combating office fatigue

If you sit at the desk in front of a computer for most of the day, the neck, forearms and back are in definite danger of becoming too stiff. In my newspaper days, one real estate reporter had carpal tunnel syndrome so bad she wore wrist supports and had a swivel support system for her forearms attached to her keyboard. I never forgot that sight.

Get up and walk (standing straight as if a tight string was pulling you up from the heavens) and grab some water. Stand up and do some side bends and neck twists. Rotate your hips. If you're on the phone a lot, ask your office manager to order you a headset.

Also make sure your keyboard sits comfortably with about a 90-degree bend in your arms. The top of the monitor should hit eye level. These are tips from years of having an ergonomic consultant visit us in the newsroom.

It's bad enough a lot of work in The Office. Let's not let it make us old.

congratulations Alberto!

Alberto Contador won his second Tour de France today, outclassing his rivals in the mountains and the time trial over the three-week race. Lance finished an admirable third, proving that his legs, lungs and heart are still among the strongest in the world.

Once thing Lance showed in his comeback was that he never really took time off from taking care of his fitness. He raced mountain bikes, finished marathons and simply made sure that invigorating exercise was still integral to his daily routine. 

So do something everyday for your health. Eat some avocado. Do some lunges. Read the op-ed pages. 

Are you fit?

Can you run 1.5 miles in 10 minutes? How many push ups can you do?

Can you jump onto that banister and climb through your window when you accidentally locked yourself out of the house?

What are true measures of fitness? 

To me, it doesn't really make that much sense if you can do an Ironman triathlon, but you can't kick my butt.

Health care reform begins at home

As national health care reform takes shape, hopefully, it's time to consider what may be the only really effective health insurance. 

The only real control we have is preventative care. While health news seems to change daily, we have to listen to our own bodies and use logic. Floss. Eat more vegetables. Eat less. Force our bodies to work so they work well. Stretch. Walk up the stairs. 

Seinfeld once joked about people who work out in the gym just so they could be in shape to go to the gym again. Well, it is funny how our society has made exercise seem like a hamster wheel. But like cars, regular maintenance helps everything out in the long run. 

Stand tall. Take small steps. But take control.

As Michael Jackson sang: "I'm looking at the man in the mirror."

Or as my friend Taharba said about his regular workout habit: "Just gotta keep it tight."

Exercise of the day: Renegade row

This exercise is very tough if done correctly. It's good for your back and forces you to stabilize your core. Get in push-up position holding two dumbbells. Pull one dumbbell up to your waist. Repeat on the other side. Keep your body straight. 

One key is to weigh down the opposite side you are pulling from.

The goodness of shrooms

For dinner we threw a bunch of mushrooms into our polenta sauce. We've been fortunate to have access to mini portobellos, which have a lot of flavor. They work in a variety of dishes and are especially nice on top of whole wheat flatbread pizza.

Cooked mushrooms are a great source of potassium, riboflavin, niacin and selenium (an antioxidant). Sources like Dr. Weil also tout the anti-cancer attributes of mushrooms.

I've never really appreciated mushrooms, but nowadays I try to make them part of my weekly intake just because they taste so good.

Now only if I could learn how to enjoy the taste of kale. 

What home exercise equipment works

So you're sitting at home watching the late-night tube and suddenly there's an ad promising awesome abs through some little ball that you can do sit-ups on. Its effectiveness is proven by "university studies." Most stuff that's meant for home exercise just doesn't do that much.

However there are two cool, relatively inexpensive, devices that WiserHealth endorses. One is the pull-up bar that you can simply through over a doorway without bolting anything on. The one brand is the Iron Gym Total Upper Body Workout Bar. It's secure and lets you bust out some pull-ups and chin-ups. You also put it away so pretty easily.

The Perfect Pushup is pretty good to for a very comfortable and effective way to do the classic push up. It allows the wrist to stayed locked and rotate naturally like when throwing a punch. 

With a push and pull home device, you can crank out a balanced workout at home. 

Tour de France so far

Lance is back in the mix, sitting in third place. No one expects to make a move until week 3. This makes for some exciting bicycle racing. His teammate Contador looks poised to show who's boss. Who will betray the other? That's the fun of the le Tour. As one rider stated, there's a little bit of "Melrose Place" going on.

Still don't understand the tour? Here's the easy version: The rider with the lowest time over the three week race wins. There are several disciplines. One is time trialing, where the riders race against the clock. 

Then there's the flat stages, where sprinters can excel. Usually, not much happens in the overall, because the main pack (the peleton) won't let any contenders get ahead. 

Then there's the mountain stages, which favor climbers. These stages often make or break the race because there can be huge gaps in time earned or lost here.

So the best all-around rider will be the one sipping champagne in Paris. There's plenty of other finer points, but just watch to see if anyone can get a huge lead in the mountains right now.

More on eating less

Dieting, as it has come to manifest in American culture, does not appear to work very well. The latest study on monkeys and calorie restriction reinforces what may be the simplest solution to being healthier through what we eat.

Eating less is one of those good habits to try to incorporate one meal at a time. Some tricks that may be obvious, but it's good to be reminded of these tenants:

1.) Eat slowly. Chew. Enjoy your food. (This is one I have to work on.)

2.) After eating, just sit there and let the food fill you up. One tip I like: Drink a cup of herbal tea because it gives your mouth something to do and it's nice.

3.) Put food on a smaller plate so it looks like there's more. 

Now, I used to be of the mindset that I could eat as much as I want as long as I worked it off through exercise. But I dropped that belief simply because I have more energy throughout the day by eating less.

This site is called Wiser Health for a reason. It's not about being so mindful of "being healthy" that it takes away life's pleasures. It's about establishing good habits so we become healthy most of the time. 

Monkeys who eat less live longer

Here's the study in the Times.

Now, only if I could cut 30 percent of my daily calorie consumption. 

Regular bacon is better that turkey bacon!

Great news for bacon lovers. Turkey bacon is worse for you than regular bacon.

Both have the same amount of fat and calories but turkey bacon has way more sodium. This from the Men's Health column Eat This, Not That.

Intervals

One of the themes we like to focus on in Wiserhealth is making the most out of precious time. We don't all have the luxury of lots of time to work out. Latest studies have shown that interval training is really efficient. This is were the body trains at a regular speed and then goes for short all-out spurts, recovers at the regular speed and hits the super-fast pace again. 

It trains your body to push harder, burning fat, forcing lungs and heart to work hard. Here's a good treadmill interval session that's easy to memorize:

4 minutes warm-up, 30 second sprint, 1:30 solid pace, 30 second sprint, 1:30 solid pace, 30 second sprint, 30 seconds solid pace, 30 seconds sprint, 30 seconds back to normal, 30 seconds of sprinting, back to 1:30 recovery rate, 30 second sprint, one more 1:30 recovery, the last 30 second sprint concluded by 3:30 of warm down as the solid pace.

It adds up to 18 minutes. Easy in, easy out. Remember to really work hard during the sprints. This stuff really works. You should feel like quitting in the middle portion if you are doing it right.

Inverted poses

There is something to be said for inverted yoga poses such as headstands and shoulder stands. As my favorite yoga author Richard Hittleman tells us, the inversion reverses the blood flow and it stimulates the cardiovascular, lymphatic, nervous and endocrine systems.

I like to do a shoulder stand for as long as I can, five to ten minutes, perhaps. It helps loosen my neck. I have not mastered the headstand yet, so proceed with caution unless you know what you are doing.

crackers and hummus

That's a good snack. Get some hearty whole wheat crackers and some hummus spread and you've got a tasty treat that's good for you. 

I got introduced to hummus way back in college, and it certainly was a bit overdone by the post-collegiate Whole Food devotees, but now I am way into it again. I like the garlic infused flavors.

I've been told to also munch on olives as a healthy snack,  but my taste buds don't jive with them, yet. 

Exercise of the day

It's really important to shore up those hamstrings and lower back. These oft-injured body parts do a lot of work. First off, stretch them often. WiserHealth likes two classic yoga poses: The forward bend and the standing forward bend. Bend from the waist and really feel it in your hamstrings. The downward dog is also a good one.

To prevent and strengthen, my wife and I tried this today and it really hit the hamstrings well. It's a stiff-legged deadlift on one leg. Grab two dumbbells and balance on one leg. Maintaining and arch in your back bend forward until you feel it in your hamstrings. Kick one leg back behind you.

Here's a link to a video for help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsX2VU26GMg

This dude has pretty good form, too.

Salad without lettuce

One nice way to rethink salads is to lose the dependency on lettuce as a base.

We've been enjoying tofu salad, with a little bit of Romaine, scallions and cherry tomatoes with a soy sauce/sesame oil dressing. It's light and packed with good stuff.

Or try this Mediterranean style mix of cucumber cubes, tomatoes and onions.

The point is, rethink salad. Get creative and break out of the must have mixed greens thinking.