There's a new fitness law floating around. Let's call it the Five-Minute Rule. It came from a paper published in the 聽preaching that running just five minutes a day will reduce your risk of croaking from all causes, including cardiovascular disease.

An estimated of the U.S. population is sedentary, and heart disease annually, so the Five-Minute Rule is easy to champion鈥攆or the average person. (For the love of your own and your nation's well-being, just do something!) While there are benefits in those 300 seconds of movement, they are not enough to maximize your enjoyment of the outdoors.

You need all-around strength as well as cardiovascular conditioning to boost your endurance and keep you injury-free, says adventure racer and multisport coach . You aren't going to become an all-star athlete on five minutes of running a day, but 15 minutes of maintenance鈥攚ith a stiff dose of sport-specific sessions on the weekends鈥攚ill build a foundation of strength to help you become an adaptable athlete.

Below, Macy shares five quick and easy tips to stay ready for whatever adventure comes your way, no matter what sport or activity you choose to tackle.

Concentrate on Your Core

Time needed: 8 to 10 minutes
“General core strength is important for any sport, whether it's running or biking, cross-country skiing or snowshoeing,” Macy says. An eight- to 10-minute circuit of abs work (crunches, planks), pushups, and pullups is enough to give you a killer core.

Macy does it like this: 30 pushups, two minutes of crunches, 30 pushups, two minutes of reverse crunches, 30 pullups, two minutes of side crunches. Can't do that many of each exercise? Do what you can, then rest a minute. Taking on too much too fast can lead to injury. Even a one-minute plank performed once a day can help improve your core strength. Planks, “pushups, and pullups work a variety of muscles,” Macy says. Plus, there's no excuse not to do them. “It's easy to install a pullup bar over a door frame.”

Don't Neglect Your Ankles

Time needed: 5-plus minutes
“Ankle strength is important,” Macy says. Sturdy ankles will resist injury when walking or running on uneven terrain. Ironically, Macy says an easy way to develop ankle strength over time is to walk or run on uneven terrain. So watch your footing. Need a boost? Add two sets of 10 calf raises to your daily routine, or try some of from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Use Gravity to Your Advantage

Time needed: 5-plus minutes
“If you only have a short time outside, run or walk up a hill or up stairs at a park,” Macy says. “It's a great way to make the most of your limited time.” Your body will work harder to counteract gravity, making your quick jaunt more effective at strengthening your muscles and cardiovascular system.

Get Schooled

Time needed: 15-plus minutes
Sport-specific skill and knowledge are important. “Doing it right is a good way to not get hurt,” Macy says. If you know you're going to be mountain biking, for example, have a pro show you the correct technique, setup, and gear. REI stores all over the country in everything from climbing and cycling to paddling and skiing. Try one out. 聽

Hit Play

Time needed: 5 minutes
Coaches, clinics, and camps are excellent resources. Yeah, you're not supposed to be sitting in front of a screen, but for a quick lesson, watch some online videos. At least you'll have an idea of what you're supposed to be doing. Thinking about ski mountaineering, for example? There's a video for that:聽

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The Tururukari-Uka tribe will not go extinct under Francisco Uruma’s watch.

During this summer’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Uruma and his extended family to the tribe’s plot of land outside Manaus, hoping to kickstart an ecotourism business that could help the community balance heritage and modernity in the Internet age. But can their way of life be preserved鈥攁nd is tourism the right way to do it?

Uruma’s grandfather, Waldomiro Cruz, devoted his life to protecting the region’s remaining Kambeba tribes, fighting for land rights and rekindling their legends in the face of modernization. Now the survival of the tribe rests with 35-year-old Uruma. “I want every child to adapt and be prepared for today’s world,” he says.

That’s challenging when even basic needs aren’t always met. “The government doesn’t know our reality,” Uruma said. “We have basic desires. Water. Health. Education.” Last year, the young chief represented 10 regional tribes in Brasilia, lobbying lawmakers for more land and better services. “I met people who share the same vision. I learned how we can take matters into our own hands.”聽

For Uruma, securing basic needs means transforming his village into an ecotourism start-up. With support from Guedes and the Amazonas state tourism agency, Uruma and his tribal counsel are preparing the village鈥攁nd building a website鈥攖o welcome paid visitors to the tribe beginning in November. The goal is for each of the tribe’s 15 families to earn $500 per month from tourist fees and the sale of merchandise and services.

Uruma has modeled that adaptability by working with a man he calls “Professor”鈥�, an executive coach from Manaus who has spent the last two years preparing the young chief to preserve an ancient culture in one of the most rapidly changing regions in South America.

“This is the only tribe in Brazil鈥攁nd possibly the only tribe in the world鈥攖hat has enlisted the help of leadership coaching,” Guedes said. “We focus on improving Francisco’s interpersonal skills, his self-awareness, his self-motivation, and his ability to respond to new situations.”

In June, I accompanied Guedes on a visit to the Tururukari-Uka village outside Manaus to watch Brazil and Cameroon play a World Cup match on satellite TV. After an hour-long bus ride north of the capital, we took a dirt road to a lakeshore. Guedes stood at the water’s edge, cupped his hands to his mouth, and hollered into the jungle. From the forest we heard the faint response of a World Cup noisemaker. A few minutes later, two boys in a canoe paddled through the trees and we climbed aboard.

“These boys are 10 years old,” Guedes said as the boys steered us to their waterside community. “At the age of 9, they are men. There is no adolescence here.”

After hundreds of years of nomadic life, the Tururukari-Uka settled here in 2004 when the elder chief persuaded local authorities that the tribe needed a stable home so their children could get a better education. Their plot of land is about the size of seven soccer fields (including one actual soccer field) where the 56-person tribe farms, hunts, and fishes for sustenance. In a grass-roofed schoolhouse at the center of the village, the children learn traditional subjects like math and geography alongside the Kambeba language and ancestral legends.

Generating their livelihood independently of other tribes will allow the Tururukari-Uka tribe to preserve the integrity of their own language and culture. Over time, he wants to invite up to 50 visitors per day to sample their food and drink, witness their dance and music, buy artisanal crafts鈥揺ven have their marriage vows renewed by a shaman.

Watching the game with the tribe, I felt an awkward mix of wonder and trespass, hanging out in their open-air living room to feast on slow-roasted fish, drink fresh-squeezed passion fruit, and bang drums to celebrate Brazil’s goals. At intermission the children performed dances and songs and demonstrated their prodigious ability to climb trees. I couldn’t help but wonder where Uruma’s culture ended and Guedes’ coaching began. Then the match resumed and we returned to our seats in front of the TV.

“I know,” Guedes said, looking almost apologetic. “They can show you more than 20 different things about Kambeba culture, and here we are watching soccer. But the World Cup has been a good warm-up for them. A chance to see what it’s like to have visitors.”

Those gathered around the television seemed to be enjoying the new experience, especially the children, but this was a highly curated visit. While most of the tribe seemed to be rallying around Uruma’s vision, it’s hard to say how attitudes might change once the novelty wears off. Walking around the village, I noticed at least one member of the tribe watching the game in the privacy of his own house, decidedly uninterested in entertaining.

As the match disintegrated into a blowout, my wonder turned to worry. To ensure his tribe’s future, Uruma is being urged to sell a romanticized vision of the past that’s not always authentic. What are the consequences of asking these children not only to learn their culture, but also to perform it for outsiders? To complicate matters, the Brazilian government wants more鈥攏ot less鈥攅cotourism. In September,听Guedes travelled to Boston to deliver a conference presentation on his progress with the Tururukari-Uka, arguing that his methodology is replicable in other indigeneous communities. By this time next year, thousands of their pictures could materialize on the social networks of the world, hashtag Indians hashtag Amazon hashtag wow. Will filtered and tagged tourist pics be the last evidence of this ancient way of life?

Guedes and Uruma will tell you that the benefits outweigh the potential consequences, but you have to wonder what conversations take place in private between Uruma and his grandfather. What rituals are not for sale?

When Brazil scored its fourth goal, the cheering tribe passed around a basket of popcorn. I had a second helping of fish, played a game of soccer with the kids, and set my worries aside for a while as the sunset filtered through the trees. I’ve seen the theme park version of tourism in the Amazon鈥損iranha fishing contests and Cayman night hunting and rubber tapping to make condoms鈥揾omogenized thrills that usually line the pockets of corporate operators in Manaus.

Uruma’s vision is to showcase the daily life of a single tribal group鈥攈is family鈥攁nd if there proves to be an appetite for that experience, the profits will go directly to his loved ones in this village. Yes, in a perfect world, the tribe could sustain itself on exactly its own terms, but maybe ecotourism is a step toward that world. When Uruma talks about Kambeba culture, he talks not about the past, but about the future.

“The way of life is different now,” Uruma says. “When they leave the tribe to study, it’s hard for them to come back and become farmers. Our vision is for our children to go to the city and show people our way of life, to learn how to become doctors and teachers and lawyers, then come back and help our tribe in other ways.”

So far, two young members of the Tururukari-Uka tribe have gone on to attend university. M谩rcia Kambeba recently graduated from the University of Amazonas with an M.A. in history and now lives at the mouth of the Amazon in Bel茅m, where she has formed a musical group that recites poetry and sings songs of Kambeba culture. At this moment, Adana Kambeba is in medical school at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and hopes to return to Amazonas to practice indigenous medicine.

“Our culture will not fall into oblivion,” Uruma says. “20 years from now, when my grandchildren are alive, I don’t want them to know their people through books.”

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Yosemite is known for epic wall climbs and strenuous ascents. But what if Half Dome isn’t on the agenda and time with the tykes is? Here are a few easy-to-moderate treks, all five miles or shorter, that are聽accessible to the whole family.

In Yosemite Valley

At 11.5 miles, the entire聽聽may not be suitable for your family, but it can easily be hiked in manageable sections. The trail follows the Valley’s first east-west trails on a fairly flat course beneath Three Brothers and El Capitan. The trail often nears the Merced River, so weary kids (and parents) can easily wade in. Begin at Lower Yosemite Fall (Shuttle Stop No. 6). This trail has an optional spur to the next family-friendly trail, .

This half-mile, round-trip trail there leads to the first waterfall visitors see upon entering Yosemite Valley. It plunges 620 from cliff to base and is known for its gauzy flow. The trail is easy, but reaching the base of the falls can be challenging, requiring scrambling up boulders that are ankle-turning and slippery even when dry. The trip to the top of another popular valley sight, Vernal Fall, may be a strenuous 1,000-foot gain, but kids can easily reach the , a 1.4-mile roundtrip with 400 feet in gain, for vistas of the falls. Begin at Happy Isles (Shuttle Stop No. 16).聽

Water play is also underway at , reachable via a two-mile roundtrip trail up an easy grade. Mirror Lake reflects the surrounding cliffs and is fullest in early spring and summer. Come July, sand and knee-high grasses are more plentiful there than water. Fit families can extend the hike to create a five-mile loop tracing Tenaya Creek, past a decorative cairn field, across two bridges, and back along the south side of Tenaya Canyon. With the exception of an alabaster granite scree field beneath the flat side of Half Dome, the trail is largely shaded. Along this trail parents will also find plenty of boulders and for teaching rippers basic climbing and rappelling techniques. Begin at Mirror Lake Trailhead (Shuttle Stop No. 17).

To take in views of Yosemite Valley, follow (which also offers incredible vistas of Half Dome) to the Sentinel Dome/Taft Point trailhead. In July, wildflowers bloom along the forest path in popsicle hues (grape, orange, cherry) along the 2.2-mile round trip route. At Taft Point, highliners harness in for aerial walks between the fissures and hikers can look upon El Cap from the south side.聽

Off-the-beaten path views are the payoff for a hike to Artist Point, which offers perspectives of Clouds Rest, Bridalveil Meadow, and the Merced River. It’s the same panorama afforded at Tunnel View, without the hoards of park goers elbowing for the perfect shot. The two-mile hike begins at the Tunnel View parking lot. Hikers will likely have the route to themselves after the Pohono Trail section.聽

国产吃瓜黑料 Yosemite Valley

Near the park’s south entrance, the Mariposa Grove is home to some 500 mature giant sequoias including named trees such as Grizzly Giant and California Tunnel Tree, reachable via an .8-mile path with only 500-feet in elevation gain. Follow the Mariposa Grove Road, open April through November, to the parking area or take Wawona-Mariposa Grove shuttle.聽

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So far this summer has been one of the wettest and coolest on record across much of North America. In Ontario, where my family and I spent a month at our island cottage, the thermometer topped 80 only a couple of times. Many days started out damp and chilly, but I鈥檇 bundle our two daughters in sweats and fleece and boat across the channel to Juniper Island for the usual morning drill: swimming, canoeing, and tennis lessons, a kind of retro DIY day camp that鈥檚 been a tradition on Stony Lake for more than 50 years.

By 4 p.m. most days, the wind would have scrubbed the sky clear of clouds, and my daughters would fling themselves off the front dock or we鈥檇 go paddle boarding or motor across the lake to visit friends. But when the wind was blowing hard out of the north or west, sending whitecaps barreling down on our point and making it too blustery to be on the water, Pippa, 6, and Maisy, 4, took a more laid-back, old-fashioned approach to summer: They played.聽

A generation ago this wouldn鈥檛 have been worth noting. Playing was what kids did, naturally. But with the onset of schedules and screen time, since the mid-1950s. According to two studies out of the University of Michigan, as reported by Peter Gray, Ph.D., in the , children鈥檚 play time fell by 25 percent from 1981 to 1997; outdoor play has plunged by 50 percent, with kids today spending a mere 4-7 minutes per day goofing off outdoors.

Plenty of factors have conspired to take the fun out of childhood. As more children are raised in two-income households, middle-class kids have become increasingly regimented with sports and after-school activities. Competitive school sports have become default babysitters, just as they鈥檝e become lucrative businesses. Concerned that their children will fall behind in school and competitive sports, and worried about their safety when they鈥檙e on the loose outside, parents have unwittingly reigned in the creative and physical freedom children so desperately need. Rare are the kids who can wander down the block by themselves or walk home from school with their friends, a prime time for impromptu play that鈥檚 vanishing from children鈥檚 lives.聽

All this to our children鈥檚 great detriment. In his research, Gray posits that children who don鈥檛 play are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression; childhood obesity and diagnoses of attention-deficit disorders are on the rise. Play teaches children how to work together and mature into more socially well-adjusted adults; it has also been proven to build better brain function and improves academic performance. Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist and clinical researcher who founded the , calls play “a fundamental survival aspect of all social animals.” Through his research of homicidal males in the 1960s, he found that a lack of 鈥渘ormal give-and-take play behaviors鈥� may even be an indicator for mass violence.聽

This includes what Brown calls “rough-and-tumble play”鈥攖he hitting, tackling screaming, physical rowdiness that parents have been taught to discourage but which Brown contends is actually a healthy outlet because it teaches limits and empathy. The 2011 book The Art of Roughhousing draws on decades of research supporting the perks of horseplay. Rowdy social interaction builds resilience, encourages problem-solving, and triggers feelings of true joy, according to authors Anthony DeBenedet and Lawrence Cohen, whose website聽offers suggestions for popular parent-child roughhousing moves (think pillow fights and airplane). As kids in the late 70s, my sister and I made up an exciting and terrifying game that our dad called Morsel, in which he鈥檇 lie flat on the ground and try to grab us while we ran in frantic, panicky circles around him. The thrill of the chase in action.聽

The science of roughhousing makes me feel better about the times when six-year-old Pippa clocks her four-year-old sister and chases her around the room, both shrieking with equal parts delight and possibly horror, but I鈥檓 still happier when they play nicely together. One blowy afternoon at the lake, they built sailboats using a cache of small, square wooden boards I fished out of the kindling box. Each had been cut with a round depression in the middle, about the diameter of a candles鈥攋ust the right size for a toy mast. I鈥檓 not a crafty person, and the last time I made anything by hand might have been a summer day on the same island some 30 years ago, when in a fit of desperate boredom, my sisters and I hammered together our own wooden sailboats.

The girls thought it was the greatest idea ever invented. They raced barefoot into the meadow to scavenge for sticks, thick ones for the mast and skinnier ones for the boom. With my husband, Steve鈥檚, help they whittled the sticks to fit into the holes and used a hammer to nail them partway into the blocks; an old cotton rag, which I cut into a triangle, became the sail. Wielding a needle and thread, six-year-old Pippa sewed the bottom of her sail around the boom and tied it with twine to the mast.

Once the boats were seemingly seaworthy, we trekked over to the leeward side of the island for an impromptu homemade sailboat regatta. At Flat Rock, a long slab of granite that slopes gently into the lake, Pippa waded in and launched her sloop, which sailed downwind with the eerie precision of a remote controlled boat. Maisy鈥檚 dingy, whose mainsail was fashioned from a Tropicana orange juice container cut in half, bobbed awkwardly and then promptly tipped over. No big deal. The girls spent an hour sloshing around in the lapping lake, pushing their boats with sticks and watching how the wind caught the sails until eventually it was time to go home for dinner.

And this was just the beginning of their summer of outdoor play. They hunted grasshoppers and turned a knobby granite outcropping into a downsized Mt. Everest (the summit team consisted of a miniature bear and a pig). Afternoons at their cousins鈥� cottage, they built fairy houses in a hollowed-out, spidery tree stumps and filled acorn caps with tiny juniper berries. While some of these summer activities came at our suggestion, the kids did what kids will do, if given the chance and the time: They took the ideas and ran, inventing their own elaborate worlds and rules, losing themselves in the magic of their own imaginations.

Stony Lake is a rare, old-fashioned bubble where we don’t have to worry about traffic or strangers, or any kind of serious schedule. Real life isn’t like that. The good news is that, for most of us, encouraging kids to play freely doesn’t have to cost a lot or be complicated. That’s the point. So much depends on your home environment and your child, so start by taking baby steps to gauge your comfort and theirs.

If you have a yard, shoo them out the door to build forts, climb trees, or kick a ball while you make dinner and can keep an eye on them. If you have neighbors close by with kids who don’t mind drop-ins鈥攕pontaneous, self-directed activity is the key to free play鈥攚alk them down after school to see if their friends can play, or invite them over to play outside. Once they’ve practiced with an adult several times and you’re both comfortable, they’re ready to try on their own. Help them by giving them rules: Stay on the sidewalk, stay with your brother (in our house the motto is “sisters stick together”), come right back if nobody’s home. It’s OK to call or text the neighbor parent to make sure they arrived or to tell them to come home, or to take them or meet them halfway.

In public parks鈥攗rban or rural鈥攇ive them parameters in which to explore freely. The key word is freely, and yes, it can be hard to do. A couple of weeks ago, we took our kids camping in Crested Butte with several other families, whose kids ranged from three to eight. The campground was undeveloped, a large meadow bordered by a quiet parking area and a small creek. There were few cars coming and going and the water was shallow and clear, but still both required respect and attention from parents and kids alike.

The first day, one parent kept tabs on the kids down by the water (all the kids are swimmers), and a careful eye on cars. By the end of the second afternoon, though, the children were moving as a pack, organizing their own mountain bike races on the dirt road, including a “bumps” course, and running contests through the grass while we cooked or cleaned or just hung out. Though they were out of sight for many minutes at a time, we’d observed the group long enough to know that the older kids would come for help if the needed us, and we drilled in the rules: Watch for cars, look after one another. They ran and rode for hours, until they straggled back into camp, happy and exhausted, the way it should be.

Summer may be fleeting, but childhood doesn’t have to be.

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You’ve likely seen the infamous and ubiquitous , which turns gaping at the city’s hard times into a sort of uncomfortable quasi-art.聽Now, in South America, a suffering tourist economy is turning to another sort of ruin tour: A once-popular glacier that has become a victim of climate change.

As recently as the 1990s, the Pastoruri glacier was a hot destination for tourists in Peru’s , located in the southern stretches of the Cordillera Blanca range. Now, it’s mostly just hot. The glacier is half the size it was two decades ago, , and it’s hurting tourism. In its heyday, Pastoruri saw 100,000 visitors annually; in 2012 that number shrank to just 34,000.

The rapid deterioration has also led to bans on climbing the actual (and increasingly tiny) glacier, but you’re more than welcome to come hike the “climate change route” to its base. The route is part of a larger circuit through the region that’s been in the works since 2010. It’s designed to inform visitors鈥攖hrough signage, tours and an interpretive center鈥攁bout how the shifting climate is erasing Pastoruri and many other glaciers in the region.

Offering trekkers a “last chance” look at the Pastoruri or other receding glaciers could boost traffic to the park and bring in much-needed tourism money, but that remains to be seen. As for the glacier itself? Over the years, the park has implemented interventions like spreading sawdust on the glacier to insulate it, and painting rock outcroppings white to decrease the snow’s reflectivity. These measures slow melting, but only by a hair.聽

And Pastoruri鈥檚 not alone. In what was once the ice-choked Northwest Passage, Crystal Cruises sees 鈥渢he beginning of a new era of exploration鈥濃�攎eaning that for $20,000 you can spend a full month luxuriating in, uh, climate change? Of course, the company spins it much more favorably in its marketing materials: 鈥淐rystal Serenity becomes the very first luxury ship to ever traverse the Northwest Passage, a mystical Pacific-Atlantic sea route far beyond the Arctic Circle that for centuries captured the imaginations of kings, explorers and adventurers.鈥� It’s a fair bet that none of those adventurers figured that one day, the ice would be replaced by a cruise ship carrying 1,700 vacationers hoping to glimpse polar bears or narwhals.

The company notes that 鈥減rominent luminaries in exploration, science, and/or politics鈥� will join parts of the expedition, but mentions nothing about how climate change helped make the venue what it is today. No surprise, since the company is really not known for being green. In the , which tracks the progress, or lack thereof, various cruise lines are making toward environmental friendliness, Crystal Cruise Lines earned an F, and so did Crystal Serenity, the boat headed into the passage.

In a more hopeful turn of events, some companies are seeing climate change as an opportunity to introduce activist tourism. On Pele Island in Vanuatu, tourists can add聽聽to their snorkeling itinerary. As they snorkel, they look for broken coral pieces and fasten them to grids mounted underwater, where (fingers crossed) they’ll grow into healthy coral systems again. Tourists to can do the same thing. In both places, a portion of tour revenues goes toward wider conservation and climate change adaptation efforts.

Clearly, climate change tourism is a thing now. The degree to which it will exasperate or respond to climate change, however, appears to be up to the companies and local economies that foster the trend.

As for Peru, even if this climate change tourism scheme works, it is at best a Band-Aid. Eventually, Pastoruri will be gone and locals will need to find other, and hopefully more sustainable, means of making a living. Because merely pointing to scree and saying, “Here once sat a glacier,” does not have quite the draw (no matter how uncomfortable) of pointing to a dilapidated building and saying, “Here once sat a gear in the engine that ran Motor City.”

The post Where Glaciers End, Climate Change Tourism Begins appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Sometimes, you have to work your brain to work your body better. Today, your library becomes a gym, a kitchen, and even a philosophy salon.聽Put your thinker through its paces聽with classic reads from wellness experts鈥攂ut first, read our takeaways from them.

Fuel Up on Food Facts

The Book: , by聽Dr. Louise Burke and Greg Cox (Allen & Unwin, $25)

The Sell: Knowing the nutritional requirements of your sport will maximize performance.

Burke and Cox Say: “This third edition transforms science into practice … taking a real-life look at the special nutritional needs of various sports.”

The Takeaway: It depends on what type of athlete you are.

• Cyclists: Caffeine is a legal performance-enhancing drug. When you feel fatigued training, drink a small dose (eight ounces鈥� a small cup of coffee).聽
• Runners: Pre-event meals are vital. For early-morning races, a light meal is fine. A couple of pieces of toast and an energy drink work well.聽
• Triathletes: It’s all about variety. Avoid pinning “good” or “bad” labels on food. Low-fat ice cream with fresh fruit, for example, is fine for a snack.
• Swimmers: You burn more calories than you realize. Pack in more energy content by adding layers and toppings to foods, like jam or syrup on toast or pancakes, and yogurt or fruit on cereal.

(Reviewed by Michael Webster)

Make Money Matter Less

The Book: , by Mark Boyle (Oneworld Publications, $22.95)

The Sell: Boyle, who went a year without spending a dollar, pushes the idea that a moneyless life can improve mental and physical health by giving you a true sense of community.

Boyle Says: “Living moneyless forces us to obtain the materials we need locally; it forces us to take responsibility for meeting our community鈥檚 needs; it forces us to have more appreciation for what we use.”

The Takeaway: You spend too much cash.

• For a month, record everything you spend. Then turn a critical eye to your list. Divide what you needed to spend鈥� on shelter and food鈥� from what you merely wanted to spend. Try to cut out some of the latter.
• Wealth isn鈥檛 all about money. You can spend more on what you want than what you need and still have too little of what counts: satisfaction.
• Depending on money to feed and house yourself means you stress about it, even if you鈥檝e got enough. If you try to provide the essentials by other means鈥攇ardening or bartering鈥攜ou鈥檒l worry less.
• Karma is real. If you give and receive more than you buy and sell, you鈥檒l find yourself a part of a community.

(Reviewed by Riley Blanton)

Make Peace with Yoga Poses

The Book: , by Claire Dederer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26)

The Sell: A skeptic discovers the benefits of yoga.

Dederer Says: “You can’t do yoga and be perfect at it. It confronts you with the messiness of reality.”

The Takeaway: Lessons learned on the mat are applicable in so many places other than yoga class.

• Yoga is relaxing. “You can let your mind wander, and it feels like you’re meditating,” says Dederer. “Nobody gets enough of that.”
• Fall down. “You are going to fall. It’s not a disaster, it’s just a fall. That can give you courage in other sports.”
• Yoga shows you where you’re weak. “If a person has tight shoulders, it could be because his back is compromised, and his back could be tender because he has tight hamstrings. Yoga tells you what the problem is.”
• Yoga helps with stress. “When you’re doing a really difficult arm balance, you’re learning to stick with difficult situations.”

(Reviewed by Will Taylor)

Get the Skinny on Fat

The Book: , by Gary Taubes (Knopf, $25)

The Sell: A science-based look at the causes of American weight gain.

Taubes Says: 鈥淪o many different belief systems enter into the question of what constitutes a healthy diet that the scientific question鈥� why do we get fat?鈥� has gotten lost along the way.鈥�

The Takeaway: Common tropes about fat, both the state of being and the macronutrient, don’t gel with our real fuel requirements.

• Think calorie quality, not quantity. The more refined the carb鈥� like sugar, potatoes, and white flour鈥� the more insulin you secrete. Insulin stores these carbs as fat.
• You crave refined carbs because your body knows these are the quickest fuel sources. Fight the urge. The less your refined-carb intake, the more your body learns to fuel itself on fat.
• Bacon is good! According to Taubes, higher-fat, lower-carb diets decrease triglyceride levels and increase HDL (鈥済ood鈥�) cholesterol.
• Eat these foods: Taubes recommends fresh meat and fish, eggs, green veggies, and lower-sugar fruits like wild berries, avocadoes, and figs.

(Reviewed by Nick Davidson)

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It wasn’t exactly clear how far I鈥檇 stepped outside my comfort zone until I arrived at the starting line of the in Ojai, California, just before 6 a.m. on May 25. While trying to set my pace watch amidst the sea of runners, an error message flashed across the screen: “multiple heart rate monitors detected, cannot calibrate.” Shit. I thought. This is exactly what I need right now.

I signed up to run my first road marathon with one goal in mind: learn how to run fast. And yes, I鈥檓 aware of the irony. Twenty-six point two miles is typically a culminating distance goal for many runners.

But it wasn鈥檛 so much finishing that worried me. I鈥檇 been running ultramarathons somewhat competitively for the past two years, skipping over the 26.2-mile distance and heading straight for 50-mile races. And I鈥檇 mostly figured out how to suffer through long days and lonely training hours for the rewards of gorgeous trails and lots of ice cream. But after dropping out of a 100-mile race in France the previous summer, I needed some new motivation to train again. And because speed (going faster than eight minutes聽per mile for long distances) has always been my weakness, it seemed like a good idea to see if I could train to run faster.

It鈥檚 an old school mantra of athletic preparation, particularly in an era of marketed shortcuts, but the best athletes will tell you that in order to succeed, you need to practice your sport and practice it often. In other words, in order to run fast, you need to practice running fast. It鈥檚 a straightforward solution to a much more complicated problem, because although speed is a formula that essentially comes down to three basic things鈥攏umber of foot strikes, cadence of foot strikes and power of each of those foot strikes鈥攕peed is a far less simple combination of art, science, and innate genetics.

Genetics of course, are tricky. You can augment the machine you鈥檙e born with, but you can鈥檛 actually change your DNA. And some聽people are simply born with more speed potential than others, a topic to which David Esptein devotes an entire chapter to in his 2014 book The Sports Gene. By his count, the world鈥檚 top competitive 60-meter sprinters are almost always short because short legs and lower mass make for fast accelerators. The highest concentration of elite track and field athletes comes from three countries鈥擩amaica, Ethiopia and Kenya鈥攚ith sprinters dominating the first and distance runners dominating the rest.

Some people are born with a greater concentration of fast-twitch muscle fibers, which contribute to speed over a short amount of time. And there鈥檚 even a specific gene, ACTN3, or the so called “speed gene,” which tells muscles to contract and fire rapidly, that has come to be an associated predictor of athletic performance. It鈥檚 not the only predictor, by any means, but at least among the elite, it does come in to play.

Yet genetics alone might be overrated. Which is good news if you happen to be predisposed to running long distances, slowly. Ongoing studies by exercise physiologists have shown that it鈥檚 actually ground contact, not heart rate or V02 max, that stands out as the better predictor of speed potential. Brad Hudson, author of , explains that training for speed really comes down to how well you can learn to move. “Regardless of the event, if you can improve your running economy, in other words, learn to move better, you鈥檙e going to be better at that event.”

And luckily, learning to move better is something that can be trained. That鈥檚 the reason why, six weeks before race day, I called Scott Jurek for some advice because I figured he鈥檇 understand where I was coming from. After all, Jurek, who is famous for his epic long-distance wins such as Badwater and Western States, also clocked a 2:38 at the Austin Marathon in 2006.

Somewhat arbitrarily I’d settled on a goal of running a 3:30 marathon, though I didn鈥檛 actually have much on which to base this number. With previous races as indicators, it’s possible to calculate an estimated marathon time using tools such as the . But up to this point I had only one actual road race to my name, a half marathon I鈥檇 run on a whim back in college, long before I actually considered myself a “runner.”

I know my split times for most of the ultras I鈥檝e competed in, but those don’t translate well to roads (when you鈥檙e going up a mountain at four miles per hour, and barreling down the other side at ten, your splits are all over the place). Still, 3:30 seemed reasonable. I knew I could run the required average of 8:10 miles comfortably enough at altitude (国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 high-desert headquarters are at 7,000 feet). Plus, I was quietly banking on the advantage I鈥檇 get racing at sea level鈥攎ore than 1.3 miles lower.

After listening patiently to my speed anxiety, Jurek recommended I focus less on track workouts or even long slow days, both a part of many standard marathon training plans, and instead direct the majority of my attention toward tempo runs, which demand the most from your muscles.

“Trail runners love not worrying about numbers,” he told me. “But numbers are a good thing to monitor if your goal is to improve your speed.” Jurek prescribed a healthy dose of tempo and threshold workouts鈥攍ike running six to nine miles at my goal race pace with a warmup and cooldown, or 15-20 minutes at five to 10 seconds faster per mile than race pace, or 5-to-1 speed drills, with five minutes of high intensity and one minute of low intensity running to get used to having more acidity in my blood.

My eyes were glazing over. That鈥檚 a lot of numbers to digest. But I was already trading trails for concrete bike paths so placing focus on a pace watch rather than tricky terrain seemed like the next step. “Plus,” Jurek reminded me, “an early season road marathon will only help your ultra times.”

The first thing I learned about trying to run fast is that it鈥檚 incredibly uncomfortable. Unlike ultras, where the goal is basically to find a pace you can hold consistently for 50 to 100 miles, training for speed is often about finding the most vexatious threshold you can reach and trying to hold that for as long as you possibly can. At least, that鈥檚 how it felt in the beginning.

With just over a month to go, I decided to do tempos twice a week, alternating between Jurek鈥檚 suggestions and adding a few others from various marathon training guides I鈥檇 found online, including a modified version of . I also ran a handful of long runs building up to 22 miles on the weekends with another 国产吃瓜黑料 editor who happens to be frustratingly faster than me. I even got over my fear of running with the boss and started tagging along on daily lunch runs.

And though it didn鈥檛 feel like it at first, I was getting faster. Not record breaking fast, but eight-minute miles started to feel easy, and tempo runs no longer tasted like pennies, and the split times on my pace watch were speedier and more sustained than they鈥檇 been at the beginning of this experiment. It was the first time I鈥檇 ever methodically trained for running, and though I missed the freedom of running without I watch, I appreciated the structure. And then it was time to start tapering.

On the morning of the race I was up at 4 a.m., enough time to digest a Clif Bar and a few bites of banana and get my race kit in order. The scene in downtown Ojai was unlike anything I鈥檇 ever seen before the start of a race. Hundreds of runners calibrating their watches, jogging warm-up laps and waiting in endless lines for porta-potties while pace groups started to form inside the queue.

I joined a handful of runners who鈥檇 decided to use the public park as a bathroom (sorry, Ojai), then made my way to the start line, pushing just ahead of the 3:30 group so as not to get stuck in the stampede. The problems with my pace watch were sending me into a mild state of panic, but at the last minute I managed to get a satellite reading, just in time for the gun.

I鈥檇 like to tell you that running a marathon is just as peaceful and inspiring as running an ultra. I鈥檇 like to tell you that after the first mile, all races are the same: you fall into a familiar rhythm and the whole mental and physical approach is basically the same. But I鈥檇 be lying.

All I could think about were numbers. After realizing an 8:10 minute mile felt way too easy in the syrupy sea level air, I picked up the pace to see how 8:00 felt. Still easy, I went for 7:30. A little harder, but I was already almost two miles in. 7:10 it was. Pretty soon I was directly between two pace groups, the 7:00s and the 7:15s. And this is pretty much where I stayed for the rest of the race, though I slowed slightly in the second half.

Things started to hurt around mile 18, but I鈥檇 been warned that would happen. So instead of looking at my watch, I started reading the signs held by spectators for other racers. “You can do this!”聽in pink puffy paint. “I can do this!” I thought, wincing at how corny it sounded in my own head. I broke the remainder of the race up into pieces. “Eight miles to go, that鈥檚 like a lunch run to the reservoir. Six miles to go, you鈥檝e already done that three times today. Three miles to go, this thing is almost over” and so on.

With one mile to go, something shifted in my brain. One mile was nothing. If I sprinted, I could break 3:10. So I did, passing a few runners in the final stretch and crossing the finish line at 3:09:46. Someone told me later that my finish line exclamation of “It鈥檚 over already?” was probably the first in the history of marathons.聽

Even though they鈥檙e shorter, 26.2 miles still hurts. In some ways those miles hurt worse than an ultra because unlike in longer trail races where there鈥檚 some relief in the form of aid stations or big hills; in a marathon, you never get to feel comfortable. But you鈥檙e also finished in time to eat a second breakfast and swim in the ocean and enjoy the fact that at least this time, you’ve trained enough to obliterate your goal time.聽

Which is exactly what I did. And though I鈥檒l always be a trail runner at heart, I鈥檓 sort of thinking about running another鈥�

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The workout soundtrack can be a very personal thing. Certainly there's no perfect pump-up song, but there is science behind getting the most out of your exercise playlist. And it applies whether your music library swings toward rap, indie, country, or classical.

Load up the first section of your playlist with bass-heavy tracks for your warmup. According to a new study from Northwestern and Columbia universities, music with a strong underlying beat makes people feel powerful. The authors recommend this bass-is-best approach for athletes heading out for competition, but it'll also help you get in a powerful mindset for a hard workout.

The mid-workout portion of your playlist is the trickiest, but a key quality to look for is beats per minute (bpm). The higher the bpm, the faster the song鈥攚hich can motivate you to move faster along with the rhythm, says Chris Lawson, founder of , a newsletter and database of the best workout songs of the moment. Generally, you'll want songs with about聽.聽But different ranges of bpm suit different activities. Some suggestions for different parts of your fitness regimen, based on research by Brunel University music-and-fitness psychologist , Ph.D.:聽

Mental preparation: 90-100 bpm
Stretching/yoga: 100-110 bpm
Strength training: 110-130 bpm
Cardio: 120-140 bpm

There's not a ton of popular music that goes above 140 bpm (Pharell's “Happy” is one example, at 160 bpm), but that's okay: Karageorghis' research finds that there seems to be a “ceiling” of about 140 bpm, after which it won't really push your performance further.

If you're running, it can be helpful to match your footfalls to the beat of your music, says Lawson鈥攂ut because every person's stride strength is different (even when traveling the same speed), there's no easy formula for doing that. “In the end, trial and error will serve folks better than general guidelines,” he says.

To get an idea of how well your favorite songs suit your cadence, use a site like , which will tell you the bpm of any song you input. Lawson's also lets you sort by tempo, genre, or decade. If you're looking to increase the intensity of your workout, choose songs that are a few beats-per-minute faster than your usual pace.

And it doesn't hurt to try some old standbys (sometimes backed by science!). “Experts we've worked with tell us that '' by Survivor is the perfect song,” Shanon Cook, trends expert for Spotify, says. And the music researchers from Northwestern and Columbia found that聽the three most powerfully-rated songs in the sports and hip-hop genres (out of 31 songs tested) were “” by Queen; “” by 2 Unlimited; and “” by 50 Cent. Cook also cites research that women tend to move in time to the beat when they exercise more than men, so ladies may especially appreciate “pop songs with regular rhythms,” like Rihanna's “We Found Love,” for example.

Need even more suggestions?聽

Spotify's picks skew much more current, and include a mix heavy with pop, rap, and electronic music. Here's a look at some of their top picks for workout tracks, or you can .

Songs to Energize Your Workouts

Kesha (130 bpm)

will.i.am and Britney Spears (130 bpm)

Macklemore & Ryan Williams (95 bpm)

Swedish House Mafia (129 bpm)

Flo Rida (129 bpm)

Bruno Mars (144 bpm)

Eminem and Nate Dogg (171 bpm)

Skrillex (112 bpm)

Maroon 5 (93 bpm)

Kanye West (104 bpm)

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Starchy foods get a bad rap. White bread and potatoes are devoid of nutrients, critics say, while the Paleo crowd eschews legumes and grains as unnecessary for the “ideal” human diet. But resistant starches鈥攚hich act more like fiber in the body鈥攁re really quite good for you. In fact, one health benefit may be of particular significance to those Paleo adherants: Eating resistant starches, says a new study, may help reduce the risk of colorectal cancer associated with diets high in red meat.聽

Resistant starch get its name because it resists digestion in the small intestine and passes through to the colon, where it produces short-term fatty acids that aid digestion and reduce inflammation,听says聽. Examples of resistant starches include underripe (still slightly green) bananas; cooked and cooled pasta and potatoes (think pasta or potato salad); raw potato starch; and yes, those Paleo no-no’s: oats, barley, beans, and lentils.聽

The fiber-like starch has other benefits, as well: “It helps you feel full, and therefore is a great weight-loss tool,” explains Largeman-Roth, who also authored and co-authored ,听which is based on the science of resistant starches. “Most people only eat 5 grams a day, but we should be eating more like 10 to 15 grams to get these benefits.”

Most recently, resistant starch has been in the news 聽published in this month’s Cancer Prevention Research. When Australian researchers put volunteers on highly carnivorous diets (300 grams a day of lean red meat) and gave half of them 40 grams a day of resistant starch powder, they discovered that the starch had a protective effect: The red-meat-only group saw a 30 percent increase in cancer-promoting molecules in their bowels, while the meat-plus-starch group’s levels did not change. (Again:聽Paleo people, take note.)聽

“Our study supports the existing evidence that a balanced diet containing plenty of whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables is likely to be beneficial for bowel health,” says study co-author Karen Humphreys, Ph.D. “More specifically, incorporating foods that are high in resistant starch and/or dietary fiber appear to ameliorate the damaging effects of a diet high in red meat.”聽

Of course, meat-heavy diets have been linked to other health conditions besides just colorectal cancer鈥攕o limiting your servings and keeping portion sizes small (3 to 5 ounces) are still smart moves, says Largeman-Roth, resistant starches or not. “So is including plenty of fruits and vegetables, which have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, and certain cancers,” she adds.聽

Bottom line: Resistant starch can help keep you full and maybe even reduce your cancer risk. Aim for at least 10 to 15 grams in your daily diet (a medium-size banana contains about 5 grams; 12.5 grams if it’s slightly unripe), especially if you eat a lot of red meat.

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Medieval folks believed bathing could let the devil into you or, at the very least, make you severely ill. They were a little off the mark, but it turns out that traditional bathing is overrated for maintaining health.

Our modern habit of daily scrubbing with soaps and shampoos looks absurd by historical standards鈥攍arge-scale soap production only started in the mid 19th century and the daily bath didn't really take off until the mid 20th鈥攁nd some experts think it's harmful.

“Even the most simple of soaps and shampoos destroy the body's natural oils and thus the protection derived therefrom,” says Dr. John Fielder, natural hygienist and founder of the Academy of Natural Living in Australia. That protection includes guarding against disease-causing microbes and other nuisances like lice infestation.

Sebum, the skin's natural oil secretion, gives skin and hair its waterproofness, kills germs, sends moisturizing and sun-shielding vitamin E to the surface, and acts as a delivery system for antioxidants and pheromones. You could spend dozens of dollars on soaps to strip it away and several dozen more on cosmetics (most of which are crammed with toxic chemicals to boot) in a tenuous effort to replace its functions.

That's not to say cleanliness is nonessential. , 30 percent of disease and 75 percent of life years lost in developing countries are due in part to poor sanitation and “risky hygiene behavior,” and they recommend regular face and hand washing with soap, , or rubbing.

Nonetheless, what we tend to call “germs” are often good for us. “Far from being our enemies, [bacteria] are our friends, and any activity on their account is a beneficial one,” Fielder says.

Maintaining health requires both internal and external cleanliness. People who eat natural diets, live in healthy environments, and perform basic grooming techniques may be less likely to experience illness. If we reduce environmental toxins and eat predominantly raw fruits and vegetables, we have fewer reasons to expect illness.

And you're better off . Unmitigated buildup of dirt and body waste provides an ideal medium for parasites like scabies. According to Fielder, combatting that is simple and doesn't require soap or even water, as long as you regularly brush the body and hair. “Much of this grooming can occur with the nails as well as the saliva,” he says.

Ancient Romans used a similar technique, applying scented oils to the skin and removing dirt and sweat with a metal scraper called a . Fielder's own grooming method, which he has used for at least 40 years, includes exfoliating with sand and rinsing with river water.

“There is a difference between cleanliness and sterility,” Fielder explains. “In cleanliness there is bacterial activity, there is life. Without bacteria there would be no life.”

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