Stand up and take your health back

Very fittingly, I listened to a blog all about health while on a bike ride today. It blew my mind. The podcast was a May 9, 2012 interview with New York Times writer and author of The First 20 Minutes, Gretchen Reynolds. The piece was called Stand Up, Walk Around, Even Just For '20 Minutes.' The entire interview is worth a listen and I've already added her book to my must reads. Here are some highlights of the interview:

• Stand up every 20 minutes. If you are in a job where you sit all day long, much like myself, merely standing up every 20 minutes will help your body maintain a healthier physiology. Sitting is killing you is one of my favorite infographics and it's SCARY what sitting does to you. If you just make an effort to stand up for 2 minutes every 20 minutes, you decrease your chance of heart disease, diabetes and other ailments. If you walk to the window or around the office, then you start burning more calories and start losing weight, too.
• Stretching before a workout is NOT advised. The reason is when you stretch before you are warmed up, your body thinks that your muscle is going to tear and that's not good. Stretching after is okay, but not mandatory. Thank goodness, cause I don't stretch very often - before OR after.
• You were born about as flexible as you're going to get.
• While running burns more calories, you still get almost ALL the benefits with walking. The biggest difference is that your chance of injury is significantly higher as a runner. Walking is what humans were designed to do, says Reynolds. Nearly 75% of runners say that they experience an injury at least once a year and that walking is a safer and almost as beneficial activity as running.
• If you've worked out for over an hour, chocolate milk is actually one of the BEST drinks to replenish your body's nutrients. 
• If you have healthy knees, squats can keep them healthy by strengthening the muscle around the knee.

Reynolds really knows her stuff. After hearing this interview, I subscribed to her NY Times blog and will be picking up her book shortly.

Today's Knowledge: Work toward better credit scores

I heard this great podcast on how credit scores are calculated. It's less than 5 minutes long and provides great information, like how one shouldn't use more than 35% of their available credit at any time.

Credit Scores Even More Key In A Tight Economy

Unintended Racial Inappropriateness

Lately, I have had a keen ear to racism in small, almost undetectable doses. I'm not saying these people that I've observed are racist. Sometimes white people really don't know when they have crossed the line and it's just due to the fact they haven't been around black people enough or they're just still completely unaware of the situation they're in, especially when you're talking about the Greater Detroit area. And, well, frankly its not only white people.

To protect the innocent, I'm not going into too many details, but making snide remarks to someone that's from Detroit about Kwame Kilpatrick or their financial situation is really inappropriate. I'm a former Detroiter and I know I wouldn't have appreciated some crappy comments like the ones I heard the other day. No one would say these thing to me because I'm white, so no one actually knows that I lived in the city for over two decades. I've got to hand it to the lady who fielded these comments, she was a lot nicer and more patient that I would have been. I wasn't in either of the conversations and was getting sort of pissed.

I'm not sure why race and racism has been so much more apparent to me lately, even in it's most minuscule amounts, but I have a few ideas.

While researching in the Detroit Public Library the other day, I heard this fantastic podcast about how this test can reveal that people have many buried biases. There was even a white caller that talked about how upsetting it was for her to see black people sympathizing with mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. She said she basically put them under the stereotypical umbrella of ignorant and stupid; I think those were her words. The podcast can be heard at Implicit Attitude Tests Reveal Buried Bias. Very interesting stuff.

Further, I've been listening to a lot of News and Notes on NPR. This is an incredible program and I often find myself forgetting that it's from an African American perspective. That didn't sound right. I don't forget it's from an African American perspective, but I don't feel like I'm excluded from being able to listen to it because of my skin color. It's such a thoughtful show with fantastic insight on the people that I have grown up with and continue to work with. This is my first solution for clueless white people.

My second solution for clueless white (and other) people is: Chapelle's Show. A quick, concise and hilarious round-up of race relations in American today.

Today's Knowledge: We are not alone in dire times

There's about 4,503,299,203,181 reasons I love National Public Radio (NPR). One of those reasons is that I can podcast episodes and listen to them whenever. This is the case with what I'm about to share.

It is no secret that we are in an economic crisis. I'm not afraid to call it what it is: it's a recession and I bet it's teetering on depression if you go to the right neighborhood. Granted, I'm not economist, but I see the writing on the wall. Food prices have gone through the roof. Needless to say I'm on a strict diet of "whatever-the-hell-I-can-afford." Energy prices as always rise in the summer. Although I have a delightful central air conditioning system, my significant other and I have indeed endured some sweaty days to save dough. And gasoline, well, don't even get me started on gas prices. Then of course there's the mortgage crisis, unemployment, failing schools, corrupt politicians...the list of rough stuff is a beefy one.

Though sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the world struggling along, I know that's not true. I am surviving. I am living, not in luxury, but living happily. There are some parts of my life that have changed and I've accepted those changes as necessary. I shake my head at those who still roll in SUVs and I scoff at those who speed on the highway. I take my bike when I can. I plan out dinners in advance, making sure to go grocery shopping only when I need to and get only what I will use. No room for waste. No money for it, either.

When I heard this June 19th podcast called Voices on the Economy it comforted me. I am not alone in this struggle and neither is anyone else. People are changing all around me and the times, they too are a changing. This is a great 10-minute podcast and it will help you cope if you, too, are finding that you must change.

Superfoods

Food is fantastic - who would disagree?! However, some of my favorite foods have been getting a little bit ridiculous in price. I've also really been thinking about what I consume: where did it come from, how fresh is it, has it been doused in chemicals? But the most significant thought lately has been "What does it take to make this food?"

The old adage you are what you eat is taking on a new meaning for me. For example, I love beef, but cows have to be fed plenty of grain (not good for world food shortage) just so they can get fattened up, slaughtered and then shipped to Slows BBQ for my eating pleasure (all of which requires energy and creates emissions).

Speaking of emissions, those from the trucks and cars aren't the only problem. Cows also have multiple stomachs, making them burp and fart methane, a greenhouse gas. I don't want to be a multi-stomach gas machine (not all the time, anyway), so I have been expanding my eating horizons to stuff that grows as a plant. Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up on eating critters, but I'm trying to cut back, for their sake and mine.

For this blog, I pulled together some information on superfoods. I have heard time and time again that a nutritious diet can help prevent and/or heal the body's ailments. I intend to find out.

These two WebMD articles are great:

• 'Superfoods' Everyone Needs - discusses blueberries, fish, soy, fiber, tea and dark chocolate!
• 10 Healthy Foods Under $1 - excellent! covers apples, bananas, baby carrots, canned beans, canned tomatoes, oranges, lentils, pears, pearl barley and again, yogurt.

Listen to these Science Friday Podcasts:

• Is it better to eat locally or eat differently?
• The Science of Making Great Beer - This is yet another AMAZING podcast from Science Friday. It is slightly off topic, but a good time to remind folks to drink local beer - it's good for you and the environment.

Here's a list of foods covered by the book Superfoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life:

• Beans
• Blueberries
• Broccoli
• Oats
• Oranges
• Pumpkin
• Salmon
• Soy
• Spinach
• Tea (green or black)
• Tomatoes
• Walnuts
• Yogurt

Economy explained in about 40 minutes

This April 3rd Fresh Air episode is an interview with Michael Greenberger. He does an excellent job explaining what is happening to the United States as it wades through this economic mess. Highly recommended.

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Detroit High Schools: Bottom of the Heap

Yesterday someone told me that they felt sorry for me. As a resident of Detroit back when I was 14 years old, I had two options: go to Detroit Public Schools or opt for the "school-of-choice" program, where I could go to a suburban school participating in the program. My family and I quickly chose the latter. Even though we didn't have solid evidence Detroit high schools were bad, we had a pretty strong gut feeling.

My friend and I went to the same high school and he thought that high school was so terrible, that he felt bad that I chose it over Detroit schools. Yesterday, I didn't have solid evidence to tell my friend that he underestimated how bad Detroit schools were, but I knew. Another pretty strong gut feeling helped me to the same conclusion.

Today I got my solid evidence. Detroit high schools were discussed at the Bloggers' Roundtable on NPR's News and Notes. I listened to the entire show (News and Notes 4/7/08), but the segment on the D's flailing school system was particular interesting.

The Detroit News had an ARTICLE about the study. You will find everyone in the article denying the facts, which is so sad, yet so very predictable.