HealthyTap - your new water

By some accounts the fitness craze that currently grips America began with the U.S. Military in the 1960’s under the Kennedy Administration. From that humble beginning the fitness industry has grown to a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Today, we have fitness spas sprinkled across the landscape, and at every street corner we are treated with the sight of overweight joggers pounding the pavement to shed pounds.

Is all this exercise and fitness really necessary? Maybe not. One of the first experts to raise the question Fit for What? was Dr. Laurence Morehouse in his 1975 classic book Total Fitness in 30 Minutes a Week. Dr. Morehouse wrote the standard text for colleges throughout the world on the Physiology of Exercise. He was such a recognized expert on exercise that the National Academy of Sciences selected him to deal with the metabolic problems of astronauts in space. If you can find a copy of Total Fitness, buy it and read it because it will forever change your way of thinking about exercise and weight loss.

Total Fitness lives up to its promise of showing you how to be totally fit in only 30 Minutes a Week! But, suppose you are a baby boomer and your muscles don’t seem to respond to exercise. Is there hope for you? Yes! And the best part is that it comes from a powder you can buy at your favorite health food store.

The powder is called creatine and it’s the stuff that body builders and weight lifters routinely use. What it does for them, it probably will do for you. If you are past 40, the number and strength of your muscle fibers have decreased. What your muscles need is creatine phosphate which is essential in all of the energy mechanisms in your muscles. The best way to provide creatine phosphate to your muscles is to take creatine monohydrate in powder form. Go to your local book store or supermarket and pick up a copy of any muscle and fitness magazine. You will see several ads which describe the benefits of creatine monohydrate. Also, check your local health food store for products and information. For best results consider taking taurine along with the creatine.

A great side benefit of creatine is that it will help your brain as you age. In fact, creatine is sometimes used in nursing homes to restore cognitive brain function and wasting muscle strength in the legs of elderly patients. By taking creatine according to instructions on the bottle, you will find that even moderate amounts of exercise will result in greatly improved muscle strength. As an added note, you might want to take inositol and choline if you have a sagging tummy. Your drooping mid-section might not be caused by fat at all, but instead might be the result of loss of tone in your abdominal muscles. Inositol and choline can restore muscle tone.

Remember, creatine is not a substitute for exercise. However, it might eliminate your need to buy high dollar exercise equipment or pay outrageous spa dues. If you dread the thought of boring hours on an exercise machine, then try creatine.