Scott Douglas - 100 Things You Can Do to Stay Fit and Healthy: Simple Steps to Better Your Body and Improve Your Mind

Copyright 2017 by Scott Douglas

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Tom Lau

Cover photo image: iStockphoto

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Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-1235-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1236-2

Printed in China

Table of Contents

Foreword

There is no shortage of health advice. We are deluged daily with products and programs that profess to have the secret formula. Reading too much or study alone leaves us with analysis paralysis. In my twenty-eight years of work with peoples health issues, Ive witnessed amazing results once a person is ready to step into the drivers seat of their own health process.

Not all of us possess the genetics to be in the triple-digit age club, or even aspire to live that long, but we all share a basic need to enjoy good health that enriches the quality of our lives. We now know we can change our brain and body chemistry through aerobic exercise, strength training, meditation, healthy nutrition, and countless other strategies. Research is rife with documentation of the healing benefits of these simple strategies that bring well-being.

Outsourcing a healthy lifestyle process is costly and ultimately unsustainable. Once you take the leap to embrace simple, small incremental changes, and then integrate these strategies into your lifestyle, true transformative results are harvested.

Scott Douglasa man who values his own health journey enough to spend a considerable amount of his busy work day incorporating these doctrinestruly lives his beliefs. Scott begins each day practicing these simple self-care principles: running, restoring, aligning, fueling, and rejuvenating his body to invest in his health.

A true health advocate, Scott has been engaged in a lifelong pursuit of optimum health and fitness. Ive had the privilege to run the roads, sample the fresh local food, and witness his impeccable journalistic integrity and relentless research stamina. Im certain youll find the 100 tips in this book to be both enjoyable and beneficial. Enjoy them in good health.

Phil Wharton,
President of Wharton Health Solutions

Introduction

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.

This Chinese proverb says a lot about improving health. Ideally, you established good habits decades ago. If you did, youre more likely to be healthy and happy today. But if you didnt, then right now is the best time to make some changes. And even if you already do a lot of the right things, like being active, eating well, and managing stress, there are things you can start doing immediately to be even healthier. After all, nobody has ever wished they were less healthy.

This book is focused on simple steps you can take today to improve your health and fitness. In many cases, youll see almost immediate benefits. This is not to imply that Im providing one-and-done easy fixes. Good health is a lifelong goal, and therefore a life-long undertaking. Rather, the ideas in this book are manageable, realistic practices that, when you make them a regular part of your life, will help you feel better today and be in even better health years from now. Think of them as you would small but consistent investments into a retirement account. At any one time, what youre doing might not seem dramatic or important. But over time, as your good habits build on one another, youll have a growing fund of wealth or, in this case, health.

Ive divided the hundred tips in this book into five chapters, each focused on an aspect of your health: general, cardiovascular, muscular/skeletal, internal, and mental. As youll see, much of the advice will have benefits beyond its chapters topic. To take just one example, finding an aerobic activity you enjoy doing (item #28) has obvious cardiovascular benefits. But regular aerobic exercise will also strengthen your muscles (and in some cases bones), reduce your risk of some cancers, and improve your mood.

Each of the 100 tips in this book is meant to be self-contained. Feel free to start reading from wherever you like, based on the areas of health you most want to improve. If you read front to back, however, you might notice a key theme emerging, as I did the more I prepared to write. Youll see several places where whats being recommended is a deliberate step away from the trappings of modernity. In the twenty-first century, we have a way of life that would be the envy of nearly every human who has ever lived. And yet well see several instances of our default mode of existence presenting a threat to our health. Were among the first people in human history who need to make an effort to move enough and not eat too much.

The recommendations in this book are based on combining authoritative health research with real-world concerns. If you want the latest fads or secrets, this book might not be for you. If you want a distillation of reputable research into practical advice applicable to most people, keep reading.

A quick personal note: please dont think I see myself as a paragon of health doling out sermons from on high. I have more room for improvement than most people in two key areas, posture (item #46) and time spent sitting (item #4). Because of earlier neglect of flossing (item #25), I now have periodontal disease. When I get busy I have to remind myself Ill get more done and my mind will be calmer if I slow down and concentrate on one thing at a time rather multitask (item #85). And if its ever discovered that eating peanut butter by the spoonful out of the jar causes cancer, Im a goner.

Like you, I want to live my full allotment of years and feel vibrant while doing so. Consider me a fellow striver who, through personal curiosity and professional experience, has done the advance work for you on key ways to meet our mutual goal of a long, healthy life.

While you read this book and think about how to improve your health, heed the words of tennis legend Arthur Ashe: Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

CHAPTER 1

27 Things to Do to Improve Your General Health and Fitness

In this first chapter, well start with tips that have a global effect on your health or dont pertain to one of your bodys internal systems.

#1: Become a Choice Architect

Lets start with something that, in itself, wont improve your health, but will make it much more likely that youll successfully enact some of the other 99 tips in this book.

Behavioral economists talk about the importance of choice architecture, or the environment in which we make choices. The classic example is the difference between an employer-matched retirement fund where participation requires choosing to enroll, versus enrollment as the default option. In the latter case, more employees participate. The gist of the fields teaching is to make it easy to do the right thing.