Health and Fitness Journal

The term menopause literally means the end of the menstrual period for a woman. The time leading up to this last period is often referred to as the peri-menopause and the time following known as post-menopause.

Menopause is a normal event in life for women, characterized by hormonal changes and often occurs in ‘mid-life’, between the late 40s and early 50s although women who smoke generally experience menopause around two years earlier that non-smokers.

Whilst most women see menopause as the beginning of old age, it actually signals the start of a new life, one full of new and different expectations, opportunities and experiences. As a woman’s life expectancy is generally 85, it can signal the sign of another 30 years of new beginnings.

The experience of menopause varies from woman to woman and even from culture to culture. All women, however, undergo the same basic hormonal changes during menopause. A woman’s ovaries produce three types of hormones – testosterone, progesterone and oestrogen. These hormones play a vital role in pregnancy, ovulation and menstruation. During the peri-menopause phase the ovaries’ production of these hormones diminishes until finally dying out when menopause is reached.

While there are numerous side effects to menopause, such as hot flushes, night sweats, sleep disturbances, genital changes and joint or muscles pains, most woman go through the menopause period with little problems, except for of course personal issues in reaching menopause. My only advice is to look at this as a wonderful new beginning with great unknown chapters in your life waiting to be written.

The first time my daughter Jenna took my blood pressure wasn’t such a big deal. And when Rick, our younger child dilated my wife’s pupils it was still pretty much smooth sailing. The two of them, always locked in competition over everything, are both doing online health care degrees, and its made for some interesting moments around the house of late.

But when Jenna asked me if she could practice doing injections on my right leg I can tell you I was something less than a supportive enthusiastic parent. For one thing, 2 summers ago I’d suffered a sports injury playing golf which still causes my right leg to suddenly snap and lock into straight rigid position. I wanted to support Jenna, but I was secretly afraid that if she missed the vein I’d be paralyzed.

Plus there was the looming specter of Rick and his oneupsmanship battle with Jenna. If I allowed my daughter to inject me, what might Rick want? A scraping of bone tissue? I couldn’t even think about it.

But when Sunday came along and as scheduled Jenna produced her student medical kit, I found I wasn’t so nervous after all. Like a pro she distracted me just as the needle went in by bringing up my idol, Tiger Woods. “Heey, how come Tiger Woods is called ‘Tiger’ anyway?”. “I..don’t..KNOW, Jenna!”, I replied, and the deed had been done.

Rick, however, was studying brain chemistry, I quickly learned, by popping into his room and sneaking a look at his postings on his FaceBook profile. I would need some time alone to think about how far I could go for Rick. Perhaps a parent’s job is also to impose limits on their children.

Last night was so embarrassing! I put out candles, tuned the radio to some slow jams, and just as my date, Debbie, arrived, the sauce was ready.

Everything looked about to go according to plan. But when Debbie looked up from her plate she wasn’t smiling.

I should have known! How could someone like me impress someone who has studied fine cooking at a place like the kitchen academy in Hollywood? After she’d left I took a hard look at what had gone wrong; she hadn’t even touched the brisket; the pile of mayo was intact as well; and I saw the cookies and root beer were barely sampled.

My conclusion: I needed to stop thinking about what foods I thought were delicious, and zero in on cooking healthy! Sure I knew that that brisket was a yummy possibility, but Debbie was thinking differently, she had other goals, and I wanted to understand them.

This morning so far I’ve found a number of possible new dishes on the net to try if Debbie comes back. One of them is a goulash from Cairo.

It has been raining for 6 days now. I can’ t believe my wife talked me into coming to Rio this time of year. She is such a sucker for cheap holidays! She got the tickets from the Internet. Some kind of bingo she likes. Usually people like us couldn’t afford to come here she said. She told me she thought a vacation would be good for my health.

When I looked out the “window” of the caravan last night I swear I thought I saw a tiger staring at me through the rain. A tiger! I complained to the guide about it this morning and he told me “Sir, there are no tigers in Rio”. But he was smiling when he said this.

This afternoon I’m going into town to see if I can find the sheriff. The local people say he is kind and may help me. But he has a big scar on his face. Before I go to his cabana I am going to visit the beach and see if I might find something I can fashion into a weapon. I t may also come in handy if that tiger comes back.

If you want a quick way to to earn your health degree the net is the place. My sister works two jobs and has zero time, but she started looking for nursing degrees online and now she’s on her way to a new career!

It seems to me that this is a real lifesaver, as if not for her time spent searching online she’d be locked into that job at the sandwich shop. The hours there are grueling. And the boss asked her to the movies last week even though she told him she hates movies.

Because she is a naturally kind person I think she’s a cinch to get into nursing! Personally I couldn’t do it as I like to sleep in and nurses have wacky hours. In Pam’s case she’s always having trouble getting to sleep, so I told her why not stay up and help other sick people get better?

At first she was kinda mad at me. But now I think she’s gonna go for it. When I talked to her yesterday she said she was checking out degrees at the University of Phoenix and some place called Gonzago.

The girls in Thailand are the hottest on the planet. My cousin Tomas sent me photos of this crazy club he went to where the menu included “roller –blading happy girls with healthy dressing”. Man! I want to go there so much!

According to Tomas, who is my idol, some girls like a guy who wears a lab coat. This is so weird because I come from a small town where the only people who wore lab coats were professionals. Since I like to sleep in I’m never really sure of when I will reach professional status. So going to Thailand looks like a good lab coat wearing short cut!

The only thing I’m concerned about is some girl I meet over there mistaking me for a techno guy. Everybody wants people to get to know them for who they are, and sometimes fashion sends false signals. In truth I like squaredancing and the new country. Hopefully I’ll meet someone who wants to look a little deeper than my lab coat.

It’s Important To Stay Healthy For Your Financial Life

So many things are competing to stress me out – there’s work (obvious); the kids (yup); weight gain ( when did this start creeping up?); and that black box called personal finances (yikes!).

They say when you turn 50 you get the face you deserve, so maybe because it was my 50th birthday when I went to see my accountant John, he read me like a book.

We were talking about my retirement plan when he pointed out the window and suddenly asked me “Hey, isn’t that your car?”. It was, and they were towing it away, a group of ten repo men!

I tried asking John about his fishing trip but he wasn’t having it. He looked me in the eye and told me “It’s time you and I had a good talk about unsecure and secured loans”. “That”, he said, pointing out the window after my departing Fiat, “is an unsecured loan”.

He was right. But surprisingly, instead of offering me some sort of financial pep talk, John suggested we curtail the meeting and head over to the local gym, Cunnard’s.

“When I turned 50 I found myself bombarded with problems, coming from just about every angle you could think of .”, John said as he loaded a barbell with 6 70lb weights.

“ What I learned, by the time I reached 60, was the importance of staying healthy for my financial life”. With that he hoisted the whole apparatus overhead and pumped it up and down 10 times.

I was amazed. But more than what he’d done, what John had said stayed with me. It lingered. Like sweetgrass. And now I’m thinking of how I can tie it all together.

I used to be a greasy 450 pounds. I had acne. I got winded climbing a flight of stairs. I was forty years old and a virgin. I went on a date once and my date puked in my mouth when I kissed her. It was Baltic tunafish. I’m allergic to Baltic tunafish. I felt bad.

One day in the bookstore while attempting to steal an adult magazine I accidentally stole some health magazines. There were many glossy photos of people more attractive than myself . I began to wish for beauty. I researched beauty in all its forms, from Greek statues, to Japanese tree pots. A light turned on in my mind. The light was green.

I found that the beauty I desired in inanimate objects could be transferred to human people. And so, after scanning many magazines, I began to turn myself into an office tower.

The office tower might seem like a contradiction for me as my original goal was to lose weight , not gain it, and yet- it feels right. As an office tower I am now able to dwarf pretty much everyone and everything. This has done wonders for my ego. And it has enabled me to find a new address and make new friends – a lot of people want to move into my upper level and peer out my eyes. It’s really rather cool!

I ‘m so glad to have had the experience of thieving that precious magazine! Although the path it took me on has diverged from what it appeared at the start it has really opened up a whole new me.