Do: Weights

Something unexpected has happened in my mid-30s: my body has started to crave weights, and heavy weights. As I looked into why, I was reminded how wise our bodies are—they are marvelous machines. My craving for weights is my body communicating precisely what I need. The unfortunate reality is that women's bones become brittle as we age. Evidence of this surrounds me: three of my neighbors (all women in the 65-80 age range) have had significant broken bone injuries in the past few months. A woman's bone density is less than that of a man, but there is hope and it is found in weights. Weight training puts stress on our bones and thereby strengthens them. Yesterday's article was about the bad posture epidemic. Today, I present one solution to correct bad posture and take a stand against the shrinking and hunching that creep in with age. Start a weight-lifting regime, get plenty of calcium and vitamin D, and welcome the aging process with confidence and grace.