Hello <<First Name>> 
This week we are looking at heart health and our weekly fitness challenge is focussing on exercises that specifically help us toward a fitter heart.
Our heart is the most precious muscle in our body, so it is worth looking after. It is hard to comprehend how hard our heart works and the enormous strength and fortitude it has shown us over our lifetime. Our heart is responsible for taking life-giving oxygen from our lungs, and nutrients from our food, and pumping it in our blood around our entire body for the whole of our life. It is the engine of our existence.
Whilst genetics have a part to play, it is mostly our lifestyle that determines our heart health. If we are inactive, overweight, eat foods that are high in saturated fats, (eg animal fats from meat, butter, lard or coconut or palm oil), or smoke, things are not looking good for our heart health, but there is good news.
We can vastly improve our heart health by reversing those life-long habits. Quitting smoking and losing weight is a great place to start. Eating healthy food that is low in saturated fat but high in nutrients can transform your general wellbeing. We can strengthen our heart with regular physical activity that makes us puff a bit. Just as our leg muscles become stronger with exercise, so does our heart.
Learning from our experts can really help to educate us to help us avoid a devastating heart attack or stroke. You will find these videos under the Health section of the site. Just scroll down the alphabetical list to find Stroke & Heart Health where you will see Stroke Explained; Stroke – Causes and Avoidance; Stroke Rehabilitation and Restoration and Recovering from a Heart Attack.
Coming soon!
We had a wonderful recording day last week when Mary was teaching me elementary Pilates and a Balance workout and these will soon be uploaded. Mary also teaches a valuable Stretch Session which will greatly aid general mobility.
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Recipe of the Week
This recipe from the archive was given to me by my late mother-in-law, Jeanne, who was a great cook. The recipe first appeared in my Complete Hip and Thigh Diet back in 1989 and I used to make it a lot. It is easy to make and surprisingly delicious! It's a variation of the Chicken Curry recipe we featured a few weeks ago and the recipe has been slightly adapted to bring it up to date.
FISH CURRY
Serves two
Prep time 10 mins
Cook Time 40 mins
Ingredients
2 pieces frozen haddock
400g can tomatoes (chopped or plum)
1 bay leaf
1 large eating apple, cored but not peeled, chopped small
2 heaped teaspoons Branston Pickle
1 heaped teaspoon tomato purée
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon curry powder
55g (dry-weight) per person Basmati Rice
1 vegetable stock cube
Method
- Place all the ingredients except the fish in a saucepan, slowly bring to the boil. Place a lid on the pan and reduce the heat to a low simmer and cook for 20 minutes.
- Add the frozen fish pieces to the saucepan and continue cooking for a further 20 minutes on a low heat.
- If the mixture is too thin, remove the lid and increase the heat slightly and the sauce will thicken toward the end of cooking. Remove the bay leaf.
- Serve with boiled basmati rice cooked in a vegetable stock cube.
A 55g portion (one blue Portion Pot®) of uncooked basmati rice will add 205 calories per serving. Alternatively, if cooking for two, cook the rice and measure out 1 Red Portion Pot® per person (still 205 calories per serving)
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Mary's Weekly Challenge
Aerobics is a word that came to the fore in the late ‘70s when Jane Fonda presented one of the very first fitness videos. The term ‘aerobics’ describes any exercise that makes us breathe more deeply or that causes us to be slightly out of breath. Walking, jogging, dancing, or playing a sport like tennis or golf are all forms of aerobic exercise. The word ‘aerobic’ means ‘with oxygen’.
As soon as we get moving physically, such as going for a walk, our heart pumps faster as our body demands more oxygen with the result that we breathe faster or more deeply. This oxygen goes into our bloodstream and when it circulates through our muscles as we exercise, it burns body fat. This is why aerobic exercise is described as a ‘fat burner’ and why exercise is so important in helping us to keep our weight under control.
For good health we should aim to do around 20 – 30 minutes of aerobic exercise every day but it doesn’t need to be strenuous to benefit us.
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THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE
This week we are focussing on aerobic fitness for our challenge but this doesn’t mean that we should forget our regular strength exercises so we are incorporating some leg strength work within the aerobic challenge for this week. Take a look at What exercise does what? to learn more. Keeping our body moving with a variety of kinds of exercises is so helpful toward our overall health, fitness and general wellbeing so do stick at it!
- Seated Warm Up and Seated Workout
Why not try to do your aerobics sitting down! Seated aerobic exercise is energetic and effective and suitable for anyone, particularly those who find walking more difficult. It is important to warm up and mobilise our joints first before we exercise so go to Ageing Well - Exercises and do the Seated Warm Up and then follow it with the highly effective Seated Aerobics workout. Aim to do this three times this week.
- Standing Aerobics
Play some motivational music with a good beat and join in with the two short sessions found in the Exercise - Aerobic Exercise section Aerobic Exercises 1 and Aerobic Exercises 2 on two days this week.
- Walk Up and Down Stairs
This week’s final challenge is to try and walk up and down your stairs three times consecutively every day. You may not manage it on Day One, if not, do what you can and by the end of the week you will be amazed at how you have built up your leg strength and aerobic fitness. If you don’t have stairs, do the Leg Strengthener and Bottom Workout three times this week.
- Your Daily Walk
Go for your 30-minute daily walk but this week try to step up the pace if you can so that you breathe more deeply. This is real aerobic exercise. Remember to wear your FitBit or pedometer to motivate you to take more steps each day. We are told we should walk 10,000 steps a day and when we do it will considerably help toward our general health. See how many you do normally and try and improve your score every day by 1000 or so until your fitness increases. By following the other challenges this week you will be amazed how many steps you add to your daily total.
Fitness is a habit and the benefit to our mental health, as well as our physical health, is immense, so it is worth persevering.
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Did you know...
Walking for 30 minutes - a mile and a half - will clock 3000 steps on your FitBit or pedometer and burn around 150 extra calories!
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And Finally,
We love hearing from you and this email was such a joy to read I thought I would share a part of it with you – with permission from Norma, the lovely lady who wrote it.
Norma wrote: "The 28-Day Immunity Plan, the videos and all the info on the web[site] have combined to pull me back from what I thought was the brink of a real potential health issue.
"And, as a bonus with the help of Mary Morris and your exercise videos, I am actually able to move with less pain and feel so much better. With Covid of course, my “3 in 1 gentle exercise class” of all over body yoga/Pilates exercise had finished and I can’t believe the body condition and supple movement I have lost with not keeping any exercise in my weekly routine. Your Fitness Test for myself and my husband was eye-opening and we have now followed The 28-Day Immunity Plan - Gentle Start [workout]. Yes, progress will be slow, it’s a long way back after a year-plus of neglect of my body but I can feel the difference and also record it using the Fitness Test data as a guide.
Thank you all for putting this on the web - it is SO helpful."
Have a great week this week and keep smiling!
With love and best wishes,
Rosemary Conley CBE DL
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LIVE LONGER | LIVE HEALTHIER | LIVE HAPPIER
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