health Archives ⋆ John Harrer

Hanging Out with Old People

February 26, 2018 by jjharrer Leave a Comment

Hanging Out with Old People

I’m getting my dose of old people once again. My mother-in-law, Rose, is 92 years old and lives in an assisted-living home. We visit almost every day to check on her. My Dad spent the last days of his life in a similar facility. I got to see a lot of him and his old people pals.

It’s common for old people to have a lousy memory. When you mention memory, most people go right to Alzheimer’s. This isn’t that, at least we don’t think so. Her short-term memory is not worth a darn. For example, the facility serves her meals in a restaurant-style format. The waiter comes by, takes her order, and if he’s gone more than a few minutes, she forgets what she ordered.

Rose lived independently until 3 years ago. She fell a few times and needed more attention. My wife’s sister in Indiana took care of Rose for three years. It gets to you after awhile. Sister needed and deserved a break. Luckily, Rose served in the Armed Services during WWII and we hope she qualifies for military aid.

Rose doesn’t remember much of Indiana. It snowed in the winter and she spent much of her time doing what she loves – sitting in her easy chair reading J.D. Robb novels. She reads them over and over and I think each time is a new adventure for her. When I think about her memory it scares me a little. What must it be like to not know what you did 5 short minutes ago?

Complaining vs Lack of Freedom

When I visit we walk up to the Residents’ Library. I have a Phillips Go-Lite which is supposed to help with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and energy levels. While the light shines on her, I have her read aloud. The books are motivational and positive thinking pieces I have collected over the years. I use the readings to stimulate conversations. If left to her own devices, Rose would complain about the staff, meal services, or some other aspect of the facility. From everything we see, it is a very good facility with lots of extra services and caring people.

Rose usually isn’t a complainer. My wife and I concluded she doesn’t like having her freedom taken away and it’s left her a bit sour. Her memory problems don’t allow her to walk very far because she gets lost. She can’t make friends because she can’t remember anyone’s name or what they said. She wears hearing aids, but can’t remember how to put them in, so even if she engages someone in conversation, she can’t always hear them.

A Remarkable Person

Rose knows she is special as one of the “old people”. She thinks she is special for being 92, but in a building full of 90 year-olds, it’s more than that. Rose doesn’t use a walker. She takes no prescription meds. Occasionally, she experiences back pain and indigestion, but -and here’s where her lack of memory works to her advantage – she forgets she’s uncomfortable.

While she was in Indiana she didn’t have much physical stimulation. Her muscles atrophied and she lost strength. She doesn’t enjoy getting up early (9 am) to go to senior exercises classes, but she will walk the halls later in the day. As we walk I call out words for her to spell and she complies correctly almost every time. I also call out basic multiplication, addition, and subtraction problems and she is quick and correct most of the time. Our newest drill is having her spell the names of staff and residents in the hopes she will learn their names. We’ll see how this goes.

Journaling

Rose is a good sport when it comes to my ideas for helping her. In an effort to help her memory we started a journal. She doesn’t write in it every day. It’s difficult to come up with things to write about. She will write about how’s she feeling and sometimes I can get her to talk about an event. It’s fascinating on the days I have her flip back through pages and read her past entries. She recognizes her handwriting even if the words are unfamiliar.

While I’m not sure any of this is making a difference in her memory or even quality-of-life, it is interesting to observe. Seeing how she approaches this stage in her life, how difficult it is to stay positive when her body aches, and the effects of poor memory and reduced motor skills is an inspiration, even when she is not successful. In the struggles against aging, time always wins.

This is What I Hate About Getting Old

February 19, 2018 by jjharrer 2 Comments

This is What I Hate About Getting Old

Getting old robs me of a day. Yep, age just pulled the rug out from under me and stole a day.

A week ago I was up early, had the horses fed, and began to prepare my oatmeal for breakfast. I have to stoop a little to get water from the dispenser that goes in my oatmeal. As I leaned over, I looked up and a sharp pain stabbed me in the lower back. Something tweaked. Bracing myself against the nearby hutch, I winced in pain. Immediately, I knew I had to get horizontal. We live in a small house and it’s not a long walk to the bedroom. By the time I had reached the bed my vision was getting dark and blurry and I felt faint. It took me a moment to figure out which way to crawling into bed caused the least pain. Then, once there I found heavenly relief in the fetal position.

My day was stolen. What had I done? Who can’t lift a glass of water?

It would be understandable if, since I retired 3 1/2 years ago, I had done little to stay active. My typical week includes three trips to the gym, three 2-hour horseback rides, and at least one evening of a 2-hour dance session. Old age brought me down with a cup of water.

Treatment

Many friends and family have had back problems. This happened to me about 5 years ago when I lifted something heavy and had not used my legs. I’m not one to head to the doctor and my bed was so much more comfortable than any waiting room chair. I opted for bedrest and anti-inflammatories. For the next 72 hours, I did very little. I walked around the yard, moved from one room to the other, and mumbled my disgust for this condition to our dogs, cats, and horses.

On the fourth day, I began light duty cleaning the pens. My back was sore and I was forced to stay mindful of every move. It was exhausting. Determined not to let old age think he might have won (who was I kidding, old age will always win), we went for a short horseback ride. The following day was a light workout at the gym as I tested my balance and strength. It’s been a week and I think I’m about 70%.

Mentally Insecure

It’s a bit depressing. Because I can’t figure what I had done to cause the tweak, I’m not sure how to prevent it in the future. Every time I bend my body I wonder if a rogue nerve is going to be pinched and send me into mind-numbing pain. This recovery, if it stays on track, will be one of the quickest rebounds in my memory of the few instances in my life that this has happened. But the change of direction of my day, from going great to instant pain, from feeling good to barely being able to stand, has me troubled.

Getting Old and Working Out

Lying around for three days gave me time to think. I remembered working out when I was younger and compared it to my workouts today. When I worked out in my teens, I remember about 10% fatigue and 90% muscle-building. That doesn’t mean my body built a lot of muscle. My body seems resistant to the idea. The workouts made my muscle sore as you would expect from a workout, but my muscles didn’t feel depleted.

Now, in my 60’s, it seems there is 90% fatigue and only 10% muscle-building. If I work out too long or hard my muscles feel tired the rest of the day. Working out doesn’t seem to offer much of a payback, but what’s the alternative? Even skipping a few workouts seems to deplete my already diminishing muscle mass. Stopping altogether can’t be an option.

Over the last 2-3 years, I’ve tried different “styles” of workouts. I’ve reduced the amount of cardio training because I find it the most fatiguing to the rest of my day. My legs get worked on horseback and dancing, so I focus on trying to build muscle in my upper body and core. I’ve experimented with negative reps, heavy-weight low reps, light-weight high reps, and combinations in between. What I’ve noticed most is that nothing seems to make a substantial difference.

I’ve used the same Tanita Fat-monitoring scale for twenty years. There has always been a debate about the accuracy of these scales and measuring body fat. By using the same settings consistently (on this scale it is “Adult”, “Male”, “Athlete”, and “Height”), I feel I can get a consistent picture of how my body has changed over time. It’s not much. In October of 2014, the reading was 148 lbs, 10%. In October of 2017, it was 150 lbs, 11%. And, my weight has rarely varied more than 10 lbs from these numbers since I purchased the scale in 1995. (By the way, I don’t really believe my body fat is that low. I’ve had it measured with calipers and it is closer to 25% range.)

Changing Diets

When I counseled people coming in my health food store, one of my tenets was to adjust your diet to your stage in life. It was obvious to me when I was younger that someone getting old needed a different diet than someone young and active. While not a vegetarian. my diet during my 30-year health food career was high in vegetables and grains and low in meat. I’ve always enjoyed eggs and never worried too much about fat or cholesterol.

Since retiring, my wife and I have experimented with a few different diets. One high in beef and lower in grains, which we maintained for about a year, made little difference in either body composition or muscle building. We have abandoned that style of eating and prefer the easier digestibility of fish and chicken. Our diet still contains a good amount of vegetables and fruits.

Here’s What I Hate

Getting Old. I thought if I wrote this out, I would come up with a solution for getting old. Reading it over, I haven’t. Yes, getting old is inevitable I suppose, but it’s not supposed to happen to me. At least, not while I’m watching.

There’s really only one defense to getting old that I can see. And, it is only a defense, not a prevention. Keep trying to buck it. Like playing a game of tug-of-war with a stronger opponent, keep pulling back. Dig in your heels. Hold on. Old age is going to drag us into the muddy middle eventually, but don’t let it happen without a fight.

My 3 Tips to a Healthy Life

February 5, 2018 by jjharrer Leave a Comment

My 3 Tips to a Healthy Life

Editor’s Note on a “Healthy Life”:

This is my first speech after the Icebreaker Speech. I chose to talk about “Tips for a Healthy Life” based on my experience of owning a health food store for 30 years. The purpose of this speech is to receive an evaluation (that would probably be more critical than the Icebreaker), take the comments and suggestions from the evaluation and incorporate them into the next speech. This speech was limited to 5-7 minutes.

Madam Toastmaster, my fellow Toastmasters, welcomed guests,

There’s nothing in conversation today that brings a greater diversity of opinions than politics, religion, and health. The first two topics I would not touch with a ten-foot pole, but I had the privilege of standing behind the counter of our downtown health food store for 30 years and I would like to share with you my 3 tips to a long, healthy life.

Now, I’m not going to bore you with statistics of double-blind, randomized, meta-studies, or the latest research demonstrating coffee is good for you, no wait, it’s bad for you, hold on….what month is it? Yeah, I think it’s good for you now. As a proprietor, I learned about my customers’ families, work, and lifestyle. I saw many grow up, some grow old, and sadly, a few pass away. Customers became friends. I want to share their secrets of success.

It was our first month owning the store. The previous owner, Bill, was working with us to learn the daily operations and introduce us to our clientele. We were near the front counter where we could see cars pull up to the curb when this cruise ship sized Buick comes rolling up. Bill looked at me and said, “This is Mr. Keister. He gets a case of Black Cherry Juice for his gout every month.” A big man, Mr. Keister, with an equally big smile, cast a shadow as he came through the door. “How’s everybody doing?” he bellowed. I would later learn Mr. Keister was 80 years old. He shopped at our store for 15 years and at 95, his eyesight was failing, but his smile and good cheer never wavered.

Tip #1

Determine to be happy. Smile. Life will throw you curves for sure, but you don’t have to swing at them. And, if you need help, I think it was Mark Twain who said, “The best way to cheer yourself, is to cheer someone else up.”

It must’ve been around the third or fourth Christmas when one of my favorite customers, Libby, came in holding a large platter filled with all sorts of holiday treats. Libby was an excellent cook. At the time, I didn’t cook much. Many of the ingredients she used were purchased from our store. I asked Libby if she was worried about the sugar, fat, and calories in her treats.

“John,” she said, ” I know every ingredient in the recipe and every single one is wholesome. Why shouldn’t they be wholesome when mixed together?”

This made sense. She told me she never bought frozen or prepared food. Everything she made herself. Libby encouraged me to learn to cook. “And, when you do, John, make sure you share!”

Tip #2

Eat wholesomely. It doesn’t have to be labeled organic. If it has a label, read the ingredients. If you can’t pronounce them, or if any have more than 10 letters, move along. Oh, and it’s “OK” to occasionally splurge.

One of the oddities of observing from my vantage point was the people who came in knowing they had vices – sugar, smoking, drinking, even drugs. These folks were looking for ways to counteract the negative effects of their lifestyle. A man named Joe announced to me one day that the doctors told him he had emphysema from smoking. Then, he asked, “What herb can I smoke to help my lungs?”

“Are you going to continue to smoke?” I said.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Well, I’m not sure I’ve got anything to help.”

“Oh, sure you have. We just haven’t found it yet.”

Joe kept looking but he never found his answer in time.

Tip #3

I believe we inherently know what’s good and bad for us. Be honest with yourself. Avoid those things that hamper your health and performance. Stay away from the dangers you know.

People make health more complicated than it needs to be and you only have to look at the diet section of any bookstore to know that is true. Fit for Life Diet, The Hollywood Diet, The Adkins Diet, The Paleo Diet are guides that lead you away from, not to a healthier life. If I put a glass of water next to a diet coke, you know which one is better for you. If I put an apple next to chocolate cheesecake, you know which one is better for you. Am I saying NEVER have a diet coke? Never have cheesecake? Absolutely not! Those successful in maintaining health keep a mental ledger of good things and not-so-good things dealing with their body. The easiest plans are the simplest. Keep your health plan simple. Do the good things, avoid the bad and you’ll live a long healthy life.

Mother Nature is Cruel

February 25, 2016 by jjharrer 10 Comments

Mother Nature Needs a Better Calorie Counter

Mother Nature is amazing in the things she does well. She figured out how to let the chameleon change color to protect itself. She puts white on the back of bobcat ears so predators think they are seeing a face with eyes instead of a back of the head. Female horses stop ovulating in the winter so their babies, who are born precocious, will enter the world in spring when the grass is rich and plentiful.

When Mother Nature misses, she misses big time. Take for example the eating requirements of husband and wives. My wife, Ranae, and I have been married for 35 years. I do most of the cooking now simply because I enjoy it. It’s often difficult preparing food for just two people. The thought of leftovers doesn’t appeal to me, although I’ve come to accept it.

I seem to be able to stuff my gullet without increasing my overall weight. On the other hand, I can get so involved in a project that I’ll postpone eating for hours. I simply forget. Ranae gets cranky (good thing she doesn’t read these).

Ranae’s caloric requirement are so much less than mine. We have similar activity levels, yet I need so much more food than she. If she doesn’t watch her intake carefully she is penalized unfairly by Ma Nature. I would have thought the girls would have bonded a little closer over this issue. Maybe she did try to do something, but it backfired. Maybe when women reached menopause they were suppose to burn more calories and Mother Nature just screwed up.

While we owned the health food store this was a common problem in the Hispanic community. A Hispanic man would come in because his doctor told him he was too fat and at risk for diabetes. My suggestion would straightforward; cut back on portions and lay of the sweets. His response most often was that his wife would be offended if he didn’t not eat. She would spend a good part of the day preparing the meal and his job was to consume. Quite often he found his way into eating himself into gout, arthritis, and obesity.

While it was most obvious in the Hispanic community, I think the problem is universal. The problem is that the person preparing the meal gets their feelings hurt when the food is not eaten. Add this to the trend in restaurants to increase portion size and it’s no wonder America is having to loosen its belt.

As we near the end of Winter, Ranae has made it known I have to prepare less food. My mother is rolling in her grave while Mother Nature sprouts all sorts of wonderful delights in our garden.

Learning to Dance Lessons From a Former Yogi

February 13, 2016 by jjharrer 7 Comments

Learning to Dance

Just so you know, learning to dance is best done at an early age. Awkward, self-conscious, uncoordinated were my reasons for putting it off. That, and it just didn’t feel “important” at the time. If you didn’t learn to dance when you were younger, don’t worry, the good news is you can start from wherever you are in life.

My Dad would come by my business about once a week or so for a visit. Mom had passed away suddenly a few years earlier and my Dad was devastated. After about a year of mourning, he did what he had done all his life: picked himself up, and got back into the game. First it was tennis. He found a group that met Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays at the park. No one was under 50, most were over 65. They would play until about 10 am, then head over to the local fast food place for coffee.

One of the players mentioned there were “Line Dance Lessons” at the local Rasmussen Senior Center. They were five bucks on Monday nights and soon Dad was learning to dance. After a few lessons, he would go to an occasional dance. This was my Dad. He’s nearing 80, Mom had been gone 5 or 6 years at this point, and he’s playing tennis 3 times a week and dancing twice a week.

About this time my wife, Ranae, had a new co-worker who is very much the ballroom dancer. “Learning to dance is easy,” she says. Of course she’s a dance instructor too. She does convince us to go to a local event where there would be social dancing and, more importantly, and exhibition of some “must see” dancers. You could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times my wife and I had danced since our wedding day 25 years ago. But, the food was reported as excellent and the entertainment guaranteed, so what did we have to lose?

I know I’m zig-zagging all over the place right now, but stay with me if you can. For 30 years I ran a local health food store. THE most valuable part of that experience was my interaction with our customers. We were small and I got to follow along over 3 decades of their lives. I had customers long enough to see their kids grow up and get married. There were many who had to take care of aging parents and the parents had been customers.

Through this interaction, I had a front row seat on how lifestyle affected quality-of-life. By observation I learned what help some customers reach 90 and others were burning out in their 70’s. No, it is not scientific. Certainly there were a few customers over the years that took really good care of themselves and died young anyway. But for the most part, those that were happy and active lived the longest.

Back to the dance exhibition. I had never been to anything like this before. A room full of 200 ballroom dancers of all ages, but most were over 50, dancing it up. Everyone was smiling and having a good time. The majority of them were trim and fit. I had studied yoga for the previous five years and very few people in the yoga studio ever looked to be having as much fun as these folks. “There might be something to this dancing stuff,” I thought to myself.

The very next week my Dad stopped by the store for a visit. He had a flyer in his hand and announced the Levan Institute at Bakersfield College was going to hold ballroom dance lessons and they were open to everyone. “Great!” I say. “You’re adding ballroom dancing to your line dancing. Good for you.”

“You too,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“You and Ranae have to sign up for the class. We have to make sure there are enough people enrolled or they will cancel it.”

When your 80 year old father tells you that you have to take a dance class so HE can take a dance class, you can’t turn him down. He even talked my older brother and his wife into signing up and their feet were even more left-footed than ours. On the first night there we were, the 5 Harrers, along with the 40 other people that packed the class my Dad was certain to be cancelled.

The class lasted six weeks and we had a great time learning the Foxtrot and the Waltz. We went on to join the Bakersfield Smooth Dancers and take their lessons on a weekly basis. We lost Dad in 2012 two months before his 90th birthday. Ranae and I dance every week now and I’m still awkward, self-conscious, and uncoordinated, but we have fun and laugh, and it sure beats the hell out of doing yoga.