressed by her research for some time now and would recommend her ‘positivity ratio’ test to everybody in any age group.

According to her research the 3-to-1 ratio of positive experiences overriding negative experiences can make a huge difference in how our lives are shaped. From there we can detect that the way we experience our own life is fashioned by how we actively decide to train our brain to be aware of the positivity of any situation that can affect how we feel about living to older age.

For me it is interesting to note that while we are celebrating birthdays, be they of any age, we can let the light heartedness of the moment take charge and for that day see the humour of age creeping upon us, but when we are consumed by our daily tasks and focused of a particular ailment or fault we detect in our body, we suddenly see the whole assumed horror of aging and feel like needing to look young makes us think better about ourselves.

My suggestion then is to celebrate every day as a birthday and look at any given situation from a positive mindset rather than a negative one. It is how we each of us can take charge to actively colouring our lives ‘pink’ or ‘purple’ or whatever the fancy takes us at any given moment of time while ‘Growing Younger’ to the ‘Aged to Perfection’.

References:

http://www.realage.com/  - take ‘the real age test’ here

http://www.50thbirthdayparty.com/aged-to-perfection.html  - find cool birthday cards here (the picture on this blog is from here)

http://www.positivityratio.com/  - take ‘the positivity ratio’ test here