Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Spunky Robert Henry - A Pilot Plus a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist


About the Author:


Robert Henry, age 56, is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, a Certified Personal Trainer, a Certified Specialist in Fitness Nutrition, and a Certified Wellness Coach. His awareness of fitness and nutrition began at the age of 29. When Robert first started to exercise, it was mostly for the purpose of increasing body weight through the addition of lean muscle mass. However, more than 20 years later, at the age of 52, after years of being lean and enjoying good health, Robert experienced an undesired increase in body fat and his health profile changed in the wrong direction The loss of that body fat and the reversal of new and undesirable trends in his health profile became Robert's new exercise goals. By re-booting his exercise regimen and further "tweaking" his nutrition, he successfully accomplished his new goals and, as he likes to say, discovered his "inner athlete".
Although he had worked out for more than two decades, the journey he experienced in his early fifties ignited something within Robert and he voraciously sought to increase his knowledge and his credentials. It was then that he earned his numerous certifications and set about to share his passion for health and fitness with others.
Robert's background extends beyond fitness. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from Southern Methodist University and worked for many years as an attorney. 


Robert Henry at 14
He also discovered a love of aviation early in his life and, while still a teenager, became a Commercial Pilot and a Certified Flight Instructor. 


After law school, he went on to become an Airline Transport Pilot and eventually earned three jet ratings. Now in his fifties, he values his health, fitness, and wellness very highly, and seeks to inform and inspire others.

Robert’s latest book is the health/fitness how to book, Age Re-Defined.
Visit his website at www.RobertHenryFitness.com.
Connect with Robert:

What Robert Henry Says About His Book:

Your state of health, how you feel, and how you look are more within your control than you think – even in your forties and fifties (and beyond). This book addresses exercise, fitness, nutrition, wellness, and the mind-body connection. Its purpose is not to promote a particular exercise program or a particular diet plan – although its coverage of exercise, fitness, and nutrition is extensive – but rather to inform, educate, and motivate the reader on the importance of being proactive in one’s own health, fitness, and wellness.

Even if you are already physically active, this book can assist you in evaluating the effectiveness of your current exercise efforts. A foundational background in exercise and fitness concepts is provided. Not only does this book cite to numerous authoritative sources, but it also conveys the author’s own philosophy of exercise and an informative overview of his own exercise and nutrition regimen. 

The author, who is 56, shares his own motivating journey and the positive results he achieved through exercise, nutrition, and the mind-body connection, with particular emphasis on the challenges faced by him in his early fifties and the favorable results he achieved at that age by “re-booting” his commitment to health and fitness.

The importance of nutrition is explained and heavily stressed. A Registered Dietician with a Master’s Degree in Nutrition is a contributor to the nutrition content. One comes away with an awareness of quality nutrition and its role in optimal health, fitness, and wellness, and with a good working knowledge of the kinds of foods and eating habits which are most beneficial.

As stated in the book’s Introduction: This book is about believing in yourself, maintaining inner strength, and understanding exercise, fitness, nutrition, and wellness. This book is also about getting younger instead of getting older, discovering your inner athlete, and becoming and remaining healthy and fit in both body and mind. 

This book is for people who have never exercised but who would like to start; for people who would like to know more about good nutrition; for people who exercise but have not seen results; for people whose fitness level has declined and who want to re-ignite their fitness quest; for people who choose to be proactive about their own health, fitness, and wellness; for people interested in the mind-body connection; and for people who reject negative self-talk and self-limiting stereotypes about life after the age of 50. All ages are welcome.

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE

Check out Robert Henry's Youtube Video:

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Spunky Fearless Author Liz Flaherty Not only Sews and Writes, but Also Parasails!


I'll let Liz Flaherty do the talking today, and she does a fine job of it!

   
Liz Flaherty with her dog, Bandit.
      I’ve been retired for two years and two and a half months. This is hard for me to believe, since I’m sure I just clocked out of the post office for the last time a week ago Friday.
          I worried before I retired, about the things I imagine most of us worry about. Would we have enough money to live how we wanted? Would our health hold up? Would we still like each other when we had more time to spend together? Would I still want to write when I had time for it? What about changes?—I hate changes!
         
But changes were my friends in retirement. I spent more time sewing. I volunteered in fun times at fun places. I decided to stop being afraid of so many things and went parasailing.
Fearless Liz Flaherty Parasails!
          Even my writing changed, although not because I wanted it to. Many, many writers’ voices don’t reflect their age. Nora Roberts writes a 20-some protagonist even better now than she did at the beginning of her career in 1981. So do Mary Balogh, Robyn Carr, and Susan Elizabeth Phillips, to name but a few.
          I, on the other hand, can make a 30-year-old sound like…yes, exactly, like a 62-year-old retiree. A former—and very good—editor and a few contest judges referred to my voice as—shudder—old-fashioned. No one said it was bad, nor that I should just confine myself to helping with the church bulletin, nor that I should quit. I just needed to…well, what? Jazz it up? Oh, good grief, there I go again. No one says “jazz it up” anymore. No one has Early American furniture or decorates with baskets or still has flowery wallpaper in their bathrooms.
         Except maybe me.
          So here I was with Early and Nash McGrath, in their late 40s, divorced after 30 years of marriage. And it was time for another change.
          Although I’d read quite a bit of inspirational romance and some of my favorite people write it (Cheryl St. John, Cheryl Reavis, Diann Hunt, and Janet Dean, again just naming a few), I’d never seriously considered writing it. If for no other reason, I didn’t think of it because my faith is private. I once told my mother, when I was in the process of refusing to go to a revival with her, that I didn’t consider Christianity a spectator sport.
That hasn’t changed much. But inspirational romantic fiction has. More than just change, it has expanded. There are many evangelistic books to be found, but there are also many that are by and about people like me. People who go to church on Sundays and say quiet prayers every day and read a lot of secular fiction but don’t really like a whole bunch of cussing and are bored with sex scenes. Granted, even now most of the heroes and heroines aren’t 62, but Early and Nash fit just fine.
A Soft Place to Fall has already been released by Pelican Book Group in paperback and will be out digitally on April 26. Although I don’t know yet how my segue into inspirational fiction will work out, if it’s like the other changes of the past couple of years, I’m really looking forward to it.
Oh, and ziplining—I’m looking forward to that, too.

          Visit me at http://lizflaherty.com or email me at lizkflaherty@gmail.com —I’d love to hear from you and the coffeepot’s always on!


What A Soft Place to Fall is about:
Early McGrath didn’t want freedom from her thirty-year marriage to Nash, but when it was forced upon her, she did the only thing she knew to do—she went home to the Ridge to reinvent herself. Only what is someone who’s taken care of people her whole life supposed to do when no one needs her anymore? Even as the threads of her life unravel, she finds new ones— reconnecting with the church of her childhood, building the quilt shop that has been a long-time dream, and forging a new friendship with her former husband. The definition of freedom changes when it’s combined with faith. Can Early and Nash find a Soft Place to Fall?
Liz Flaherty

JAR OF DREAMS / Carina Press / Available now!
ONE MORE SUMMER / Carina Press

A SOFT PLACE TO FALL / Harbourlight Books - 4/26

Please welcome Liz Flaherty to Spunky Senior Authors and Talents by leaving a comment.
        

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Spunky Senior Author Allison Knight's Life Change

Allison Knight entered this world seventy-eight years ago, on a cold and blustery Christmas night, to the delight of her mother who claimed the baby was all she wanted for Christmas.

As Allison grew up, she discovered she loved to read even if it meant reading late at night under the blankets. She started her writing career in grade school, writing poetry, essays, one of which earned her a monetary reward, then in college as a gossip columnist for the college newspaper.

When she started teaching high school Home Economics, she continued to read and write, even beginning a cookbook. Her husband claims it's a miracle that book was never finished because some of her recipes... (Enough said!) Instead of food, she turned to her love of history and the need to always have a happy ending into writing romantic fiction, and began her career as a romance novelist, selling the first three books she wrote to a NY publisher.

Her only claim to fame is being mentioned by Paul Harvey on his noon radio show, when he explained that a teacher in Michigan taught 'Family Living' during the day and wrote romance novels at night.

Her greatest writing achievement was accidentally exposing one of her male students to the joy of reading. He told her privately that he'd never read a whole book, but loved her story so much he read the book cover to cover. He had discovered the joy of reading novels. A year after he graduated from high school, she ran into him one evening in a local book store. With his arm full of books, he grinned, explaining he ought to blame her because now he spent all his extra money on the newest novel available. If her writing does nothing else, at least she opened the world of literature for one young man.

She is still writing romance novels and with the help of her husband who is quick to offer suggestions, edit each book before it's submitted, and do the promotional work at her request, she waits for the release of book number twenty in May of 2013 with another on her publisher's desk awaiting a decision. 

Allison Knight shares with us Her Late Change of Life - 
How to Change Your Life As You Near Eighty Years Young

The call came at ten o'clock at night. That's always worrisome. Especially with children, even if they are grown. But, at the other end of the phone was a timid, weak, little voice asking if she could please talk to Grandpa. It was one of our granddaughters. And with a poignant plea!

Could we please take her cat? The cat bite her dad and he said the cat had to go. She didn't want to take it to a shelter so if the cat could come live with us, she'd help take care of it. They lived close enough, only a few miles away, so she could come play with him and bathe him, feed him, take care of him, if Grandpa would say he'd take one orange tomcat. Her idea, not ours.

Of course, Grandpa agreed. I mean, who can deny the pleading of one of your grandchildren.

So, after many years of no pets, (the last pet passed away soon after the kids left the nest), and a great retirement, which meant time to travel and explore our country, we were suddenly the new owners of a big, mean, orange cat. Yes, he did bite and we immediately had to change his name. I'll only use the initials, and let you figure out the rest, because that cat was an animal with a mind of his own. He did his own thing in his own time, often going for an arm or leg with his mouth open. So his name became L.S. because that's what we called him when he was being obstinate or mean, which was most of the time.

However, somehow, over the next six years, that big orange ball of fluff grew into a loving cat, constantly needing a reassuring touch, a rub or a pat morning, noon and night.
He even started talking to us when he wanted attention. Of course we couldn't understand a sound he made because we didn't speak 'cat'.

When one of our sons called to say his crew found a tiny black kitten under the shelves in a big box store, I looked at our big guy and said, "Why not?" L.S. probably needed the company. So the kitten came to live with us. Wally, a black tuxedo, wasn't much of a companion for L.S., though. Too much age difference, I guess.

We took a trip to our vet in search of a kitten, one who could be a playmate for Wally, and brought home cat number three, a three year old, part Siamese, with an attitude. At the vet's, Celine jumped into my husband's lap and stayed there. We really had no choice.

Since then, three years ago, we've  discovered those cats are our entertainment, provide company, give us a lot to talk about and definitely lower our blood pressure. All three want attention, even when I'm engrossed on working on my latest novel, or my husband is involved in working on some of my promotional material.

L.S. is particularly fond of settling in on the hard copy of the latest manuscript my husband is editing for me. Celine is especially pleased when I decide to work at my desk, because she takes a giant leap, landing in the middle of my notes, then stretching out, scattering papers all over the floor, so I have room to scratch her back. All three love to jump on chairs, tables, desks, computers, even printers and sing loud and clear. "Time for us!"

And, yes, we do take time out and play with them. Okay, we admit it. It's good for them and good for us. That was one late night phone call we'll never regret taking.

                                       About Allison's Novel, Windsong:

Alwyn ab Brynn Ffrydd wants revenge against a powerful Baron without losing his king's support. What better way to exact revenge than to kidnap the Baron's long time mistress. But she is not what he thinks she is.

Shy, unworldly Milisent Mortimore has been confined for nine years by a brother who now demands she agree to wed a cruel, heartless man. Thanks to her father's will, she has the right to chose her mate or her spouse will lose her inheritance.

When Alwyn kidnaps her desires flares and together they must struggle against the treachery of Alwyn's current mistress, her brother and the man he wants her to marry.
In defying all three, Alwyn places his life at risk. Milisent saves him from certain death and together they celebrate their life of love. 

Or the tiny URL is:                        http://tinyurl.com/cksavku



My publisher, CBG, www.ChampagneBooks.com  is planning to release BETRAYED BRIDE, a contemporary Romance, May 6, 2013.  



My web page:                www.AllisonKnight.com.  (There are buy links for each of my books, plus reviews and excerpts for each book on the web  page.)
My blog:                        www.AllisonKnight.blogspot.com
My twitter account:         www.twitter.com/HistoricalAllie

PLEASE WELCOME ALLISON KNIGHT BY LEAVING A COMMENT BELOW.