Healthiest You Ever

“Every superfood is going to be a ‘real’ (unprocessed) food … You don’t find fortified potato chips in the superfood category.”

Gram for gram, sea vegetables—seaweeds and algae—are higher in essential vitamins and minerals than any other known food group. These minerals are bio-available to the body in chelated, colloidal forms that make them more easily absorbed. Sea vegetables that provide minerals in this colloidal form have been shown to retain their molecular identity while remaining in liquid suspension. The following is a descriptive list of what sea vegetables can add to your daily diet:

• The brown sea varieties—kelp, wakame, and kombu—contain alginic acid, which has been shown to remove heavy metals and radioactive isotopes from the digestive tract.

• They contain significant amounts of vitamin A, in the form of beta-carotene, as well as vitamins B, C, and E.

• They provide the fifty-six minerals and trace minerals that your body requires to function properly.

Today sea vegetables are available from the Maine Coast Sea Vegetable Company on the east coast and the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company in northern California. Add them to green smoothies for a nutritional punch.

“Once stability and strength has been established and achieved it is then safe to add power training through plyometric exercises to your training program.”

Vertical jumps are an advanced variation of a squatting exercise, and exercises that involve leaving the ground are a great way to develop power—if your core is solid and you can withstand the impact.

1. With your feet about shoulder width apart, sit your hips back and down while keeping your back straight, as if you were about to sit down in a chair, bending your knees in a squat.

3. From the bottom of your squat, swing your arms overhead and push down with your legs, moving your hips forward and up in order to jump off the ground.

4. After leaving the ground you must land appropriately. Use your hips and knees to absorb the landing. You should land back on the ground with a fluid and light movement. The landing should not feel jarring at all. Your arms should swing back upon landing and upward upon the take off. Try to find a smooth rhythm of legwork and arm swing so that one jump leads into the next in a continuous manner.

The faster you are able to generate large forces moving down into the floor, the higher and more powerful your jump will be. Once you are comfortable with this movement you can emphasize jumping higher, or swinging the arms faster, in order to produce more power by using the momentum of the arm swing. The same jump can be performed without using any arm swing at all. Place your hands on your hips and observe the difference in the height of your jump. Without the arm swing this becomes much more challenging.

This mineral aids the brain as part of a metabolic process that eliminates harmful free radicals. It also strengthens neuronal membranes for greater protection and helps get rid of lead, which can enter the brain through automobile exhaust and other sources and adversely affect mental function. Zinc is part of the molecular structure of dozens of important enzymes, is a component of the insulin that regulates our energy supply, and works with red blood cells to transport waste carbon dioxide from body tissue to the lungs, where it is expelled. Zinc is also vital to the production of the RNA and DNA that oversee the division, growth, and repair of the body’s cells; helps preserve our sense of taste and smell; and aids in wound healing.

The RDA for zinc is 15 milligrams, not to exceed 40 milligrams per day for adults over eighteen years of age. Women who are pregnant may want to take an additional 5 milligrams of zinc daily, and women who are breastfeeding an extra 10 milligrams daily.

Dietary sources of zinc include beef, herring, seafood, pork, poultry, milk, soybeans, and whole grains.

“Nothing lifts me out of a bad mood better than a hard workout on my treadmill. It never fails. Exercise is nothing short of a miracle.”

A treadmill is a good option for indoor running (or walking) and can be done at home, at a gym, or club. There are new indoor treadmills coming to market all the time. The best indoor treadmill is the one that works for you. Experiment with several before you hone in on one, and be receptive to trying new ones that show up in your gym.

Running on treadmills is recommended when you have no choice and you don’t want to miss a workout. The treadmill’s convenience is wonderful, but ultimately it will not help you train for long-distance running. Those in training for a marathon still need to do a large percentage of running on roads, particularly with those all-important long runs. As you run indoors, remember to focus on your form. When you exercise, proper posture and technique are essential to maximizing your effort and avoiding injury. Many runners respect the importance of posture and mechanics when doing outside sports but give little thought to these when exercising indoors on equipment.

HOW TO COMPUTE YOUR MILES PER HOUR

Pace is the number of minutes it takes to travel 1 mile. To determine your pace, divide 60 by your speed in miles per hour. For example: If your treadmill speed equals 3.5 mph, divide 60 by 3.5. You are running a 17-minute mile.

“Basketball is an endurance sport, and you have to learn to control your breath; that’s the essence of yoga, too. So, I consciously began using yoga techniques in my practice and playing. I think yoga helped reduce the number and severity of injuries I suffered. As preventative medicine, it’s unequaled.”

To do a one-arm side balance (Vasisthasana) come into downward-facing dog. Place your right hand at the midline of your body (halfway to your left hand and in line with it) and the outside of your right foot on the floor. Lift your left hand off the floor and place it on your left hip, as you place your left foot over the right foot and turn the body to face sideways. Stack your ankles, hips, and shoulders. Stretch actively through your feet and lengthen the front of your body from the pubis to the sternum. Keep your head in line with your spine. Extend your left arm up perpendicular to the floor and press down through your right hand, lengthening up through your right arm. Lift your right hip up, so it does not sag down. Stay for several breaths and then come back into downward-facing dog, bend your knees, and come down. Rest, and then repeat on the other side.

You can also try placing your feet against the wall for additional support and help with alignment. Or, instead of bringing your upper leg on top of the lower leg, place your upper leg in front of your lower leg. Bend your leg and turn your foot to face your lower foot. Press through both feet.

“What started as a promise to my sister turned into a global movement.”

You can get in shape for a good cause and earn money for medical research teams and exercise at the same time. Join forces with the Leukemia Foundation for a Cure or the Fight Against Breast Cancer or the American Heart Association and walk to raise money for medical research. Here are several walks that may have local opportunities, and if not, you can create the first walk in your area!

• Walk for breast cancer. Roughly, 182,000 women receive a breast cancer diagnosis each year. A staggering 43,300 will die. Not only women, but also men, get breast cancer. Find a variety of ways to help fight this dreaded disease and multiple websites with information by logging onto www.breastcancersite.org.

• Participate in a Relay for Life. Held by the American Cancer Society these overnight events are held in cities and towns across the country. Check out the Relay for Life website at www.relayforlife.org and learn how you can form a team and participate in a relay in your area.

• Join the Asthma Walk to help find a cure. More than 20 million Americans have asthma and nearly 4,000 die every year. Pollutants in the environment pose increased health hazards to asthma sufferers. Go to www.lungusa.org for more information.

Stress evokes the “fight or flight” reaction by releasing stress hormones into the body designed to give us sudden, quick reactions, extra strength, and endurance. When we don’t respond to the stress response by moving quickly, using our strength, or taking advantage of the added endurance, our bodies are all geared up with no outlet for that energy. Muscles stay tense. Blood pressure stays high. Breathing stays shallow. Cortisol and adrenaline course through the body, causing all kinds of problems when the body doesn’t react the way it is being programmed to react.

Because your body is primed to physically react when feeling stressed, taking a brisk walk around the block (or two, or three) can provide instant relief, particularly if you hustle. Once your brain gets the message that you are, in fact, moving quickly, it responds by returning to equilibrium and releasing beta endorphins that will further calm your body.

In other words, exercise makes the obsolete “fight or flight” stress response relevant again. It lets your body respond the way it is trying to respond. Rather than sitting and fuming (what caveperson ever did that in response to a charging predator?), you are getting up and moving. “Ahh …” the body responds. “this is what I want to do!”