WEEK FIVE

DIET AND NUTRITION | MONDAY

“Your body is the baggage you must carry through life. The more excess the baggage, the shorter the trip.”

—Arnold H. Glasgow

Lose Belly Fat

In a study of Kaiser Permanente patients in Northern California, middle-aged people with excess visceral fat—more commonly known as belly fat—were nearly three times more likely to suffer from dementia in their seventies and eighties than people with little to no belly fat. The researchers found these people have a much higher risk of having that visceral fat surrounding internal organs deep in their abdominal cavity. Doctors theorize that this fat may release toxins associated with atherosclerosis or the buildup of plaque in the brain that is frequently present in those afflicted with Alzheimer’s. The study identified people who were 30 pounds or more overweight who had developed belly fat in their forties as 3.6 times more likely to develop dementia. They reported that the risk for a man with belly fat goes up when his waist exceeds 40 inches; for a woman, it’s 35 inches. Doctors recommend a combination of weight training and aerobic exercise that targets the whole body (not just the abdominals), a low-fat diet, and minimal sugar. Surprisingly, recent research has suggested that including dairy products and getting plenty of sleep may help when it comes to battling belly fat.

STRENGTH | TUESDAY

“Water provides 12 times the resistance of air, so as you walk, you’re really strengthening and building muscle.”

—Vennie Jones, aquatic fitness coordinator

Warm Up by Taking a Walk in Shallow Water

A great way to warm up your muscles before a weight-lifting workout is to take a walk in shallow water, shallow meaning no more than chest deep. Once in the water, swing your arms freely as if walking on land. This will help your balance and loosen up your back muscles.

Breathe naturally. Concentrate on maintaining good posture with your shoulders relaxed and above your hips and abdominals engaged. Avoid leaning forward excessively. Make sure the opposite arm and leg are moving forward.

Variations to bolster the warm-up:

• (harder) Hold hands out of the water.

• (harder) Walk with elbows in and arms extended outward to increase resistance, while maintaining neutral spine.

• (harder) Increase speed of walking.

Other warm-up ideas include jogging, hopping, traveling lunges, jumping jacks, knee lifts, kicks, rocking, cross-country skiing, bounding, skipping, or backward traveling moves.

MENTAL AGILITY | WEDNESDAY

“It’s cool to be geeky, and sports don’t get much geekier than Ping-Pong.”

—Susan Sarandon, actress and co-owner of SPiN Gallactic, a Ping-Pong club in New York

Exercise Multiple Areas of Your Brain by Playing Table Tennis

Daniel G. Amen, MD, author of Making a Good Brain Great, is a major enthusiast of table tennis, calling it “the best brain sport ever”: “It is highly aerobic, uses both the upper and lower body, is great for hand-eye coordination and reflexes, and causes you to use many different areas of the brain at once as you are tracking the ball, planning shots and strategies, and figuring out spins. It is like aerobic chess.” He also noted that it is the second most popular organized sport in the world, and has been an Olympic sport since 1988.

Popularly known as Ping-Pong, table tennis requires amazing reflexes, practiced technique, and chess-like strategy. Because the volleys come fast and furious, your brain and muscles have to communicate and respond with lightning speed. Advanced players soon learn to conceal their return’s directionality and to add spins that make the game even more challenging. “Everybody I meet either knows somebody or they themselves were at one point a terrific Ping-Pong player,” reported Marty Reisman, the 1958 and 1960 United States Open table tennis champion. “Only a small group is cognizant of the extreme skill required to play the game.”

ENDURANCE | THURSDAY

“The body’s capacity and the soul’s capacity, the body’s speed and the soul’s speed, go together. Running and physical fitness help us both in our inner life of aspiration and in our outer life of activity.”

—Sri Chinmoy, international spiritual leader, artist, and activist

Amp Up Your Running Program

Running is one of the best aerobic exercises you can do. Aerobic exercise does for the body what no other activity can because of a crucial process: the utilization of oxygen. You take in oxygen all the time just by breathing, of course. But when you run, you take in greater amounts of oxygen, and it is delivered more deeply into the body because the heart, lungs, and muscles are working harder. Circulation increases and with it, oxygen delivery. This is beneficial for your body and makes you feel good. But even more important for building endurance and increasing stamina, you need a strong focus on aerobic exercises—and running is king.

The body loves regular bouts of oxygen-rich running and like a welcome houseguest makes accommodations for this. The body actually craves a higher aerobic level. The accommodations are the training benefits that improve the working of the body not only during exercise but also while at rest. Plus, when you run, you use one of the body’s major tools: its muscles. Running helps to keep your muscles functional and strong, which is essential to endurance.

Ask your doctor if you’re healthy enough to amp up your running program. You may want to consult a specialist, too, like an orthopedist or someone who handles sports injuries. You may need to prepare your body first before you begin hard running two or three times a week, particularly as you increase frequency or intensity.

FLEXIBILITY | FRIDAY

“As you inhale think of lengthening and creating space, and with the exhale think about moving into that space and deepening the stretch.”

—Jeff Levine, Krav Maga instructor

Breathe Properly When You Stretch Your Muscles

Controlling your breathing enables you to control other functions of your body, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. Additionally, conscious deep breathing generates more oxygen for the body and keeps vital lung capacity from decreasing. This can be helpful for cardiovascular activity because it allows more oxygen into the lungs with each breath.

Taking the time to breathe deeply helps to improve your posture and can keep your body from becoming tight and tense. When your body becomes tight and tense, it is very hard to get muscles to lengthen and become more flexible. This is one of the reasons why it is very important to breathe deeply when you are practicing your stretch routine. Through your breath you can stimulate a part of the nervous system that activates the relaxation response. Once you are able to relax you will sleep better, recover from exercise faster, get better from illness faster, and deal with the stresses of life more efficiently.

The best way to use your breath when you are working on a stretch is to inhale as you come up out of the stretch just slightly, then exhale as you move back into the stretch, maybe a little bit further on each sequential breath. Remember: Do not force any stretch. If you use your breath appropriately it will help you relax more into the stretch. Forcing a stretch will make the muscle you are trying to stretch contract and will limit your range of motion. Another way to think of proper breathing is as you inhale you lengthen, as you exhale you deepen the stretch.

RECREATION | SATURDAY

“I haven’t had sex in eight months. To be honest, I now prefer to go bowling.”

—Lil’ Kim

Join a Bowling League

You might not know that the ancient Egyptians enjoyed a good game of bowling. Of course, their balls were stone and players at opposite ends of the lane threw their balls (a big one and a smaller one) at the same time. Today many bowling leagues are looking for a few good participants. Of course, you can bowl alone if that makes you happy, but many people believe that bowling is a game best enjoyed in the company of family or friends. Getting out for a few hours of bowling is good for shifting the constant pressures of home and work and decreasing stress levels while strengthening your friendships by engaging in pleasurable activities with your bowling partners.

While bowling is not the most aerobic of sports, it will get you moving, and something is better than nothing. By signing up for a league, you’ll be responsible for showing up for league play every week and expected to do your best. Plus you’ll likely burn 219 calories an hour that you might not otherwise have burned.

REST | SUNDAY

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”

—Harriet Van Horne

Cook Your Favorite Dish for Yourself

Cook up something spectacular such as the comfort food of your childhood, an exotic creation you first tasted on your honeymoon, or even a savory palate-pleaser you learned to cook when you were dating that foreign guy or girl. If you are a working parent, then it’s unlikely you ever cook just to please yourself. So once in a while, cook what you want to eat instead of only what the kids will eat. They can nibble on pizza, ordered in, while you happily savor every bite of that Moroccan tangine chicken, New England crab cakes, Midwestern meatloaf, Southern fried chicken, or other favorite. You know how happy you feel eating your favorite food. That’s why it’s your favorite.