Back to the Land to Feed a Family – One woman’s adaptation in New York.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/

A trip to Canino’s produce market started with fresh hulled green peas in the basket. The subtle fresh color made me think of soup for some reason. More things made it in the basket and I was inspired by some of the recent Italian books I have been reading.

We added fresh jalapeno and used mustard green leaves which have a spicy and near bitter bite. The sweet strawberries, banana and protein powder balanced out the bitter but left the heat. Awesome surprise!

Some of the following high performance athletes are vegetarian including Martina Navratilova.

Listen to her talk about how her performance has improved as she has aged and can still compete. She even puts in a plug for Raw food. Other vegetarian or mostly vegetarian athletes I discovered include Tony Gonazalez, Bill Pearl, and even Carl Lewis. Hmmm… off to snack on some veggies.

Recipes for anti-cancer meals and food resources can be found here: http://www.cancerproject.org/recipes/index.php

The site includes an outbound link to a really thorough site called NutritionMD.org. If you look at the section for Health providers, you can see some interesting recommendations sorted based on medical conditions. They have all the usual disclaimers that these are not based on medical advice, but some really well organized and easy to follow ideas.

Choose a good jump rope for exercise

There are several categories of jump rope mostly having to decide between types of rope and handles.

1. Choose a ball bearing or swivel action between the rope and handles to prevent twisting and ease of speed jumping.
2. Weighted handles provide a slightly more strenuous workout and also can balance the weight of  a rope.
3. Foam covered handles absorb perspiration.

Rope materials for jump ropes also come in several options. The most popular types of rope are:

1. Leather was used by most boxing gyms traditionally for the durability and medium weight. This is still a great choice if not doing lots of windmill type change ups.
2. Woven or cloth ropes are slow, but light. Their lightness can make it difficult to control the jumps during windy conditions.
3. Speed ropes or nylon ropes are inexpensive and if made of good quality can be some of the fastest ropes for tricks and intense cardio.
4. Beaded ropes are heavy but easily adjustable. These can sting quite a bit if they hit your body during workouts.

Choose a proper length to allow easy clearance, but not too much extra causing the rope to slap the ground and cause unnecessary wear. To find a jump rope length correct for your height, stand on the middle of the rope with one or two feet. The ends should come up to your armpits if you are holding the handles directly in front of your chest. The handles should be upside down from how you would normally grab them for jumping.

Some ropes are adjustable including the beaded ropes. The leather ropes are typically not adjustable except for tying knots near the handles that do not interfere with the swivel action.

For examples of some the ropes above, see the options at Monkey Bar Gym equipment.
I use the weighted speed jump rope and have adjusted the length for easy jumping.

For low impact, jump on a wooden slat floor like those used in gyms for group workouts that has a little give and bounce. When jumping outside, I don’t jump on concrete, but put together a few interlocking gym floor mats to cushion the impact on knees and joints. Let me know your favorite rope or place to jump!

Several organizations and high profile celebrities / chefs have committed to the movement and it is worth learning about. The website provides resources and recipes and ways to get started if interested. Also check out the interview on NPR with Sid Lerner as he tries to make Meatless Mondays engaging.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/moneymag/1007/gallery.health_tech.moneymag/index.html

FitBit for measuring Sleep and Calorie expenditure

The third technology gadget in the list is the Fitbit.  I have one of these that I fanatically wore when I first received it. There were some serious waiting periods while the company finalized testing, but it has come in at a value price point. Other technology driven health monitors such as the BodyBugg are higher priced, but also have some additional benefits. For the price and no recurring fees, this is an unobtrusive little device to help keep track of how many calories you are burning throughout the day and how restful your sleep cycles are. Using this for a few months or longer can help benchmark and reset your fitness goals and see how well you are meeting your targets.

Check out the other gadgets and let me know if they are a good value as well.

Spent much of the weekend contemplating the backyard, but mostly… enjoying it.