Healthiest You Ever

“The thing about the Japanese diet is, you don’t have to do it every meal. Just incorporate it little by little and see how you feel. By eating more modest portions, more vegetables, less bad fat and drinking green tea instead of soda and eating brown rice, all these little things add up to a very healthy way to eat.”

Brown rice contains far more soluble fiber (preceded only by oats and barley) than traditional white rice, and thus is far better for your health. Here’s a saucy recipe that will help you fall in love with brown rice:

Add this pilaf to roasted squash, dolmas, or cabbage rolls. Sauté ½ cup diced carrots, ½ cup diced celery, and ½ cup diced onion in oil until cooked through. Mix sautéed vegetables and ¼ cup toasted walnuts with 2 cups cooked red japonica and brown rice. Season the pilaf with umeboshi vinegar, toasted sesame oil, tahini or hummus, and nori.

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Cut squash in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds and pulp. Combine oil, salt, and spices together in a small bowl. Brush squash with spice mixture. Arrange cut-side down on prepared baking sheet. Roast for 45–50 minutes or until tender.

2. Mix currants or dried cranberries into Brown Rice Nut Pilaf. Fill each squash with grains.

“I was captain and should have set the example. I would lift a minimum of weights. Mine was natural physical strength. I always thought quickness and agility were much more important.”

The standard definition of agility is the ability to change directions quickly. Most sports require players to stop and start their movements at the drop of a hat. Even dancers must train for agility. In soccer, for example, players run up and down the field with little to no rest throughout the game. They could be running in one direction and in an instant have to decelerate, stabilize the momentum of their bodyweight, coordinate the shift of that weight, create enough momentum to start moving that weight in a new direction, and accelerate as quickly as possible. This is why agility is dependent on strength, speed, coordination, and dynamic balance. If you can train for all of these elements, you will experience an improvement in your agility. The more you practice agility, and the components found within agility, the more your agility will improve.

You will grow stronger through strength and functional training exercises, faster through the practice of speed training and speed drills, more coordinated through functional training exercises where the limbs have to move correctly with each other, and create a better center of balance through the practice of balancing drills, all the while becoming a more well-rounded athlete.

“Give me golf clubs, fresh air, and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air.”

According to researchers, the more people participate in close social relationships, the better their overall physical and mental health, and the higher their level of function. The definition of social relationship is broad and can include everything from daily phone chats with family to regular visits with close friends to attending church every Sunday.

The MacArthur Foundation Study on Aging revealed that the two strongest predictors of well-being among the elderly are frequency of visits with friends and frequency of attendance at organization meetings. And the more meaningful the contribution in a particular activity, the greater the health benefit. And it doesn’t always have to be people who believe what you believe. Studies show that the more diverse our innermost circle of social support, the better off we are.

If you can’t find a social club you want to join, consider starting your own. Pick something that offers exercise—physical or mental—and you double the benefit. Here are a few ideas:

• Choose activities that involve learning totally new skills, such as sculpting, photographing nature, printmaking, jewelry making, knitting, golfing, or woodworking.

• Choose activities that will require you to think or strategize, such as playing chess, having bunco parties, hosting book clubs, or attending lectures on neuroscience.

The point is to interact regularly with people who stimulate your mind and to be with people who support your quest to learn or improve.

“Camaraderie is one of the main benefits of joining a running club. It gives you the opportunity to socialize and meet other runners. You exchange information, pick up running tips, maybe even find a training partner.”

There are a number of excellent running clubs around the world that are easy to find, inexpensive to join, and that sponsor activities you can participate in on either a particular weekend or all year. Belonging to a running club is a good way to stay motivated, learn from others, meet people with similar interests, and participate in challenging events. Some clubs are big—like those associated with well-known marathons such as the Boston Athletic Club and the New York Road Runners’ Club. Sparsely populated areas have smaller clubs. Different clubs have different personalities.

In the United States, the best place to start is with the granddaddy of them all, the Road Runners’ Club of America (RRCA) at www.rrca.org. Not only can you find local and national club listings through the RRCA, you can get an idea of what’s happening with running across the country. To find clubs in the state where you live or a state you’re planning to visit, you can go straight to a map on their website, click on the state, and immediately access a list of all the running clubs in that state. The RRCA’s full contact information is as follows:

“Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.”

Climbing walls are appearing in more and more gyms, community centers, and schools. Not only is it fun, climbing provides an excellent total-body workout and is mentally and physically challenging, combining balance with footwork and technique. Gyms with indoor climbing walls have the ropes and equipment you need on hand, so you don’t have to invest in them. Although it doesn’t give a high-intensity cardiovascular workout, it’s another way to stretch your muscles while challenging yourself—and can be very entertaining.

WARM UP WITH A WALK

A relaxed 2–3 mile stroll is a great way to loosen up your legs and prepare them for the climb. It will warm up your muscles and get the fluid moving in your joints, readying them for unusual stretches or positions.

“The ultimate aim of Karate lies not in victory or defeat but in the perfection of the character of its participants.”

Release some of that aggression in a kickboxing class where you’ll learn to combine martial arts kicks with boxing punches for a great workout. Learning to jab, uppercut, roundhouse, and more is sure to boost your self-esteem and confidence, plus it will give you some self-defense skills and melt away those pounds. You’ll be working your entire body intensely for forty-five minutes to an hour in an interval-style workout that will burn calories with cardio and require you to engage in strength-training moves that will tone your arms, legs, core, and butt. Stressed about your job or anything else in your life? This is a great, positive place to let all of that anger out.

“The mantra becomes one’s staff of life and carries one through every ordeal. Each repetition has a new meaning, carrying you nearer and nearer to God.”

Mantra meditation is an ancient tradition practiced by many different cultures in many ways. If time is the ultimate test, then mantra meditation may be the ultimate form of meditation. It disciplines the mind, hones the focus, and even improves the depth of the breath and the capacity of the lungs. It’s also supremely relaxing.

Concentrated focusing while repeating a sound can be called a mantra meditation, whether it’s Sufi chanting or the recitation of the rosary prayer. Some people believe that the sounds of a mantra actually contain certain powers; others believe that the key to mantra meditation is not the sound but the repetition itself. In either case, if you choose a word that means something to you, you may feel your meditation has a more personalized meaning and feeling to it. Any word or phrase will do. Here are a few you might try (the possibilities, of course, are endless):