Harmony Today
Kent Ninomiya.
I want to thank everyone who wrote to me concerned about my family emergency. I appreciate your words. Just know that it is not a matter of life or death. I am just taking care of some business. My blogs will be updated in the next few days.
Thanks again,
Kent Ninomiya
Kent Ninomiya.
I regret to report that due to a family emergency there will be no posts on this blog for the next several days. I apologize for the inconvenience. New posts will be back by next week.
Thanks,
Kent
Kent Ninomiya. I was browsing through some exercise tip articles on yahoo and came across one on cold weather work outs. It recommends doing the following:
1. Lunges across the living room: find enough space to walk/lunge 8-10 paces and do slow, deep walking lunges in your home. Take a long stride and bend deeply as you walk slowly step-by-step working your quads, hamstrings and glutes. Four sets of 8-10 strides on each leg will have you feeling as though you’ve just done leg extensions and squats at the gym.
2. Push up on the stairs, on a bench or on the floor. If you are using a bench be sure that it is securely pushed up against a wall. On the floor, you may want to do your pushups on your knees instead of your toes.
Do four sets of 5-10 reps (and you can even do a little housework in between sets); believe me you will feel your upper body muscles the next day as though you were lifting weights at the gym.
3. Jump rope in the kitchen. Do five sets of 1-2 minutes of jumping rope. You’ll be conditioning your heart, burning excess calories, and revving up your system for a good day.
4. Jumping jacks in the bedroom. Nothing like a few sets of jacks to get your heart rate up and a little sweat going. Do 8-10 sets of 25 jacks and you’ll not only feel your whole body working, but the after effects of feeling your upper and lower body throughout the day will be satisfying and a reminder that you are an athlete in training.5. Abs anywhere. First of all, keep your abs engaged on all of the above exercises. Then, on a soft surface lie on your back and do three sets of 15 crunches and three sets of 15 leg lifts supporting your lower back by keeping your hands on the floor, palms down, just under your lower back.6. Begin your day with five minutes of quiet introspection. Sit still, close your eyes and relax. Focus on your breath and let the world become simple and peaceful.
While this sounds just fine, I am left with the question “who would actually do this stuff?” I mean, what good is any exercise program if you don’t actually do it? Just about every home in America has at least one piece of work out equipment being used as a clothes rack. Everyone has good intentions when they buy the equipment but in a very short period of time it blends in with the coffee table and becomes invisible. The key to working out in every season is routine and motivation. You need to make working out a regular part of your life like brushing your teeth. We don’t particularly like brushing our teeth but we do it because we know we should. It should be the same for exercise. You need to find a work out that you either like to do or can distract yourself from while you are doing it. This can be watching TV or listening to music while you work out. This can be something like martial arts or basketball or dance that is fun. The bottom line is if you hate exercise you will find excuses to avoid it. Eliminate the excuses and you will succede.
Kent Ninomiya
Kent Ninomiya. I love green tea and it turns out it could be the magic drink. I found some info on yahoo to support this claim: The steady stream of good news about green tea is getting so hard to ignore that even java junkies are beginning to sip mugs of the deceptively delicate brew. You’d think the daily dose of disease-fighting, inflammation-squelching antioxidants - long linked with heart protection - would be enough incentive, but wait, there’s more! Lots more.CUT YOUR CANCER RISKSeveral polyphenols - the potent antioxidants green tea’s famous for - seem to help keep cancer cells from gaining a foothold in the body, by discouraging their growth and then squelching the creation of new blood vessels that tumors need to thrive. Study after study has found that people who regularly drink green tea reduce their risk of breast, stomach, esophagus, colon, and/or prostate cancer. SOOTHE YOUR SKIN Got a cut, scrape, or bite, and a little leftover green tea? Soak a cotton pad in it. The tea is a natural antiseptic that relieves itching and swelling. Try it on inflamed breakouts and blemishes, sunburns, even puffy eyelids. And that’s not all. In the lab, green tea helps block sun-triggered skin cancer, whether you drink it or apply it directly to the skin - which is why you’re seeing green tea in more and more sunscreens and moisturizers.STEADY YOUR BLOOD PRESSUREHaving healthy blood pressure - meaning below 120/80 - is one thing. Keeping it that way is quite another. But people who sip just half a cup a day are almost 50 percent less likely to wind up with hypertension than non-drinkers. Credit goes to the polyphenols again (especially one known as ECGC). They help keep blood vessels from contracting and raising blood pressure. PROTECT YOUR MEMORY, OR YOUR MOM’SGreen tea may also keep the brain from turning fuzzy. Getting-up-there adults who drink at least two cups a day are half as likely to develop cognitive problems as those who drink less. Why? It appears that the tea’s big dose of antioxidants fights the free-radical damage to brain nerves seen in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.STAY YOUNGThe younger and healthier your arteries are, the younger and healthier you are. So fight plaque build-up in your blood vessels, which ups the risk of heart disease and stroke, adds years to your biological age (or RealAge), and saps your energy too. How much green tea does this vital job take? About 10 ounces a day, which also deters your body from absorbing artery-clogging fat and cholesterol. LOSE WEIGHTOh yeah, one more thing. Turns out that green tea speeds up your body’s calorie-burning process. In the every-little-bit-counts department, this is good news!
Kent Ninomiya. I’m off to brew a new pot!
I am changing the focus of this blog to health, nutrition and exercise issues. I hope you enjoy it.
Kent Ninomiya.
A man opened fire today at an Omaha mall killing 8 people. On the surface this may appear to be a big story. The sad truth is that events like this are somewhat commonplace in America. They are so common that most of us who don’t live in Omaha will forget it ever happened in a few weeks. It’s so common that I couldn’t tell you how many stories like that I’ve covered in my career. Is it 40, 50 , 100? I have no idea. Mass shootings are all about the body count. Virginia Tech was a big deal because so many people died. This Omaha mall shooting was barely noticed. Does that make the deaths any less tragic? Of course not, but media attention devoted to the event is directly proportional to the body count.
There was a mass shooting I covered in Los Angeles I remember well. A man walked into a grocery store and shot up the place before killing himself. When police went to his apartment they found his dead parents on the bed. Apparently he murdered them two years earlier and left them there. He told neighbors they moved away and nobody bothered to check. I have no idea why they didn’t smell the bodies. By the time the cops got there the parents were skeletons. I remember this story so vividly because of the sordid details, not because of the people who died in the supermarket. It’s unfortunate but true.
Kent Ninomiya
Kent Ninomiya. On this day in 1933 prohibition was repealed. Some would argue that this is a good thing since it should be the individual’s right to decide whether to drink. If that’s true then why not legalize recreational drugs and let the individual decide? Some would argue that making alcohol illegal led to organized crime getting it to the people anyway. The drug argument applies here as well. Some would argue that alcohol sales are good because they power the economy, finance sporting events, etc, etc. All these arguments distract from the real point. Alcohol is responsible for a long list of ills in our society. Alcoholism, date rape, drunk driving deaths. How do we justify that? I do not drink at all. I haven’t in more than 30 years. There are those who will point to that fact and claim that I don’t understand the benefits of alcohol. Well, if there are benefits to alcohol I don’t see them. It’s a drug (yes a drug) that alters consciousness and decision making ability. It’s addictive and it can kill you. I don’t drink and I don’t miss it. In fact, if I did miss it, I would have an alcohol problem and shouldn’t drink anyway. The truth of the matter is we accept alcohol because it’s everywhere and we’re used to it being around. There is no reasonable argument for keeping it around other than people like having it around. Disagree with me if you like but you know I’m right. Kent Ninomiya
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Kent Ninomiya.
I’ve been reading more and more lately about the importance of fathers spending quality and quantity time with their children. I know most of you will say “no kidding” to that advice, but how many of us actually make it their first priority and do it? When I say first priority I mean first. That means preferring time with your kids to time in front of the TV, computer and newspaper. That means being home instead of at work or at the bar. That means running around the playground and wrestling on the ground instead of shooing them away and telling them to go play somewhere else. When you think of it that way, guilt slides in and we realize we all do these things to some degree. The truth is we can all do more to interact with our kids. Of course there are limits. We would all go crazy hanging out with the monsters 24/7. The key is notching up the time without ratcheting up the stress. Primarily it’s making your kids #1 in your life. This is no small task but it’s probably the most important decision you will ever make. Think about it. If you’re not here on Earth to raise quality children why are you here? They are your link to immortality and the greatest reflection of who you were are a person. If you have lousy kids you were probably a lousy person. Why is it that the worst parents ignore or abuse their kids when they’re small then wonder why they are delinquents when they become teenagers? The best parents do a great job and wonder what more they can do. I decided when my kids were born that they were my primary job. When I had to opportunity to take a sabbatical to be with them I jumped at the opportunity. It didn’t help the career but so what. What do money, fame and the adoration of strangers mean when your kids wont come to see you when you’re old? Be sure to live your life deliberately and you wont be surprised by the outcome. Invest the time and effort in your kids now and you will have a wonderful relationship with them when they grow up. If you’re not going to do that then why did you have kids in the first place? You might as well enjoy them.
Kent Ninomiya
