Healthiest You Ever

“In the United States, most of the population consumes about twice as much protein than the human body needs.”

Nutritionally speaking, fiber is the indigestible part of food you eat—the stuff that passes through your digestive system relatively quickly and intact, such as the bran in grain, the pulp in fruit, and the skin of certain vegetables such as corn. By traveling so quickly, it also rushes other foods through your system, giving cancer-causing compounds less time to do their dirty work, and moving excess calories through your system before they turn into fat, which keeps your metabolic rate high. Fiber also promotes healthy digestion by stimulating the action of beneficial bacteria and dilutes potential carcinogens, reducing their ability to do harm. A diet high in fiber will fill you up so you’re less likely to eat unhealthy foods that slow down your metabolism, and it will help you maintain healthy cholesterol and blood sugar levels, making it a great tool for weight management. Studies have shown that consuming between 20 and 30 grams of fiber a day can dramatically reduce your risk for many cancers. Good sources of fiber have at least 2.5 grams of fiber per serving.

Soluble fiber plays two important roles: 1) It binds to bile as it travels through your small intestine, and 2) it helps keep blood sugar levels manageable. Since bile acids assist fat digestion and allow cholesterol to stick around, the faster soluble fiber ushers fat through your system, the less fat and cholesterol you retain. And the steadier your blood sugar levels are, the more efficient your metabolic process remains. Foods containing soluble fiber include:

“Muscles need at least forty-eight hours in between training sessions to recover and repair.”

—Shirley S. Archer, fitness professional, Stanford University School of Medicine

Strength training works because it places stress on your muscles. This stress causes microscopic injury to your muscle cells. During your rest period, your cells repair this damage. Through repair, your muscles become stronger. If you don’t allow your body time to recover, the next time you work out, you’ll be placing more stress on already damaged muscle cells. Overtraining slows your progress and can lead to injury. Signs and symptoms of overtraining are decreased performance (you can’t lift as much as usual), difficulty in maintaining good form, chronic fatigue, muscle soreness and damage, increased incidence of injuries, joint aches and pains, reduced ability to concentrate, lower self-esteem, increased sensitivity to stress, increased occurrence of illness, decreased rate of healing, and disturbed sleep.

The good news is that rest and recovery time need to be part of your weekly workout schedule. Don’t you love it when you can sit on the couch and tell people that it’s part of your training program? And, it is. Actually, you’re “working in,” which is equally important and often neglected. You’re allowing the inner process of tissue rebuilding and repair to occur. This is essential to increase your strength and get results.

On the other hand, if you take too much time off between sessions, your muscles will not continue to get stronger without continued stimulation. You will gain new tissue immediately following your last session. But if you spend too much time on the couch, this tissue will atrophy, or shrink.

“Omega-3 fatty acids have so many biological roles because they are a primary element of health for virtually every cell and organ system in the body.”

Fish is high in omega-3 oils, which is very healthy, but some fish is high in mercury content. Research has shown that nerve cells exposed to mercury caused the formation of neurofibrillar tangles and amyloid plaques, often present in Alzheimer’s cases. Dr. Haley, a Canadian researcher, said, “Seven of the characteristic markers that we look for to distinguish Alzheimer’s disease can be produced in normal brain tissues, or cultures of neurons, by the addition of extremely low levels of mercury. In addition, research reported in NeuroReport has shown that Alzheimer’s diseased patients have at least three times higher blood levels of mercury than controls.” One particular area of the brain that transmits memories and sensations to higher brain centers contained almost four times as much mercury as did the normal controls. Here’s what you need to remember:

• The FDA and EPA recommend limited consumption of shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury.

• The FDA and EPA also recommend no more than 6 ounces (170 g) per week of canned albacore (“white”) tuna, tuna steaks, lobster, halibut, and orange roughy. A 6-ounce serving is about the size of two decks of cards or two checkbooks.

• The FDA also recommends that you eat no more than 12 ounces (340 g) per week of fish and shellfish lower in mercury. This equates to two average 6-ounce (170 g) meals.

• Fish lower in mercury include shrimp, canned light tuna (not albacore tuna), salmon, pollock, catfish, cod, crab, flounder/sole, grouper, haddock, herring, mahi-mahi, ocean perch, oysters, rainbow trout, sardines, scallops, tilapia, and trout.

“Before any real benefit can be derived from physical exercises, one must first learn how to breathe properly. Our very life depends on it.”

One of the most vital yet underrated areas you can work on to improve your running efficiency is correct breathing technique. Since increasing respiration is essential to building endurance, learning how to breathe is essential. The problem is that many people breathe from their chest rather than from their abdominal region while they run. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced runner, take the time to learn and employ the abdominal breathing method. At a minimum, just remember to keep breathing deeply and regularly. In most cases your breathing will take care of itself; as you run faster, you’ll breathe faster. And yes, most runners are mouth breathers or at least nose and mouth breathers. It would be impossible to take in adequate oxygen just breathing through your nose.

Your breathing rhythm is very important. Rhythm and stride are closely related to your breathing, whether you take three strides for every breath or two, your breathing and your stride are probably in sync naturally. Beginning runners, though, make the mistake of breathing at a 1:1 rate. This means that they are taking one step while breathing in and one step while breathing out. This is essentially panting, and it is inefficient breathing.

The more economical way to breathe depends, to a large degree, on the pace at which you are running. For your average run, you should breathe 2:2 (taking two steps for every breath in and two steps for every breath out) or 3:3 for longer, slower runs. As you run faster, you may have to breathe more often, which leads to such variations as 2:1 and 1:2 patterns.

“The mind, when housed within a healthful body, possesses a glorious sense of power.”

Pilates is a series of exercises that focus on strengthening core postural muscles to support the spine for correct alignment, an approach used by many hospital rehabilitation programs. Recently, Pilates has become very popular with the general public, particularly those who are looking for a gentle method of increasing core strength, flexibility, and movement.

Pilates is typically taught in health clubs, where private or semiprivate instruction is available on special equipment or group mat classes are conducted without equipment. Pilates uses the resistance of the body to condition and correct itself, with the goal of lengthening and aligning the spine. Like yoga, Pilates offers a low-impact form of strengthening and toning muscles while helping you get more in tune with your body.

The practice focuses on the deep and lateral transverse abdominal muscle, combining stretching and strengthening exercises that target the abdominals, gluteals, and lower-back muscles. It can benefit athletes, those recovering from injuries, and everyone in between.

“I love extreme sports, I like snowboarding and motorcross and rollerblading and hockey.”

Have you tried skating lately? You can still rent skates and get a workout in a roller skating rink or ice skating facility. Ice skating is particularly fun when done in the winter in an outdoor rink. Roller rinks still offer the young and young-at-heart places to get a workout, complete with music and a light show. Another option is to buy some in-line skates designed for skating on paved surfaces such as streets and sidewalks. In-line skates are sleeker and more stable and lightweight than their traditional counterparts. So grab your family or a friend or even your favorite canine for an afternoon outing at the park. Take along a picnic lunch, a bottle of water, and your in-line skates. Don’t forget to take along some gloves and wrist-guards to protect your hands and wrists, and pads for your elbows and knees just in case you fall. But don’t let the fear of falling keep you from working out and having some fun. Skating particularly works the thighs, calves, and buttocks, and when you see the results on your body for doing that type of regular exercise, you’ll exercise your facial muscles, too, into a big smile.

ENJOY THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF SKATING!

If you want to build strong legs, gain balance, and reduce your overall body fat while you get an aerobic workout, pick up a pair of roller skates or in-line skates. A 150-pound person will burn between 400 and 500 calories skating an hour, so if he were to alternate his workouts between skating, cycling, and swimming, he’d burn a significant number of calories during the week and have fun doing it!

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring—it was peace.”

One of the most consistent findings among the many studies evaluating the beneficial role of pets in our lives is that they provide an important measure of stress relief. Simply petting or playing with our favorite pet, whether it’s a dog, cat, hamster, or canary, stimulates the production of calming chemicals within the brain and helps us relax. Watching fish in an aquarium has a similar calming effect. The calming influence of small animals is so effective that many doctors recommend daily pet play as therapy for their patients who are under a lot of stress either at work or at home. Fifteen minutes of tossing a yarn ball to some frolicsome kittens is a wonderful and inexpensive way to shed the stress of a hard day at the office. If you’re not a cat person, playing fetch with your dog is equally beneficial. The point is to spend time with your pet, whatever the species, and enjoy its company. Talk to it. Pet it. Scratch it behind the ears. Bask in the glow of the pet-owner bond and feel the anxiety melt away. Even the most stressful day is no match for a puppy that’s so happy to see you that its tail is a blur.