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Encore Presentation: Inspiring Stories of Fit Strong Women Over 50

April 23, 2024 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

153 – Inspiring Stories – featuring Wendy Rivard

In episode 153, we feature an encore presentation of one of the inspiring stories of Fit Strong Women Over 50.

This episode was first released five years ago as episode 31 “Running and Staying Healthy with Wendy Rivard”. We wanted to revisit this episode for our listeners who may not have had the opportunity to hear the inspiring stories from her.

Wendy is a primary care pediatric nurse practitioner and has been a nurse for 40 years. She loves to run, travel, and also does CrossFit and water skis.

We talk about a variety of challenges and ways she has overcome them. Today she told me her new motto is “Don’t count me out!”

We discuss:

Cross training
Running
Massage
Recovery
Rheumatoid Arthritis

Links:
Her website: Taking the Long Way Home
If you are a reader, you’ll love her book recommendations on her book reviews page!

Her Instagram: Wendy is taking the Long Way Home
Video on instagram of her doing some recent squats with heavy weight.

Enjoy!

Please leave a comment and let us know what you think of this encore presentation!

Walking in Sunshine

April 16, 2024 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

I’m finding the motivation to walk again after the winter. It’s definitely related to all the sunshine and new flowers that are in bloom. The last few weeks I’ve had Peanut out on the trails and paved paths in the area quite frequently.

Although she’s around 12 years old, she’s lively and really enjoys the outdoors as much as I do. I find it’s a great way to get some additional exercise each day and being in nature really makes me in a good mood.

Spring has arrived in Ohio!

These are the first Dogwood flowers I’ve noticed. Higher temperatures have made them open earlier than usual!

Adapting for Health with Maria Molvin

April 9, 2024 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

#152 – Adapting for Health with Maria Molvin

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In episode 152 of the Fit Strong women Over 50 Podcast, Jill and Chris speak with Becoming Elli member, Maria Molvin about how she finds strategies to stay healthy and fit as she ages.

Balancing work, family obligations, focusing on healthy eating, prioritizing sleep, and finding time to be active can be challenging. Maria lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband. She takes advantage of all the great local metro parks and the Cuyahoga Valley National Park to walk and hike.

We discussed:

How Maria relies on habits over willpower and discipline
How she uses her home gym. She has an elliptical. treadmill, stationery bike, and a weight bench.
Why she gets on her stationary bike for 10 minutes each morning
Her full workout routines and how they help her reduce stress after from working from home all day
Strength training with bicep curls and skull crushers
Overcoming a sleep disorder by prioritizing sleep. Maria makes sure she sleeps in a dark room, puts away her phone before bed, listens to yoga Nidra recordings, takes CBD and goes to sleep at about the same time each night.
What she does to offset her joint hyper mobility. Although she became a Yoga Instructor, she does not work on flexibility. Maria focuses on functional movements, like standing on one foot to increase her balance.
How she considers herself an “all-weather walker” and dresses for the conditions.
Why taking belly dancing lessons was such a fun way to exercise
Looking into the FODMAPS diet – the elimination diet where she found out about sensitivities to onions, garlic, beans and legumes
Big salads at lunch, chicken breasts in the air fryer and grilled chicken/shrimp with steamed or roasted vegges for dinner
Her advice for women who want start adapting for health: pick one thing you want to change and get good at adding that habit (or eliminating that bad habit.)

Links mentioned during the podcast:

Book: Why We Sleep
Chris demonstrating a Monster walk using a resistance band
FODMAPS diet
The Complete Low FODMAP Diet by Sue Shephard and Peter Gibbon
Episode 151: Get More Fit with Kathy Murray
Episode 47: Tap Dancing to Fitness

spring mix with onion, brown rice and chicken for lunch

Spring Mix, Celery, Onion, Brown Rice and Chicken for Lunch

April 2, 2024 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

What’s your go-to on a crazy day? I love a spring mix salad with things I’ve already got prepped. A one bowl wonder that I am calling a salad.

Maybe you do your salads differently. Please let me know!

I really enjoy having a salad for lunch and today is no exception. Luckily I had food prepped for the week. I made a batch of chicken in the slow cooker. Cooked a couple of cups of brown rice to add to things. Sauteed some sweet onions.

Since everything was already prepped, I just had to assemble my salad!

Easy healthy lunch. It’s not hard when everything is prepped ahead of time. It’s one of those crazy busy days for me.

Get More Fit with Kathy Murray

March 26, 2024 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

#151 – Get More Fit with Kathy Murray

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Kathy Murray is a certified personal trainer with over thirty years’ experience in the fitness industry.

She is a graduate of The Ohio State University where she was a member of the 1983 National Cheerleading Championship Team. After college she competed in and won the United States Aerobic Championship in 1986 and spent the year traveling the world as a Fitness Ambassador.

Kathy worked as a free-lance educator to teach fitness to European Instructors. While in Munich, she coached the Munich Cowboys (American Football) Cheerleaders to six national titles in cheerleading and was head trainer/translator for the German Gladiators during a pilot TV show for the International Gladiators. She recently co-authored an audio book for Audible called The Munich Cowboy Cheerleaders about her coaching experiences in Germany. She was in Germany where she started Fit Bodies.

Always an avid cyclist, Kathy dipped her toe into the world of multi-sport in 2000, first competing in duathlons then eventually moving to triathlons. Kathy has owned her personal training business Fit Bodies for 25 years and in 2022 co-authored the Audible book, The Munich Cowboy Cheerleaders based on her time coaching the squad. She lives in Atlanta with her husband Lutalo, dog Mingus and cat Sassy.

We discussed:

Coaching teens in Germany for the Munich Cowboys Cheerleaders
Preparing for a hip replacement and setting goals
Her active online fitness coaching at Fit Bodies
How she helps her clients get more fit at any age
How she combines cardio and strength workouts in her training
How she prepared for getting her left hip replaced.
Competing in triathlons and hiking the Grand Canyon after a hip replacement
How staying fit has changed as she has gotten older
Her advice for women over 50 who want to be fit and strong
What she says about the importance of meal prep
Thoughts on gluten, dairy, alcohol, food sensativities and processed foods
Why she says: “Get your mind right” and “Fitness starts in your head!
Why she does strength training 2-3 times each week

Links:

Website; Fit Bodies
Instagram: Tribaby1
Her Audio book on Audible: The Munich Cowboy Cheerleaders on Audible
Audio book on Amazon” The Munich Cowboy Cheerleaders: a Novella

Joy of Walking Two Dogs

March 19, 2024 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

This week I’m discovering the joy of walking TWO dogs. I think we’re all agreed that walking a dog gives you more steps but let me tell you about walking two of them. My grand-dog Stella is spending the week with Penny and me. They enjoy spending time together, which makes visiting a lot easier on all of us.

Neither Penny nor Stella has great leash manners. Penny is now a 50-pound dog and Stella is 75 pounds and strong. Both dogs, in fact, are strong. Because walking both at once is a tremendous challenge, I tend to walk one dog and then the other.

If they were easier to walk together, we could go to some parks for a good long hike. Unfortunately, because I can really only walk one at a time, we just walk around my neighborhood or go to the nearby Bike and Hike trail.

I’ve tried walking them together but what a disaster. It was like some slapstick scene where the person gets pulled in all directions at once. And there’s me, yelling, “stop! Both of you, just stop!” but they didn’t listen.

The past couple of days have been a return to winter weather but the dogs still have to go outside. That really works as a motivator for me to keep walking.

As I was walking Stella, I thought about our conversation with Chris Freytag and the benefits of walking. Stella is a fast walker. Granted, she does stop occasionally for a quick sniff but otherwise, she’s moving. I definitely was getting my heart rate elevated while walking her. I need to have her visit more often because she’s a good workout.

Walking a dog is a great way to increase your daily steps but walking two dogs separately really increases your numbers, bringing us back to the idea of the joy of walking two dogs! I hope nobody brings me a third dog to watch.

Between Salads and Soups

March 19, 2024 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

I’m feeling that time of year, between salads and soups. Most people call it the equinox, when the days and the nights are about the same length. Here in the states we are moving from winter into spring.

I know we have some readers and listeners who will be moving from summer into autumn, like Sue Loncaric who publishes on Living Well After 50. Jill and I interviewed her in 2021 for the Fit Strong Women Over 50 podcast.

Between Salads and Soups

I find that most of my vegetables end up in salads or soups, or sometimes both. I especially like soups with roasted vegetables but find that I’m adding roasted vegetables to some of my salads as well.

Roasted red peppers are incredibly sweet. I also find that roasting onions for use on a salad or in a soup makes them so delicious.

I love the crunch of lettuce, spinach and baby greens in a salad, and enjoy topping it with some of the other veggies that make it so colorful.

I also love the smoothness of soup on a cold day.

When we are right in between seasons, I find my lunches include both! it’s a wonderful time to have soup AND salad.

If you have a favorite soup or salad recipe that you enjoy when we’re between salad and soup seasons, please feel free to share it with us. Please post it below… or share it in our private Facebook group. Thanks!

Get Healthy with Chris Freytag

March 12, 2024 / Chris Brown / 7 Comments

#159 Get Healthy with Chris Freytag

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In episode 150, Jill McCauslin and Chris Brown interview Chris Freytag, the founder of Get Healthy U and Get Healthy U TV.

Chris Freytag has been teaching, training, writing books, creating DVD’s, and speaking on the subject of health and fitness for the last 30 years.

Get Healthy U TV is a streaming website with workouts for midlife women. They have over 700 workouts for all levels and ages. You can access the workouts on your computer, smart phone, Roku, Fire TV and the Get Healthy U app.

Get Healthy U is the sister fitness hub that educates and inspires women to make healthy lifestyle choices as they age. Get Healthy U provides trustworthy information about health, fitness, well being, nutrition, and recipes.

Get Healthy U TV and Get Healthy U reach over 1 million women a month through their website, newsletters, social media and workouts.

Chris lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband where they raised their three now-grown kids.

We discussed:

How we can develop healthy habits as we age
Why waiting for motivation isn’t a great idea
How to get yourself moving when you don’t feel like it
How to manage your health when you’re dealing with the stress of everyday life
How much cardio and strength training should women over 50 do each week
Her thoughts on yoga, Pilates and mini trampolines (rebounders)
What she recommends for the best way to get started on getting more healthy

Chris Freytag leading a group of women in a workout.

Links:

Get Healthy U TV
Get Healthy U
Instagram
Facebook Page
Twitter

Adjusting soup on the fly

March 5, 2024 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

What do I mean by adjusting soup on the fly? Good question.

I made a pot of vegetarian chili in the Instant Pot the other day and had it for dinner. It was not my best attempt at soup or chili. I think I put too much broth in. It was not as thick as I expect chili to be. Maybe it was because I didn’t add any meat but I’m pretty sure I’ve made vegetarian chili before and it was fine.

I ate a bowl of the chili and stuck the remainders in the refrigerator.

Then the next day I made a pot roast for a family dinner. I made it in the Instant Pot as well. Basically the pot roast consisted of chuck roast (beef), potatoes and carrots. After we ate, I divvied up the leftovers for different family members. I was left with a small chunk of meat, cooked carrots, a couple of pieces of potatoes in a lot of beef broth.

(In case you can’t tell, I really like my Instant Pot. Here’s my recipe for Lentil Soup that I posted a year ago.)

At my next lunch, I scanned the refrigerator. There was the chili that I didn’t really like and the left over pot roast but not enough for a meal. I decided to experiment. I poured the chili into a large pot and then dumped the pot roast leftovers in the with chili. This was now more of a bean and beef soup and it needed a bit more potato. I chopped up a couple of potatoes, cooked them in the Instant Pot for about three minutes and then added them to the pot of soup.

Now my vegetarian chili was no longer vegetarian because it had beef and beef stock in it. My pot roast got eked out because I added it to the chili.

Once I heated the soup and stirred it thoroughly, I tried it. Not bad. The chili was certainly tastier for having the beef broth in there and the beef chunks and extra potatoes really bulked up the soup. There were still all of the spices that I had used in the original chili.

I had put diced carrot into the chili but the pot roast had large piece of carrots. I think the larger carrots really added to the soup. That’s a lesson for another time.

My only point with this is that I knew I wasn’t really going to eat the chili because it just didn’t wow me. I didn’t have enough of the leftover pot roast for a full meal. By experimenting and adding them together, I ended up with a much more delicious soup. I don’t really think that it was just adding the beef to the chili. I think a meatless chili can be fine but what I made was lackluster. By adding the complexity of the beef broth with the larger carrots and the meat chunks, the soup was improved.

Improvising in the kitchen can sometimes result in much better meals. We don’t need to discuss the times that this doesn’t work because this time it was a success!

Kale Chips and The Trouble with Indigo

March 5, 2024 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Kale Chips are Delicious!

I found my favorite way to enjoy kale. Perhaps you’ve tried it in a salad, or wilted in a soup with lots of vegetables. That is two different ways that I enjoy eating kale.

But by far, my favorite way is by turning kale into kale chips. It’s a great light crunch snack. I feel that they are a better crispy, crunchy snack than potato chips.

Kale chips are very easy to make. I bought a giant bag of kale which was already in smaller pieces. If you bought kale in big giant pieces there is an important step to cut out the large center rib of the piece of kale. Even when you cook the center rib, the texture is so much different than the kale leaf.

Here’s how I prepare my kale chips.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or tin foil.
Make sure the kale is dry using paper towels if necessary.
Spread the pieces of kale on parchment with no overlapping.
Spray with olive oil spray and lightly sprinkle salt over the kale.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

I recommend a timer because they can burn easily. (I found out the hard way!) Put in a bowl and Enjoy!

The Trouble with Indigo

I’ve been eating the rainbow since the first of the year, however I’m a little stuck on the dark purple, aka Indigo.

First I bought an egg plant with all the best intentions, however, I never got it going and had to throw it out when it turned mushy.

Then I added black beans to a soup I was making and the beans turned the broth into a dirty looking brown/indigo/blackish color. Not very appealing to say the least.

This past weekend I made another vegetable soup but this time roasted some sliced red cabbage into cabbage steaks, roasted them and added the pieces into the soup. It provided a similar result where all the vegetables in the soup took on the dark red, purple, indigo color.

What do you do for eating the purple, indigo color that looks appealing?