Drop Dead Healthy

37 Takeaways from

1. Sitting is worse for you than a Paula Deen glazed bacon donut.

2. If you are going to sit down, at least fidget. Or, as scientists call it, engage in spontaneous physical activity. Wiggle in your chair, tap your feet. Studies show that fidgeting burns a surprising number of calories, about 350 a day.

3. Why I use the Purell dispensers at the gym: MRSA, athletes foot, jock itch, boils, impetigo, herpes simplex, and ringworm are among those found on equipment.

4. Quantify, quantify, quantify. The more you pay attention to your bodys measurements, the greater the chance youll adopt a healthy lifestyle. The mere act of weighing yourself every day makes it more likely youll lose pounds. Those wearing a pedometer walk an average of a mile a day more than those who dont. Keep a food diary and youll eat less.

5. Multi-vitamins are a good way to make your pee more expensive. Other than that, they are largely a waste of time, money and child-protective caps.

6. Treat yourself like a lab rat. Arrange your cageor your hometo maximize healthy choices. Eat off small plates. Put healthy options at eye level in the fridge and cabinets.

7. Peer pressure can be a good thing. Use twitter. Confess that you had three Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, and accept the mockery. Boast about walking five miles, and accept the acclaim.

8. Caramelized broccoli (cooked with sugar) is better than no broccoli at all.

9. To boost energy, take a drink of sugar water or Gatoradethen spit it out. This improves performance more than if you swallow. The odd outcome is a result of our tongues, which sense the presence of sugars and send a message to the brain Energy boost on the way. The body is fooled into expending more energy, but without the weight of the water to slow it down.

10. Drink coffee before the gym. This time swallow instead of spitting. Caffeine boosts endurance, partly by slowing down the burning of glycogen, the bodys energy reserves.

11. Youd think working while walking on the treadmill would be distracting. Quite the opposite. Walking raises the level of serotonin, which helps with focusing. I walked more than 1,000 miles while writing this book.

12. Pets are good for you; they lower your blood pressure, cholesterol, risk of stroke and heart attacks. Dog owners go for more walks and have more social connections (a key to health).

13. Pets are bad for you: They can spread pneumonia, cat scratch fever, meningitis, chagas, and even the bubonic plague.

14. Interval training is painful but will save you huge amounts of time. (The idea is to run or bike at full capacity for a minute, then take a rest. Then repeat several times).

15. There is no shame in light weights. The key to massive biceps and triceps is to achieve muscle failurethe moment when your exhausted, shaky arms can lift no more. To recover, your body starts building new proteins. You can reach muscle failure with any weight5 pounds, fifty pounds, it doesnt matter. Naturally, light weights may take more reps, but they may also cause fewer injuries.

16. White foods are the devil. They usually mean the presence of white flour, salt, sugar, white rice, or potatoes. The exceptions are egg whites and cauliflower.

17. Theres not a lot of evidence for barefoot running. Theres not a lot of evidence against it either.

18. Be wary of stretching. Or at least avoid static stretching, the kind where reach for your toes and hold for 30 seconds. Static stretching actually hurts performance and makes athletes slower. When you stretch you should do dynamic stretching: lunges, backward jogging, and lifting your knees above the waist while running.

19. Known appetite suppressants. Cayenne peppers (the spiciness curbs our urge for sugary and salty foods). Soup (A Penn State study found soup eaters consumed 134 fewer calories per meal). Apples (another Penn State study showed those who ate apples before lunch consumed 187 fewer calories than those who had applesauce). I ate a lot of peppers, soup, and apples.

20. Are still sitting? If you continue to do so, theres a 43 percent chance you will be dead by the end of this list.

21. Cloves and cinnamon have the highest anti-oxidant level of any food.

22. Dermatologists recommend a shot-glass full of sunscreen every two to four hours. Thats a whole bunch of sunscreen.

23. The odor that women find most arousing? According to one peer-reviewed study, a combination of Good and Plenty and cucumber. (Note: this did not work on my wife).

24. Mouth pieces improve athletic performance, according to several large studies. They jut your jaw forward, which makes breathing easier and lowers the level of the stress hormone cortisol.

25. Doing a three-day juice cleanse is unpleasant, but at least theres a total lack of medical evidence on its benefits.

26. Ditto a colonic.

27. When taking a pole dancing class, its courteous to wipe the pole down after youre finished.

28. Number of times I flossed for my first 42 years of life: 0. Since starting this project: 400. What convinced me? Its not just for your teeth, its to prevent plaque in your arteries and lengthen your lifespan by years.

29. Also surprisingly bad for your heart: Noise pollution. It raises blood pressure. Try SureFire Sonic Ear Plus earplugs, designed for the military and law enforcement and available online.

30. If you run through Central Park holding a large mallet with which to smash logs (the Roman Legionnaires Workout), you will get at least five people calling you Thor.

31. 100 percent cacaothe totally healthy chocolatetastes like detergent.

32. Dr. Oscar Wilde had the best health advice: Everything in moderation, including moderation.

33. Chew your damn food. We are a nation of underchewers. We are wolfer-downers. Chewing gives you more nutrition and, more importantly, slows down your eating, which makes you eat less. There are passionate pro-chewing advocatesthey call their movement Chewdaismwho recommend 50 bites. Thats excessive. But 15 is a good number to shoot for.

34. In other chewing news, chew Xylitol gum. It blocks the acids that cause cavities.

35. Of the dozens of workouts I tested, my favorite was probably the Caveman Workout. Shirtless and barefoot in Central Park, you throw boulders, lug tree trunks, crawl over foliage, and talk about the pros and cons of raw pig intestines. Movenat.com

36. It is possible to spend fifteen minutes eating a single blueberry. Its called savoring meditation.

37. Massaging yourself has known health benefits. It will also cause people to move away from you on the subway. (And I was just doing shoulders, neck, and arms).

Drop Dead HealthyA. J. Jacobs