Healthiest You Ever

“Although 67 percent of Americans report taking calories into account when making food purchases, nearly nine out of ten have no idea how many they actually need.”

Calories provide energy for your body, but your metabolism decides how it’s going to use the calories you eat. If you take in more calories than your body requires, your body will generally store the extra calories as fat. Therefore, when you consume more calories than you need over a period of time, you gain weight. If you take in fewer calories than your body requires, or burn calories via exercise, your body will call upon the stores of fat to meet its energy requirements. If you do this over a period of time, you will lose weight.

If you are taking in more calories than your body can metabolize and burn as energy and you want to lose weight, you will have to reduce the amount of calories you take in, increase the number of calories you burn through physical exercise, or most likely do both. It is difficult to maintain your desired weight as you age or lose weight without changing the output side of the metabolism equation; that is, you need to boost your metabolism and increase its efficiency by eating healthfully and by exercising regularly and rigorously.

METABOLISM CALCULATORS

In order to determine your ideal caloric intake, it’s crucial to know your metabolic rate, or the rate at which your body burns calories. This number will give you a concrete idea of how many calories you need to maintain your current weight, or how many you need to cut to lose weight. Metabolism calculators are available on many medical websites, such as the following on Webmd.com: www.webmd.com/diet/healthtool-metabolism-calculator.

Running offers amazing health benefits—and it makes your whole body stronger. Here are some benefits to be gained from running (and you don’t have to run five miles a day to start seeing benefits; add ¼ mile every two days and slowly build to one mile twice a week):

So, even if the thought of running leaves you feeling cold, if you’re serious about gaining strength and improving your overall health and you don’t have any body issues that would preclude running, you should at least give it a try. Start with a slow jog, for short distances, and see if transitioning to running might be easier than you think.

“Strengthening neural systems is not fundamentally different [than strengthening certain muscle groups through physical exercise]. It’s basically replacing certain habits of mind with other habits.”

Numerous studies have shown that people who lead lives with little mental stimulation experience greater cognitive loss as they age. Their memory fails with greater frequency, and they find it increasingly difficult to work puzzles, perform mathematic equations, and do other mental feats that come quite easily to people who “exercise” their brains often. Maintaining mental acuity is like training to be a professional athlete; you need to do something every day that revs up your brain and flexes your gray matter. Treat your brain like a muscle, one that needs a strenuous workout on a regular basis.

RESPECT YOUR ELDERS … ELDER BRAIN CELLS, THAT IS

Cells in the lining of our mouth and intestines live for only a few days, and red blood cells live an average of three months. But nerve cells—which generate while you’re still floating in your mother’s uterus—can live 100 years or longer! It was once thought that nerve cells weren’t replaced when they died, but recent studies show that new nerve cells can arise in a few regions of the brain, even in older brains. This increases the importance of supporting and stimulating your brain, not only to improve the longevity of your existing nerve cells, but also for production of new nerve cells. Your brain and body do their jobs by ensuring an ongoing process of cellular detoxification and repair, but it’s up to you to provide the nurturance and stimulation required to keep your brain cells awake and alive.

“The five S’s of sports training are: Stamina, Speed, Strength, Skill, and Spirit; but the greatest of these is Spirit.”

To monitor your heart rate during endurance training, you will need to know how to take your pulse—both to measure your resting heart rate and your working out heart rate. To measure your exercise heart rate, the preferred locations are either at your neck (the carotid pulse) or at your wrist (the radial pulse). Choose the location that works best for you.

Here’s a handy method to locate your carotid pulse at your neck. Take your first two fingertips and place them outside of your eye on your temple. Slide your fingertips down from the middle of your temple to the side of your neck. You should start to feel the pulse. Be sure not to press on your pulse or to massage your neck. Use a gentle touch.

To find your radial pulse at your wrist, place your wrist palm facing up in the palm of your other hand. Wrap your fingers around your wrist. You should feel the pulse in the area between the bone and the tendons.

Once you locate your pulse, follow these simple steps to count. Start counting immediately. For your exercise pulse, take a ten-second count. Multiply that number by six for your one-minute heart rate. If you’re taking your resting heart rate first thing in the morning, count for a full one minute. A one-minute count isn’t recommended for your exercise heart rate as your pulse will slow down from the time you start taking the count to when you finish. Be sure to keep your legs moving while taking your exercise heart rate. You can either walk or march in place.

Stretching is perhaps the most important thing you can do to improve your flexibility. However, stretching a muscle without first warming it up will not result in significant long-term improvements in flexibility—and it could lead to damage. If you really want to increase your flexibility, you’ll need to stretch when your muscles are warm and elastic. And, if you want to target specific areas for improvement in flexibility, you will need to develop a flexibility-training program, about which we’ll have a lot to suggest throughout this book.

In fact, to improve your overall flexibility, the ideal time to stretch a muscle is after you’ve exercised and raised your body’s temperature. When you’re weight training, for example, this would be right after you’ve performed your strength-training set for that particular muscle group. Your muscles are warm and primed. Some people prefer to save their stretching for their final cool down after they’re finished with their entire exercise program, which works well if you’re short on time.

WORK STRETCHING INTO YOUR WORKOUT

Try stretching throughout a workout after each muscle group has been challenged. At the end of your complete program, take about ten to fifteen additional minutes for a full-body stretch. This is a great time to simply relax, tune in to your body, and reap the rewards of your gym efforts. Whichever way you prefer, the bottom line is that stretching is good for you and should be incorporated into your workout.

“We estimate that we get a quarter of a million people. Shoppers come in from all over the country, even internationally.”

Having a yard sale is a great way to get a workout, free up space, and earn money you can donate. Advertise that your yard sale will donate all proceeds to charity, and you’ll soon have enthusiastic buyers eager to help you help others. Here are a few ideas for donating whatever is left over from the yard sale:

• Donate to charitable consignment shops. Some communities have thrift stores to benefit the Cancer Society or Catholic Charities or mental health centers for kids. There are also battered women’s shelters that need many items, from household goods to clothing for women who are trying to put their lives back together.

• Recycle using Freecycle.com. If there isn’t one where you live, start a Freecycle branch. The Freecycle network is a virtual organization of and for people who wish to recycle rather than throw stuff into landfills. Find items you need and get them free or post items that you want to give away at www.freecycle.com.

• Recycle nonrecyclable materials. Companies like TerraCycle (www.terracycle.net) are taking packaging materials from products like energy bars and drink pouches and making them into new products, from tote bags to homework folders. You can mail in your used materials or drop them off at a local center.

“The air was fragrant with a thousand trodden aromatic herbs, with fields of lavender, and with the brightest roses blushing in tufts all over the meadows….”

Whenever you have a bad day, feel exasperated, and struggle to get out of a foul mood, use some lavender to restore your serenity. Lavender is one of aromatherapy’s most popular scents. Scents like lavender, citrus, rose, and sandalwood can trigger particular memories or experiences associated with them. That’s because your olfactory nerve carries the scent straight to your brain. Use freshly crushed flowers set out in bowl, insert some reeds in a diffuser pot with lavender essential oil, light some lavender-scented candles, or put out some sachets of dried lavender. Allow the scent to lift your mood and remember that you never have to live a bad day over again.