Staying Healthy And Successful
What types of exercise are important when I'm totally stressed at work?
Well, when I'm very stressed out and I need to exercise and exercise is my personal great release. You do two things when you exercise: 1) You boost your metabolism for the remainder of the day, which means that the fuel you take in or the food that you eat is going to be used up faster and is less likely to be stored as fat. So when you're stressed out and go eat that Snickers bar at 4PM, if you workout at 6PM, you're far less likely to see results of that Snickers bar later.
What types of exercise keep my mind sharp?
What types of exercise keep my mind sharp? Things that keep your mind sharp are exercises with hand eye coordination, racquetball, tennis, golf - things like that will surprisingly keep your mind very sharp. Anything that requires coordination. I personally enjoy karate. I think it's great. It's for discipline, it's for fitness, it does so many different things for you. And when you're doing something like that, when you're jumping through the air, and you're fighting with someone or you're working on a form or a kata, or whatever it is (I'm using karate as an example), you can't focus on anything else. So it keeps you sharp because you're having to think about balance, you're having to think about being defensive, you're having to think about whatever it is that you're doing. Let's take motorcycle riding, for example. Some people like speed or the wind in their hair. That's good for mental agility too because you're concentrating on not just your realm and what you are doing on your machine, but what you're doing, what's going on around you. You have to be so perceptive of everything in your environment. So whatever you can do to engage all of your senses will keep you sharp. In the more sedate realm of things, crosswords, word games, Sudoku, chess, even poker - anything with numbers and letters and stuff that keeps your mind working at a fast pace is all really, really great, thinking games.
What are some easy, healthful meals for hard-working professionals?
It's difficult in the day of today's professionals especially when we as women try to go home and cook for our family. And I don't know about you, but I'm constantly thinking in the morning about what am I going to make for dinner, how am I going to feed everyone and how can I squeeze that into a reasonable amount of time without cooking from scratch for three hours. The really great thing about today's society is we have so much at our disposal in terms of healthy choices. And so what I would recommend is places like Whole Foods, Crystal Farms, your local supermarket, whatever it is. I like to stop at Whole Foods and maybe pick up salmon. I'll buy the meat that's already been prepared or that you just have to pop in the oven and then I'll go home and make side dishes like a salad or some fresh vegetables. I like to pair chicken or fish, not so much beef and pork, but chicken or fish with a nice green vegetable and a salad and maybe a little bit of brown rice or something like that. It's easy, it's quick and if the main dish is prepared for you, it's tasteful and it's quick to do or you can spend a weekend and maybe make a baking sheet full of chicken breasts that have been seasoned and put into ziplock bags for the week so that during the week if you're only cooking for one or two of you or in today's society where our families have different schedules, your kids come home later, whatever it is, you take a few of those chicken breasts out, you're able to pop the vegetables in the microwave or put them in the frying pan with a little olive oil and you're done.
What's your daily diet like?
An example of my daily diet is a little bit unusual in that I'm in a travel mode right now so I don't always have great choices at my disposal so I try to keep the food as natural as possible. For example, this morning, I woke up, I generally have in a typical day I'll have coffee at five or so in the morning. It's my vice. I love coffee. I don't recommend giving it up if you have something you enjoy. I know they all say we should drink green tea. Green tea boosts your metabolism. It's great. If you have to have coffee, sprinkle some cinnamon. As little as half a teaspoon of cinnamon per day, research shows, boosts your metabolism, keeps you healthy, and keeps you sharp. So it's very, very good for you. So I always have coffee in the morning and I'm somewhat of a coffeeholic. Lots of water. I drink 64 ounces of water a day. It keeps your skin clear, it keeps you young, it flushes fat out of your body, and the more hydrated you are, the less apt you are to have headaches, migraines, stomach aches, and get sick. So again, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, even in the winter when you're not thinking about it. Aside from the 8 glasses of water a day, I would say, I generally will start the day with 4 ounces of soy milk just to make sure to get enough calcium. As women, we overlook that. It's really great for staving off osteoporosis. It's very important. After soy milk, I might have cottage cheese on a piece of wheat toast with a little bit of raspberry preserves. Again, I have a sweet tooth so anything sweet is going to be attractive to me. That gives you a great dose of protein with very low carbs, it staves off hunger until you get to lunch time. And if you feel the need for a mid-morning snack, some sliced apples, lots of fiber. Eat the skin of the apple. It's really good for you. All the nutrients are always in the skin. Or have an orange. Oranges, tangerines, spinach-they all have great potassium. It fights off the sodium that we take in our diet from the processed foods. And Processed foods are anything in a box or a bag, anything that's pre-packaged. So fast food, whatever you eat outside is generally going to have a lot of sodium. Potassium helps to avoid the bloat, to keep your stomach flat. It's very, very good for you. At lunch, I'm a big fan of salad and a little chicken or protein shakes. Sometimes I'm on the road. I'll just have a protein bar. I eat every two to three hours so by mid-afternoon, again, some sliced apples, a couple of tangerines, maybe some veggies, whatever you happen to have. Carrots are good to munch on. And then a sensible dinner. Salmon or chicken. I love green beans, love broccoli so something like that and a little salad is always a good idea. And then a little dessert. They have great 100 calorie packets. I'm an Oreo freak so a little 100 calorie packet of Oreos will... It has the... it's very satisfying because it lasts for a while and you have lots of little bites and you can make a cup of chamomile tea or green tea and then get your antioxidants in that way.
