The Official Blog of Tara Marie Segundo, M.A.
I am often asked (especially by women and seniors) how to build strong bones naturally. For obvious reasons, having strong bones is a must. Regardless of your age, extreme diets or diets high in processed junk and low in nutrient-dense whole foods can ravage bones and age your body prematurely. Naturally increasing bone mineral density is function of what you eat, what your body absorbs, and how you move.
My top 3 Quick Tips to naturally build strong bones are as follows:
Eat foods rich in easily absorbed dietary calcium from sources like dark leafy greens and sesame seeds. I prefer these to milk products, which can be hard to digest. Collard greens, spinach, kale, turnip and mustard greens are great! Grind sesame seeds in a dedicated coffee grinder, used only for seeds. Sprinkle them on veggies, salads, cereal, etc. Tahini is also loaded with sesame seeds and therefore, calcium!
Build resistance training into your weekly routine. When you strengthen your muscles, your bones become stronger from the mechanical stress of exercise. You can use free weights, machines, bands, tubing, your body weight, soup cans, etc. You have to stress muscles and bones to make them grow! Aim for a minimum of 3 sessions a week for at least 30 minutes.
Stop drinking soda! The phosphoric acid in soda (both diet and regular soda) is believed by researchers to leach calcium from bones and/or interfere with calcium metabolism in other ways. Cut it out of your life. Soda does nothing good for your body!! I used to be a diet soda addict and feel (and look) so much better now that I’ve stopped. Enjoy iced herbal teas instead, and do something good for your body.
By making a few simple swaps and incorporating some healthy habits into your life, building strong bones and staving off osteoporosis is something anyone can do at any age!
Shine on! Tara Marie
We all have goals and we all have dreams. The difference between “achievers” and “dreamers” is that people who achieve are willing to apply themselves in ways that those who just dream of success are not.
Successful people have certain things in common. In my last blog, Conquering Fear, I talked about one of those things: the ability to distinguish between actual FEAR and SELF-DOUBT.
This week I want to share another critical element of success, and that is the importance of determining your MOTIVE.
One of the most common questions I get from people, only second to “how do I get rid of my big belly,” is, “how do I stay motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle?” Motivation is one of the hardest things that we deal with, but I think it’s because we are looking at the situation incorrectly.
When people ask me about motivation, what they’re referring to is an intense feeling of commitment and an emotional attachment to carrying through on any given set of behaviors. The problem with feelings is that they are always fleeting.
Think about it: feelings come and go. When we feel badly, we are able to get through it because we know that ultimately the bad feelings will pass. When we feel sheer elation, part of the joy of the intense feeling is the inherent understanding that we will eventually come back down to earth.
Every married woman I’ve ever talked to would tell you that she can look at her husband one minute and feel her heart bursting with love for him—and on the same day, something will occur and she’ll fantasize about killing him in his sleep and putting his cold, dead body in a wood chipper to hide the evidence. Feelings come and feelings go, just as motivation will come and go. Such is the nature of life.
What is permanent and a solid basis for change and achievement is determining a motive.
A motive is the “why” of why we do what we do. A motive is a REASON.
I was recently asked to be a guest on the radio show of one of my mentors and friends, world-renowned physician, Dr. Leonard Coldwell. He’s had a hard life and I respect him less so for what he has accomplished professionally and more so for what he has overcome personally. On the show, he asked me to share some of the success principles by which I live and teach my own clients. While many elements factor into achievement and success, I was compelled to highlight the idea that most of us fail by way of never trying in the first place. We let fear rule our lives.
I was able to conquer fear in my own life when I learned to differentiate between actual fear and self-doubt. While it would be simple to tell someone that the path to success is to feel fear but proceed anyway, this is not my message.
Fear is a gift and it is often fear that keeps us safe and in some cases, alive. Fear is NOT to be ignored and I would never advise that you do so. Listening to fear is how I’ve lived in New York City for over 20 years without incident. If you are walking in Central Park in the dark and sense that you’re being trailed by a gang of teenagers, I would not only advise that you heed your fear, but also that you run swiftly.
Dear Tara Marie,
How do you motivate a 70 year old obese, arthritic woman to change her way of life? Suffice it to say, she has a complicated medical history and I don’t believe she is in the right mindset to see this through. She has lost weight but does not keep it off. I am sure you have heard this story before. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you have. I should add that I am speaking of my mother who is a grandmother to a gorgeous and intelligent 3 year old girl. I look forward to your response.
Respectfully, Rich
Hey Rich!
Thank you so much for writing and my heart goes out to you. My experience has shown me that when people don’t want help, it can be like talking to a brick wall. If I were taking this case, I would connect with her and figure out why she’s not in the right mindset to take the help she’s being offered. Is it because she’s given up? Is it because the poor woman is in severe pain from her arthritis? I would start here and address this issue first. When I have a client who is not willing or ready to change (although it’s clear that she’s not enjoying her life) I figure out why she doesn’t want to change and work on that before I launch into an elaborate program.
If your Mom has given up, she may need to see some semblance of progress before she believes in herself again. I would bargain with her to take a few small steps. There’s nothing like success to make you want more success. If the issue is that she’s in pain and fears that exercise will create more pain, I would show her some specific exercises that she can do without pain. 70 is not very old these days, and the truth is, if she were not obese her joints would not hurt as much as they do. Sometimes it’s getting past the first 4-6 weeks of adjusting to a new way of life and then we can coast!
Again, nail down why she’s resistant to helping herself and conquer this issue before you worry about anything else. Until she’s a willing participant, there is little that you can do unless you monitor her 24/7 and impose your will on her—which is next to impossible unless she’s put in a rehab situation where she loses personal control of her life.
I hope this helps, and good luck!
~Tara Marie
TARA MARIE’S TOP TEN WAYS TO SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS!
SIX: Adjust Your Attitude
It is human nature to complain. I say this because it is behavior that I observe in the tiniest of people, like my baby nephews. No one taught them to whine and complain when they don’t get their way, but it seems to be something that they mastered at an early age. We all do it—we complain when we are made to do something that we deem unappealing, or when we don’t get our way in a situation. We complain about things that range from the very important to those that would seem insignificant to others. If you are my three year old nephew, you complain if Auntie Tara gives you the red cup instead of the blue cup or orange juice instead of milk. We want what we want.
Most of us desire a beautiful, toned body, but we complain because we have to eat well and exercise to maintain it. We whine when we are served steamed veggies and fish while others at the table are enjoying chicken wings and Ranch dressing. We moan about having to work out because we believe that it shouldn’t require so much effort.
I used to complain about going to the gym. There always seemed to be a list of activities that I would rather be doing, or I was too busy, or too stressed, or the outfit I wanted to wear was dirty, or blah, blah, blah.
I saw an interview years ago on TV that really shifted my perspective. A middle aged man who had lost a significant amount of weight (and maintained the weight loss) was asked how he stayed motivated to exercise consistently. His reply was simple yet profound. He said that rather than tell himself that he had to go to the gym, he told himself that he got to go to the gym.
My 168 Hours Rule® states that it’s not the hours that you’re formally exercising that are the most significant in your life when it comes to staying lean and fit. The most significant hours are those waking hours when you’re not engaged in formal exercise. These hours far outweigh those that you are working out and will either support or destroy your efforts to stay in good shape.
People who are in the gym the most are not the most fit. This is a fact. There are people who work very hard in the gym or otherwise training, and they do it 4 or 5 times per week for an hour or more. However, these people are not necessarily the leanest and most conditioned.
We are all busy, but we also all have the same 168 hours in a week. My formula states that you have to subtract the average hours you sleep in one week and the average hours you exercise one week to determine your “golden number.”
This golden number represents the remaining waking hours of the week during which you can chose to move as much as possible and turn everyday into an athletic event, or sit around and create what science calls, lazy biology.
Most of the ASK TARA MARIE emails I receive are from people with whom I have never worked. I recently got an email from a client who I have trained off and on for several years. We stopped meeting in mid-December because he said that the end of the year is busy and we would pick up again in January. When I didn’t hear from him by mid-month I emailed, and he said he was awaiting lab results from his doctor and would be in touch…I never heard back. Three weeks later, I emailed him again and got a reply, which I posted below along with my advice. If it seems that my words are harsh, please understand that the situation had reached a critical point, and hand-holding is not what he needed. Someone had to tell him the truth without mincing words because at that point, his life was at stake. We often take our health for granted until the first stroke or heart attack, and this is foolish disrespect of the human body.
Here is Sam’s letter:
Many of the guests on my radio show, TARA MARIE LIVE are authors, and prepping for each show has given me an opportunity to read a plethora of great books. This week my guest is the author of a fantastic little book that provides no-nonsense, practical tips to burn off the excess body fat that has plagued you for years. This 103-page gem is called, FIRE UP YOUR FAT BURN, and its author is Dr. Lori Shemek. This is the perfect book to toss in your bag or briefcase, and devour a few pages every chance you get. It’s an easy read and chock-full of information written in terms that everyone can understand. She explains why inflammation in your body is a key reason that you’re over fat and suffer with other diseases–and she tells you how to reduce inflammation and optimize your health. We have been led to believe that it’s a “calories-in, calories-out” equation, but the truth is, a calorie is not a calorie when it comes to their expression in our bodies. As I was reading this book I kept thinking that rather than, FIRE UP YOUR FAT BURN, the book should be called, COMMON SENSE…as it simply is this. Dr. Shemek gets a gold star for this one!
Very rarely do I recommend specific weight-loss programs but this is one of those rare instances where a program really deserves an honorable mention.
It’s a 20-week, weight-loss education course called Lifestyle180. It was developed and is led by my good friend and colleague, David Greenwalt—a Certified Wellness Coach. It’s a really solid course that yields amazing results for participants–and one extra bonus is that you can win your share of $18,000 cash prizes awarded to the top finishers.
I’ve done several interviews with David on my radio show and he really is a wellness and weight-loss expert. He specializes in compulsive eating and the hard cases or the “weight-fighters,” as he calls them. These are people who have tried and failed for more than a year and most often for several years. Sound familiar? It’s frustrating, I know.
David says it doesn’t matter if you have 10 pounds or 200 to lose. Trying time and time again without success depletes your self-esteem. If this describes you then I strongly recommend you give Lifestyle180 chance.
David’s focus is on permanent weight-loss. His company slogan is “Evidence-based lifestyle-education for permanent weight-control.”
It’s common to feel like a failure for not having your weight under control. It’s supposed to be easy, but it’s not. It’s becoming impossible for many–unless they have what my good friend David Greenwalt offers–and that’s a proven weight-loss education course that has students losing as much as 70 pounds in 20 short weeks!
I wouldn’t share this with you if I didn’t know David and hadn’t personally taken the time to review the program. I’ve known David for more than five years and he is the REAL DEAL. It’s time we all move beyond dieting and focus on PERMANENT weight-loss. That’s exactly what David Greenwalt focuses on with his Lifestyle180 program.
