 Photo by Marco Secchi on Unsplash Including helping maintain healthy blood pressureHigh blood pressure is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease in developed countries. Yet some countries, such as Italy and Japan, have low rates of high blood pressure and lower mortality rates due to CVD.
That's not because they all go to the gym 5 times a week or due CrossFit. The reason is far less complicated and available to everyone. They eat more fruit and vegetables, and in particular more nitrate-rich vegetables.  Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash Long-term exercise preserves memory functionScientists studied people who had exercised consistently for a long-term and found they had better memory function than those who did not exercise. Starting to exercise at any time of your life is good - it's never too late - but starting earlier can bring benefits.
This finding is important to know because the research found that just being an active participant in a sport for a long period had this beneficial effect. You don't need to become a gym nerd.  Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash I'm diabetic. Believe me, you don’t want to have diabetesSkipping meals has become more common - and more faddish. Breakfast is often a casualty of our modern lifestyle, and rising interest in the health benefits of fasting have pushed out other meals, such as dinner.
The most common set meal to be lost is breakfast. But is that always the best choice? The consequences of missing breakfast versus missing dinner are different. If you knew the different health consequences, would you make a different choice? What choice would you make it you are diabetic like me, or potentially diabetic? Here's what I learnt from the research.  Ramp Sprinting | Image Credit: The Author Three transitions to take you over the line at 100% intensityYou're reading this because you want to win. That's great. If you are content to just finish, that's also great, but you may not need to go to this level of intensity.
Winning requires stamina. I define stamina as the ability to win the race and endurance as the ability to finish the race. Stamina allows you to accelerate and pass people and to hold your lead once past. Interval training builds this kind of stamina. Hill sprints, stair sprints, and sprint variations are essential. The intensity of intervals needs to be, well - intense. Not "HIIT Yoga" intense but real HIIT intense enough to make you almost sick.  Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash Contentedness doesn’t come from serving yourself, here's howFeeling good about life when you are 60 translates into an extended healthy life expectancy, according to recent research. Health is the greatest of gifts, contentedness the best riches; trust is the best of relatives, Nirvana the highest happiness - ANCIENT FAITHS AND MODERN | THOMAS INMAN  Photo by Bradley Howington on Unsplash 50-percent of the health benefits are from the skinIn the Western world, citrus peels are mostly just byproducts of juicing and treated as waste. That's a pity, as they contain many phenolic compounds which are proven to be beneficial to our Western lifestyle and diet-induced diseases.
By consuming the whole citrus fruit, we gain far more health benefits than by just eating the flesh. There are more health benefits from compounds in the skin and membranes than from just those in the flesh. The compounds in the non-flesh parts of oranges are so powerful that in some parts of the world they are used as traditional medicine to cure fungal and bacterial infections, human colon and breast cancer by alternative therapists.  Photo by Emile Guillemot on Unsplash The wrong cooking methods destroy 80% of food's antioxidant health benefitsPolyphenols are micronutrients that are readily available in everyday food.
They're packed with antioxidants - as long as you don't destroy these antioxidants by cooking the wrong way and ruin their health benefits. For example, boiling some polyphenol-rich foods destroys 80% of their polyphenol content. But it is this antioxidant content which helps protect us against chronic disease. In this article, I'll guide you through how to preserve the most benefit from polyphenol "superfoods" like tomatoes. TL;DR slip a steam oven under your microwave and enjoy the best of both.  Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash Have fun retraining your brain to fix your sore kneesWalking better will give you a better posture, a visceral pleasure in propelling your body forward and may help you live longer. And you won't even have to look like a serious walker.
Even better, it will rebalance your body and ease some of your pains, especially if you have been using treadmills too much.  HIIT Yoga - How Many Calories? | Image Credit: Screenshot, The Author For when you need to know how many calories HIIT Yoga burnsYou know those times when we're not wearing a fitness band or an Apple Watch and wonder how many calories we're burning? Here's a simple and accurate method that you can easily do in your head.
I often run or walk without any gadgets, and I rarely wear fitness bands at the gym, and never take my phone. From time-to-time, I wonder how much energy I've used in a workout. Now, I use this method, which I worked out after plotting a few charts and averaging a few numbers, and comparing to the estimates from the times when I do wear a fitness band. I will explain the one key variable that you need to know, the calculation you apply to that key variable, and why the answer makes sense metabolically. 
Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
Swap snacks for these nuts and watch your weight benefit
Pistachio nuts are often regarded simply as a salty snack - calorie-heavy and salted to tempt you to drink more. That's unfortunate, as there is a lot more to pistachios than just being a great beer snack.
They are one of healthiest nuts that you can eat, along with almonds and walnuts and Brazil nuts. And they can help you better manage your weight. |
ChoicesSince I was diagnosed at 50 with Type 2 diabetes I've been learning how to do bone-building fitness training which lowers my age. You can too. It's your choice. Walter Categories
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