LifeNuts
  • LifeNuts
    • What is a LifeNut?
    • Origin of LifeNuts
    • LifeNuts Levels
    • What is a LifeNuts Community?
    • Why LifeNuts Works
    • How to Get Started
    • Current LifeNuts Communities
  • Founder's Story
    • Speaking
    • Credentials
  • Stress
    • Concepts of Stress
    • Diseases of Stress
    • PNI
    • The Relaxation Response
    • Psychological Stress Management
    • The Faith Factor
    • Relationships
  • Health
    • Nutrition
    • LifeNuts Fitness
    • Supplements
    • Sleep
    • Excuses
    • Time Management
    • Children >
      • Childhood Obesity
      • LifeNuts for Kids
  • Financial
    • Financial Stress Management
    • Transitioning
    • Goal Setting
  • Blog ...
    • LifeNuts in the News!
    • Blog
    • Are You Faster Than a 91-year-old Challenge
    • FAQ
    • Contact Us
    • The LifeNut Forms

Old Age in America - on an Airplane, no less!

8/26/2013

0 Comments

 
PictureAlaska's great mountain, Denali
I recently returned from running a marathon and spending the following week in Alaska, which, by the way, is a country unto
itself. Like its license plate says, Alaska is the last frontier. And, while I enjoyed the uniqueness of the Alaskans, their friendliness, and the cool August weather, I would like to make an observation about a couple I saw on our airplane journey home.


 I was pushing my wife (who is recovering from a leg injury) in a wheelchair to load her onto the plane when an airport attendant asked me to move while he maneuvered another wheelchair occupant in front of us. The man had to be with his wife (who was in a wheelchair ahead of us), the
attendant said – since they were travelling together. No problem, plenty of time. So the three wheelchairs made their way onto the plane. A real convoy.

What surprised me was when the man and his wife got out of the wheelchairs, just before boarding the plane, they walked normally. Their main problem was that they were morbidly obese and got tired walking. Both of them.

We sat behind them – on the opposite side of the plane, which gave me time to reflect on their dilemma. They both looked to be in their 70s or maybe a bit younger. It’s hard to tell when people are so obese. The two of them took up nearly three seats. As the man ordered and ate plenty of junk food, I observed that he seemed to have no trouble stuffing food into his mouth. No disability in that regard. Here, I thought, is the essence of old age in America: become obese and ask attendants to wheel you around the airport. Is America a great place or what? This couple knew how to play the game – milk the system for all it’s worth. I would guess that they have blood pressure problems and are likely members of the FDA (future diabetics of America).

A few minutes later, a disabled man came down the aisle, using a cane and hobbling on his own, too proud to ask for help. He was about the same age as the obese couple but he was not overweight. I thought about our 91-year-old LifeNut, Mike Fremont, who still runs marathons and races canoes. Trim and healthy, Mike represents what old age can be like.

What’s wrong with this picture, I asked myself. Why do we reward bad behavior? Why don’t we charge morbidly obese people for wheelchair services and add a few bucks to their air ticket to compensate for their excessive weight that the plane must carry? Where's accountability? Many communities have wonderful wellness programs but our society continues to grow fatter and fatter. LifeNuts takes a new approach by measuring participants each year. Accountability.

As I watched this large man, I realized that this is the coming picture of old age in America: obese Boomers who require help walking. Helpless, they beg for assistance, draining energy from others. Not caring about their unhealthy lifestyle, they have no intention of changing. As the Boomers, the most obese generation, continue to age, they’ll fall into this scenario. Some will have enough pride to do things on their own but some, like the airplane couple, will take advantage of others. 

Yes, perhaps they had a legitimate medical issue, unrelated to their obesity, but I am inclined to doubt it. In my opinion, they represent the future of old age in America. And it’s not pretty. 

So, I implore you runners or whoever happens to read this: coax your overweight friends and relatives to join us in Indianapolis in November. With only two months to train, there isn’t much time left and the obesity clock is ticking …

Now for Mike’s words of wisdom. And, as you read the thoughts of this 91-year-old, I want you also to think of the obese couple in the airplane. Like night and day.

Sojourn with nature week of August 11:

Sun. Ran 10 mi.
Mon. Raced canoe 3
Tue. Ran 10
Wed. Raced canoe 3
Thu. Travel
Fri. Conference, with demonstration run
Sat. Travel

Plan for week of August 26:
Run 30 miles
Race 3 x 3
miles in canoe
Rest 1 day

 A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS

 1.  We don't have a health-care crisis - we have a public health crisis. These were the first words of an article I wrote NINETEEN YEARS AGO!
The main purpose of health care should be to improve the public health, not just take care of illness, not only to reduce suffering and extend the lives of the ill, BUT TO PREVENT DISEASE AND INCREASE LIFE EXPECTANCY FOR ALL.

What we hear today is health care cost, out of control and growing, and that many are not covered by health insurance and thus are denied care they cannot personally afford. How can we design a plan that delivers care to all and is still nationally affordable?

The debate is about how to improve efficiency - by competition, limiting the number of payers, caps on services and medical liability, expensive machines strategically located (instead of everywhere), fee limits, exclusion of certain ailments, etc.

This is attacking the problem from the wrong end. We will neither significantly improve
public health nor affect health costs this way.

2.  The most important single action we could take to improve public health and reduce health
care costs WOULD BE TO CHANGE THE AMERICAN DIET. Today that is what is
called prevention. But prevention is NOT PRACTICED IN THE AMERICAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM!

The per capita annual expense of health care was $4000 in 1994; today it is $9000. That makes it about 18% of the GDP. Diet is implicated in a majority of heart disease deaths. Some 75 percent of deaths are diet-related and diet is implicated in many types of cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity (of course), arthritis and dental disease. To affix a cost to a premature death, use US government figures of from $2 million (US Dept. of Transportation) to $6 million (I believe from US EPA).

There's not space in this little blog to tell the whole story. Perhaps in a subsequent blog or two. But the only diet that can fully solve this problem is a whole foods plant-based one, again in my not so humble opinion!  .or reasons you may have read in blogs 1 thru 10. It's the diet we advocate in LifeNuts. Try it. Not much to lose, except an early demise.


0 Comments

What does a 91-year-old LifeNut do for fun? Answer: Compete in the national canoe championships.

8/11/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
You might feel old when you get up in the morning and wince as the muscles and joints creak. How does a 91-year-old feel? That depends
somewhat on genetics but mostly on lifestyle. Mike reports about his trip to the national championships this past week. He’s like the energizer bunny; he never stops!
 


Week of August 4, 2013

Aug.4 Sun. Canoed in practice for National Championships, 16.5 mi, Little Miami River
    5. Mon. Raced canoe 3
    6. Tue.  Ran 5
    7. Wed. Raced canoe 3
    8. Thu.  Travel to Newaygo Nationals races, Michigan
    9.  Fri.   Raced canoe 15 mi.
   10. Sat.  Travel home

Schedule for week of Aug.11:
Paddle 3 days - 3-mile races
Run 30 miles
Rest 1 day
         
            MARATHON CANOE RACING

I've been a racer since 1963. It can warp your life: if you win a race, you think you're good, you're encouraged, and so you stay with it. So it's my 51st year as a warpee. My racing partner Scott Gallagher and I won the second time we raced, on the Little Miami River in 1964. When we won the 21- mile Greenville Creek Race in 1967, the newspaper reported "Couple of Old Men Win Canoe Race." .... we were both 45.

In 1968 the United States Canoe Association was formed for marathon racing – not Olympic or whitewater or kayak racing –  those were left to The American Canoe Association (ACA). Every August the USCA has national championships in such attractive places as NY, PA, MI, IN, CT, IL, WI. There are races over a 5-day period (You can camp there) so that the whole family can race with each other or separately. The marathon distances along a river are set by how far the champs
can go in about 2 hours. That allows you to race 2 or 3 days in a row without burning out.

One race, the General Clinton in Cooperstown, NY, features 70 miles in one day. That's an out-burner! Scott Gallagher and I did it in 1975 at age 53. It includes portages around 3 dams, lots of Class 1 rapids and sometimes a Class 2. Your speed depends on how much it has rained in the last
few days or weeks plus dam operation needs. The all-time record is 6:36 in high water. In low water, solo, at age 86, it took me 12:30. With partner 44-year old Brian Masters the following year we did a 9:28 (He pushed me!).

On Saturday I returned from the USCA National Championships at Newaygo, Michigan, on the
Muskegon River. The race started at the dam-formed lake and required paddling a 2.5 mile course in the lake, portaging the dam, and doing 12.5 miles on the river to the finish. I struggled to finish in LAST PLACE against old friend Dr. Neal Sanders of TN, who is 73, and I won (last place) in 2:53. He beat me by 22 seconds! Beat by a youngster!

Another old friend, Dr. Fred Tuttle of Kentucky, said "You know, all the canoes lined up in the grass before the races used to be aluminum. Then fiberglass. Then Kevlar. Now carbon fiber." Prices have changed, too.

Our Newaygo hosts went all out for us racers, providing camping areas, parking, shuttles, snacks, privies and a park with chairs for the awards ceremony where we were addressed by the regional congressman and Newaygo's Mayor. It’s a scenic place to visit. Go to the Newaygo Nationals website to hear more.

Also, I find that more and more racers are moving to a plant-based diet. Seems to be a healthy trend and maybe it enhances our performance.

0 Comments

Sage advice from a 91-year-old

8/4/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Each time I walk with Mike Fremont, the 91-year-old LifeNut that some will challenge in the Indianapolis Monumental half-marathon in November, I marvel not only at his mental acuity but his perception of the world around us. With an engineering degree from Yale, Mike views most things analytically. In this week's blog, he shares some of that thinking.


Sojourns with Nature:

July 28 Sun. Ran 5
      29 Mon. Raced canoe 3
       30 Tue. Ran 10
       31 Wed. Raced canoe 3
Aug.1  Thu. Walked 5
        2  Fri. Raced canoe 3
        3   Sat. Ran 10

Week Aug. 4th schedule:
Sun. Aug. 4 Canoe 16.5 miles practice for National Championships race August 9
Mon.        5  Race canoe 3 mi.
Tue.         6 Run 5 or 10
Wed.       7 Drive to Michigan Thurs. 8 survey canoe race course
Fri.          9 Canoe race Nat'l Champs.
Sat.         10 Drive home

EATING, AND GLOBAL WARMING

It's a matter of degree... Or degrees Centigrade. What we eat here, and in the developed world, is a major factor in the generation of greenhouse gases or global warming gases, viz. CO2 and methane and a few others. You're aware of glottal eructations from cows, a lot of methane.

Keep in mind that we kill about 55 billion animals a year to eat, whilst feeding 20 billion alive animals at any one time. But to feed cows, hogs, sheep, ducks, chickens and even farmed fish takes enormous quantities of corn and soy. Almost all you see across our country goes to feed animals for the table, which is why they are cutting down the great rain forests of the world: to plant more feed grains and create ranches to grow cattle. Hamburgers! Rain forests in Africa, Brazil, Indonesia. Mangroves are removed from the swamps around Ecuador to make shrimp farms.

The trouble is this: rain forests and mangroves used to capture huge quantities of carbon in their leaves, taking it out of our atmosphere. It's called carbon sequestration. So as we generate more CO2 with our cars and fossil-fueled electric power plants, it builds up in the atmosphere and is no longer absorbed in our forests or earth surfaces as it used to be. The oceans also absorb CO2 but more reluctantly today because the water's becoming carbonated and saturated with CO2 and therefore more acidic, which dissolves coral reefs and the shells of shellfish and destroys or disturbs ocean microorganisms - important in the food chain.

And we have not succeeded in burying CO2 in rock formations underground. So the percentage of
CO2 in the atmosphere has risen recently from about 280 parts per million to the safe limit set by some scientists at 350 ppm, and beyond that to 400 ppm now and rising. It's putting more blankets on the earth, which means the world is getting hotter. We're feeling the effects.

If we changed our diet, which has speeded us to this idiotic position, we could much better limit the effects of global warming and perhaps buy the time to reverse it. We do not know the exact amount of warming gases generated in livestock production. It is said to be from 18% to 51% of the total gases generated in the world. Others say agriculture in general is responsible for 18%. By comparison, 40% comes from fossil-fueled power plants and 13% from transportation.

The conservation community says it is better for the world for a person to become vegan (no meat,
no dairy) than for her to trade in her Hummer for a Prius. It's easy to prove! Growing meat is hopelessly inefficient, using 8 to 10 times the amount of energy needed to grow equivalently caloric grain. And then we subsidize the feed grains, making the meat artificially cheap, and growing a
short-lived, obese and sickly population. What a system. But you can change it! It’s not hopeless!


 

0 Comments

    Author

    Dr. Bob Kroeger is the founder of LifeNuts. He's also proud to be a LifeNut.

    Archives

    October 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    February 2020
    September 2019
    August 2019
    February 2019
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    January 2017
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Photos used under Creative Commons from USACE Europe District, GerryT, uyeah, thelesleyshow, Elvert Barnes, phalinn, achimh, lilli2de, SCA Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget, Serge Melki, Ryan Somma, CitySkylineSouvenir, Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It., Iman Mosaad, Skånska Matupplevelser, Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation RI, SteakEat, Spirit-Fire, rexipe, Mark Z., db Photography | Demi-Brooke, Official U.S. Navy Imagery, whistler1984, sillygwailo, paddling, USACE Europe District, smith_cl9, emilio labrador, Kevin M. Gill, Kai Brinker, Victor Olausson, Joe Shlabotnik, cNathanielw, treehouse1977