Healthiest You Ever

“You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook’s year. I get more excited by that than anything else.”

Asparagus provides tons of folic acid, potassium, and fiber, and is a heart-healthy source of vitamins A, C, and K. It also contains the carbohydrate inulin, which promotes the growth and activity of good bacteria in your intestines—and it’s a diuretic.

1. Coat a large skillet with nonstick spray and heat over medium heat. Add peanut oil, sesame oil, vegetable broth, and asparagus. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes.

2. Add remaining ingredients to skillet. Stirring often, cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until asparagus are tender and sauce thickens.

“Now for the big bang! Power training is very explosive at its highest levels. Plyometrics are a great way to develop muscular power.”

Plyometrics are resistance exercises that use your own body weight as the resistance. Not only are they convenient, plyometrics are effective for body control because they build explosive power, strength, balance, and coordination. In terms of everyday fitness, plyometric conditioning is the most useful and appropriate type of training. When added into a workout that includes cardio conditioning, you have a complete regimen. Because plyometrics don’t require any equipment, they involve no extra cost and can be done in a relatively small space, which means they are useful exercises for those who travel, work out at the office, or for anyone who gets the sudden urge to work on conditioning.

Plyometric exercises include pushups (performed so explosively that your body and hands leave the ground), jumping squats, jumping lunges, and throwing a medicine ball forward, up, or explosively in any direction. With all plyometrics, you will need to start slowly and build up speed as your strength grows. We have specifics for plyometric pushups, jumping squats, jumping lunges, and lateral pushes coming up. Meanwhile, see if you can come up with other ideas for ways you can use your body weight to bolster your workout.

Calcium’s primary function is to help build and maintain bones and teeth. In addition, calcium helps blood clot, helps your muscles contract and your heartbeat, helps regulate blood pressure, plays a role in normal nerve function and nerve transmission, and helps regulate the secretion of hormones and digestive enzymes. In a review of twenty-two studies, calcium supplementation was found to moderately reduce blood pressure in adults with hypertension, or high blood pressure, but had little effect on people with normal blood pressure.

Calcium has a UL set at 2,500 mg per day for adults and children. When consuming supplements up to this amount, no adverse effects are likely. However, higher doses over an extended period of time may cause kidney stones and poor kidney function as well as reduce the absorption of other minerals such as iron and zinc. Consult with your doctor before adding supplements.

CHOOSE FOODS RICH IN CALCIUM

Some of the best sources of calcium are foods in the dairy group, such as milk, cheese, and yogurt. In addition, some dark green leafy vegetables, such as broccoli, spinach, kale, and collards, are good sources. Other good sources include fish with edible bones, such as sardines and salmon, as well as calcium-fortified soymilk, tofu made with calcium, shelled almonds, cooked dried beans, calcium-fortified cereals, and calcium-fortified orange juice.

“I always wanted to be Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up. I can’t fly, but swimming is the next best thing. It’s harmony and balance. The water is my sky.”

Pool workouts are a great way to warm up, but also to strengthen muscles. Jumping jacks done in water strengthen your gluteals, adductors, and abductors (hips, buttocks, inner thighs, outer thighs). Here’s how to do them:

1. Stand in chest-deep water with your feet close together. Bend your knees slightly, lengthen your spine, relax your shoulders.

2. Perform a jumping jack movement. If you are toning the outer thighs, focus on powering out as you jump, returning gently to center. If you are toning the inner thighs, focus on powering in as you jump, returning gently to a wide stance.

3. Inhale to prepare, exhale on the power phase. Inhale on the return phase. Keep tone in your abdominals. Maintain good posture with neutral spinal alignment. Avoid arching your back. Land softly and with control. Use arms to assist your balance.

• Use an aquatic step. Start with both legs on the pool floor behind step. Perform jacks with power phase. Jump up on step. If you are toning the outer thighs, focus on powering out as you jump down and straddle the step. If you are toning the inner thighs, focus on powering in as you jump up onto the step. Using the aquatic step is the most difficult level since the force of gravity is increased.

“Yoga is the fountain of youth. You’re only as young as your spine is flexible.”

Begin in basic cat-cow pose (see Week Twenty-Eight). Inhale and lengthen your spine. Exhale and draw your right knee and your chin into your chest while rounding your back. Repeat this pattern five times and then change sides. You can also try starting on all fours and shifting your weight onto your right hip. Inhale and lengthen your spine. Exhale and turn your head to look at your right hip. With each successive exhalation, try to bring your head closer to the hip. This action will create stretch on the left side of your body and contraction on the right side of your body. As you inhale, feel the breath come into your left side, which has been stretched and opened to receive the breath. Once you’ve gone as far as you can go (without aggressive action), come back to center, and then repeat on the left side. The cat-cow pose and its variations have the following benefits:

• They increase the flexibility and suppleness of the spine and its surrounding muscles.

• They plump up the spinal discs and aid in fluid circulation in and out of the discs.

• They’re useful as a warm-up for other postures and as a way of stretching the backside of the body after back bending.

“There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country.”

A great way to get exercise, learn about ecology, botany, local wildlife, and public land management issues, and make a valuable contribution to your local community is to work with local parks and recreation departments to restore natural habitats. Tasks might include constructing a path, clearing a hiking trail, dry stone walling, planting some trees and bushes, or whatever needs to be done to preserve or create green spaces in your community.

Another way to help is to make a donation to The Corps Network, an organization that carries on the tradition of America’s Civilian Conservation Corps in restoring the environment. For information on the organization and to learn how to donate, see www.nascc.org.

CIVILIAN ROOTS

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work relief program created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of the New Deal. It provided work for young men whose families were unable to find jobs during the Great Depression. During the time it operated, between 1933 and 1942, CCC volunteers planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide, upgraded most state parks, updated forest fire fighting methods, and built a network of service buildings and public roadways in remote areas.

“Yoga means union—the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one’s actions.”

Yoga is one of the oldest holistic health-care systems in existence, focusing on both the mind and the body. In the Western world, most people live in their heads more than in their bodies. The educational system is focused on book learning; many jobs are either cerebral or mindless (few incorporate both). And yet Western medicine focuses almost solely on the physical aspect of health, neglecting the emotional and spiritual aspects that yoga attends to.

Through the practice of yoga postures and breath work, you can reconnect your body and mind and discover your spirit. You can become whole and regain an intimate knowledge of your real Self (not the little self with needs and wants that gnaws at you all day long). Yoga is the art of listening to all parts of your Self.

This ancient practice is a spiritual discipline with a code of ethics toward yourself and others. It is not a religion. It is a system for discovering and developing the true Self, an ancient method of psychotherapy (before there was one), and a potent self-evolutionary tool. In the classic text the Yoga Sutras, the spiritual path of yoga is laid out like a roadmap with discussion of the mental, physical, and psychological benefits and roadblocks along the way.