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The medical profession either implies or states directly that women should not use any type of hormone replacement therapy for the purpose of anti-aging. This attitude almost has some sort of Puritanical sexual connotation to it. Like, good girls don't do that. We should go quietly into old age because it's somehow almost disgusting and maybe even evil for older women to want to be attractive and maintain a sex life. Hormone replacement for women is O.K. if we really, really need it for a short time, but after that we are just being vain and expecting too much. On the other hand, testosterone replacement for men is described as improving their muscle mass, stamina, and ability to have sex.
Excuse me, but aside from not wanting to be drenched in sweat all the time, preventing bone loss, and stopping the shrinkage of my whole uro-genital tract area, I also replace hormones to stay younger longer.
Hormones are what we have when we are YOUNG.
Hormones are what we don't have when we are OLD.
Gosh, do you think there might be a connection? If I could afford human growth hormone, I would use that too.
And if I want to stay younger longer, I also need to pay attention to nutrition and exercise as much as time and money permits. As I have said before, I am not a celebrity, nor do I have a husband that "makes good money." I live on a secretary's wages. It's not because I'm divorced. Actually, both of my husbands were mooching losers so not much has changed except that I have one less mouth to feed. But this is another topic. Here are some things I do.
Food, Toiletries, and Household Items
- I try to cook from scratch most of the time and avoid processed foods. This means shopping mainly around the edges of the grocery store for whole ingredients. I buy very little prepackaged foods or mixes.
I buy organic meat or poultry whenever I can afford it, which isn't often but every little bit helps.
I buy organic produce locally whenever possible and can my own food as much as time allows. I'm hoping to move soon to a place where I can have a garden.
I try to get my five servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
I make my own laundry soap and some of my own cleaning supplies. I use only a castille soap to bath with. I especially avoid anything anti-bacterial with tryclosan. (Do a search on tryclosan--you won't be happy if you are using a brand of toothpaste that contains tryclosan).
I avoid anything with high fructose corn syrup. This stuff is toxic and it's in everything from bread to salad dressings because its really a preservative not "corn syrup." Start reading labels.
I wouldn't dream of drinking a soda. Soda is a nasty chemical soup with absolutely no nutritional value.
I should avoid city tap water but I generally don't. Anyway, I don't know which is worse--the water in the plastic jugs with chemicals leaching into from the plastic, or the city water with the prescription drug cocktail in it from everyone excreting all those drugs doctors prescribe. Do a search on this--it's frightening.
Almost everything you put on your skin goes into your bloodstream. I use very little make-up and no lotions, hand creams, or sunscreen. I'm not sold on sunscreen. It puts more toxins in people's bodies and is making people deficient in vitamin D. I don't purposely bake in the sun, but I don't avoid it. I'll take my chances. If my skin needs moisturized, which is rare, I use organic coconut oil. It is very light, absorbs well, and works great. I can also cook with it.
I avoid all foods that I know are from China especially, and any other country with doubtful food growing and processing regulation.
Supplements
I used to take a lot of vitamins and other supplements. I don't do this anymore, because I realized that most of them were synthetic. Synthetic supplements are not easily absorbed by the body like nutrients from food. Although my liver was working hard to process all these supplements, I was probably absorbing very little. Besides, swallowing all those pills and capsules every day created a supplement log jam in my stomach.However, I do believe we all need to supplement our diets with something. Our soils are depleted, foods are mass produced with chemical fertilizers, picked before they are ripe, and shipped great distances. All of this contributes to greatly decreased nutrients in our food. Our produce has far fewer nutrients in it than it did even 40 years ago.
I now supplement with food products. Here is a list of nutrient-rich foods I use regularly. Not every day, because who can remember to do all this every day. As you will see below with the links below, I love Dr. Ben Kim's website and the Earth Clinic. No, I am not selling anything from these sites (the Earth Clinic site does not sell anything either). I think these sites are full of great information.
- Organic green food powder.
- Acerola cherry powder for vitamin C. Acerola cherries have one of the highest contents of vitamin C of any fruit. Since this is a food, not a synthetic vitamin C, it is easily absorbable.
- Organic apple cider vinegar. Bragg's Organic Apple Cider Vinegar is an excellent brand complete with the "mother."
- Blackstrap molasses (must be "blackstrap" not regular molasses).
- Flaxseed meal (not cooked or baked, just mixed with warm water to make a pleasant cereal).
- Carlson's Cod Liver Oil for vitamin D during low sun months and Carlson's Fish Oil the rest of the year. Carlson's fish oils can also be purchased at VitaPal.
- I also take dandelion root. Dandelion is rich in minerals and aids the digestive process. Dandelion root can be purchased at VitaPal.
Exercise
I try to exercise regularly, but I am like everyone else. It doesn't always happen. I often come home from work totally burned out and a little depressed from my stressful, low-paying job. I go in spurts and sometimes do not exercise for weeks. But something is always better than nothing. You just have to pick it back up and keep going. Exercise is not all or nothing. I find that I need to have a way to exericise at home because I will not go back out in the evening to a fitness facility, and I don't have time in the morning.
Purchasing exercise equipment can be confusing and a lot of expensive equipment ends up just sitting in someone's basement before it's sold at a garage sale. Since I have very little space and very little money, I use the SmartGym, which is a portable gym that attaches easily to any door (not the door knob). It uses stretchy bands in a wide array of exercises for the whole body and I am quite happy with it for what it is. It takes up zero space and is there when I have the time and inclination to exercise. If I had more room I would get a larger more versatile piece of equipment. Adequate, reasonably priced exercise gyms can be found at stores like Wal-Mart. However, most of these gyms are quite large and take up a lot of space. The gym I am interested in is the Stamina Gyrotonic Transformer. My point is that exercise equipment does not have to be large, expensive, or elaborate. You can do a lot even with just a few dumbells. But whatever you have, you have to use it. A membership to a gym or a $5,000 piece of equipment does you no good if you don't use it.
I also have an inexpensive stationary bicycle and a simple wooden stool that serves as my "stair stepper."
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