Health care reform & Silver Sneakers

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

HEALTH CARE REFORM & SILVER SNEAKERS

A month ago I joined the Silver Sneakers program at the Ligonier (PA) YMCA. Since participating, I can feel the positive physical effects. Since national health care discussions place this Medicare Advantage program in jeopardy, Silver Sneakers members were asked to write a letter explaining why this program should not be eliminated to reduce governmental health care costs. Below is my letter. Please write one of your own and send it to your legislators.

A nation, a community, a family, are only as healthy as its people.

Thus, quality health care, including preventive and rehabilitative care, should be a major priority. Yet, escalating health care costs are threatening the health of the American people.

Persons who knowingly promote their ill-health should be required to take responsibility for the consequences. Conversely, persons who take responsibility to maintain/regain/improve their health, thereby decreasing the need for medical care, should not be penalized.

The Medicare Advantage funding of the Silver Sneakers health maintainance/rehabilitative exercise program, geared towards improving/developing the health of America’s senior citizens, is an example of preventative medicine.

Health care reform discussions include the Silver Sneakers program. This issue is likely to be part of the health care reform bill being drafted this summer. And it is likely the discussions and results of the discussions will be

Fitness Program Update: Week 4

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

FITNESS PROGRAM UPDATE:

WEEK 4

I am sharing my personal fitness attempts with my loyal readers. To read previous segments, click on: Spring has sprung…with yard work and fitness workouts & Exercise/Fitness Program Landmark

     Two days, during the first week in June, I swam a mile. And two days I swam three-quarters of a mile. (to view photos, click on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3612835506/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3612835176/  &  http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3612834718/in/photostream/  &  http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3612019637/in/photostream/ )

     On Thursday, May 28, I also did a fifteen-minute mile on the treadmill, spent six minutes on the elliptical machine, and did an incomplete regimen on the fitness machines. I did not take a nap that afternoon.

     Exercise is supposed to make you sleep. Right? Then why, that night, when I was so very tired that I went to bed at ten o’clock, was I still awake at three a.m.? I only slept

Exercise/Fitness Program Landmark

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

EXERCISE/FITNESS PROGRAM LANDMARK

      I promise not to journal my spring exercise/fitness progress too often—it can get boring to both the reader and the participant. However, on May 26 I hit a landmark. However, if you want to read the first post on my new fitness program, click on Spring has sprung…with yard work and fitness workouts

     Two days off—Sunday the Ligonier YMCA is closed, and Monday was Memorial Day, another closed day.

     Tuesday it was bright and beautiful, and I relished not going. But go I must. However, I lazily enjoyed my morning coffee and breakfast on the porch, reading parts of two books: The Hanging of Ephraim Walker 1806 and Walker’s Point (on the west coast, not the Maine coast summer place belonging to the former president). I didn’t leave the house until after ten o’clock.

     In the fitness room, I used the

Spring has sprung…with yard work and fitness workouts

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

SPRING HAS SPRUNG…WITH

YARDWORK & FITNESS WORKOUTS

      A mile on the treadmill at a fifteen-minute per mile pace…five minutes on the elliptical machine…familiarization with fitness machines, capped with fifty twenty-five yard laps in the pool. My new membership in the Ligonier Valley YMCA will hopefully pay off.

     My membership in the YMCA began three weeks ago, with the coming of spring. I’ve managed to keep this schedule—with some variation, since the swimming lengths have escalated up from twenty laps—three days a week, even though I’d prefer to do it five days.

     It’s a tough routine, because, as I informed the trainers in the fitness room, I am naturally a sedentary person. It’s a real sacrifice to leave the early morning enjoyment