Women can take steps to improve their health....Today's post:  Tuesday, 5-15-2018

1.  “During National Women's Health Week each year, millions of women take steps to improve their health.”

This year it’s May 13–19, 2018 which is this week!

2.  We post often on women’s health issues because:

The actions that protect and improve women’s health are doable. 

The actions that harm their health are common and too few women know they are harmful.

The positive effects of the good actions are very profound.

Women who do them don’t just live longer, the quality of their lives are better!

And, the horrible effects of the actions that harm women’s health can be almost totally avoided by stopping those harmful actions.

3.  For a week like this one, it helps most to give women a handful of things they can begin to do this week that can have significant and positive effects from now on.

Four things that do this you can begin this week:

I.  Buy and read the book AntiCancer and begin to read it this week.

Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber MD PhD from Oct 3, 2017 is available in Paperback on Amazon for $11.95 before sales tax and shipping.

The lifestyle he recommends prevents or helps prevent everything a woman would want to avoid besides making cancer so much less likely!

II. Find or remember one or two kinds of organic vegetables and whole fruits that you like or find OK to eat.  Eat them a few times a week or on most days for two weeks.

Sure you can keep doing it if you decide to then. You can get ambitious then to do more.

But for today, just make a commitment to do this for just two weeks. Start this week!

III. If you drink soft drinks or diet soft drinks or use artificial sweeteners just drink chilled water or ice water or tea or green tea or coffee or decaf coffee instead.  Use no sugar or sweetener at all or a use real sugar every other time.

Do this for the next two weeks.  Sure you can keep doing it if you decide to then. That would be great because research is now finding these things are more harmful to women’s health than smoking cigarettes.

But for today, just make a commitment to do this for just two weeks. Start this week!

IV.   Begin a trial to learn to do “women’s” pushups. 

Do this once a day for about one minute three days this week and next.

Do this for the next two weeks.  Sure you can get surprisingly strong after that if you like following the descriptions listed last in this post.

Since it only takes one minute two or three days a week and there’s nothing to buy or wait to get,

this is quite doable.

But for today, just make a commitment to do this for just two weeks. Start this week!

To begin, do two or three of what the yoga people call the “Lion’s pose.”

Lie face down with your hands just a bit wider than your shoulders as if you were doing a regular pushup.

Then, using the muscles in the back of your neck and lower back pull your head up until you are looking towards the wall in front of you.  Then without lifting your hips at all push down until your arms are fully extended.

Hold it for just a bit and then do two or three more.

At first stop there if you like.  It takes less than one minute to do and one minute to get into position do that and stand back up.

For today, just make a commitment to do this for just two weeks.

I put this last for two reasons. 

It’s so easy to do –

and has such profound effects on your self- image,

if you only keep doing only one of these actions after the first two weeks, keep doing the pushups!

If you keep doing a few more each time, you’ll get to where you can do 25 of these each time.

Then, when that happens, use your back to lift your hips and knees an inch or two off the floor.  Let yourself down until just your knees touch and push back up with your arms. Keep the arch and your head up looking at the wall in front of you.

Next time start this by pushing up with your arms for that few inches.

Unlike regular pushups this does not tend to injure your shoulders or take great arm strength.

Yet it does build the pectoral muscles that do the push down movement quite well.

Keep adding a few each time until you can do 25.  Then add one or two each week.

(You can actually get stronger doing these than many men who don’t exercise without ever doing regular pushups!)

This is surprisingly easy to do AND research shows doing this kind of brief exercise is a keystone habit that makes doing more of the other things easy!

Instead of thinking of eating better as hard or something you don’t do, you begin to think of yourself as someone who can take control of your health and does so. 

At that point you’ll find eating better and dropping the harmful things is easy because it fits your new self image.