Leisure and Health

Congratulations on your tremendous milestones, both the birthday and the trek. I am totally impressed. I will never experience that type of trek. Using the treadmill for an hour or a walk on the beach are just my speed. As a matter of fact, I get nosebleeds with altitude (must be the fact I've spent all my life close to sea level ;) so Sierra Nevada hiking is definitely out. I would like to go to Yosemite next June for a vacation with my hubby. He always hiked but has lots of knee trouble now that he's 60 and can't do all the activity (running, backpacking, biking, xcskiing) as much as he did when he was a bit younger.). Will I be able to enjoy our time there without hiking? (Nose bleeds and bad knees, along with diabetic neuropathy in my feet.) Never been that far west so the prospect is exciting and would like to see most of the nat'l parks this lifetime.

id be curious to see any correlation between type of work and health- when i visited Ghana, one thing that struck me is the generally healthy physiques i saw (men and women!)- and it seemed that the average day's work there was more physical than here- ive often wondered whether physical labor leads to a healthier body (as opposed to pushing a pencil)- when i was a student, i did grunt physical work for fresh fields- unloading dairy pallets- the work was mind-numbing, but it made me very strong, and it had a simple happiness, accomplishing strenous physical work, that pushing a pencil doesn't- so part of the correlation between work and health here may be that we shifted from a middle class economy with physical labor, to a service economy sellin' stuff- maybe it goes back to Dostoevsky's claim that when you divorce a farmer from the land, unhappiness ensues

Hopefully the low number of responses to this blog are because people are on vacation!  5 years ago, I took a trip with my 79 year old mom to England.  It was a 3 week hiking trip through the Cotswolds and Cornwall that was done through Elderhostel.  

We hiked about 6 miles a day, from village to village, or really Hamlet to Hamlet and it was glorious!  There were 29 of us and I was the youngest by 20+ years!  The fastest hiker was a woman who was 65 and she dusted my butt everyday!  Behind my vigorous pace was my 79 year old mom.  Among the group was a 81 year old women who was in miraculous good shape.  In the evening I spent time learning everyone's story.  And the one thing that was common among these travelers was having taken the time before retirement was using their vacations to hike and travel.  Retirement had not meant resting on their laurels, but had meant more time for what they loved most, exposure to different things and active vacations! 

The trip was not only inspiring me to remember my health, but I will remember that trip with my mom for the rest of my life!  Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last September.  While her mind is having foggy days, I travel to PA every 3 weeks on Thursday to walk with her!  On those weeks that I schedule myself to visit with her, she has no problem remembering I'm coming up to take a long walk and we chat about books, music, international travel and her mind is sharp and tuned in. I believe much of that is relevant to her exercise and her continuing to try to stimulate her mind thru learning.    

David you are so right in everything you have said! We need to take more time for leisure and exploration!  Thank you for sharing such an important message!  

hey David, happy birthday!

am wondering how your bg's ran compared to usual on your outing, given the carbs from beans in the diet. if they differed from normal, what's your analysis of confounding factors? thanks.