Walking... Better.

Plus: healthy almond matzvo!

Author

The 10almonds Team
April 08, 2023

❝Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.❞

⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s Key Learnings:

Flying by? Here are some key take-away ideas from today’s newsletter:

  • Matzvo can be made out of almonds—delicious and nutritious! (recipe below)

  • Walking is great for the health! No surprises there, but tips:

    • Walk in the cold

      • This achieves a medical miracle of creating brown adipose tissue adult humans (previously thought impossible) (this is very good)

    • Work while walking

    • Walk within an hour of waking (special extra bonus benefits; see below)

  • High blood pressure in your 30s is associated with worse brain health in your 70s

    • But, you can do things about this (see below)

  • You can get a good workout whatever your body is like and without a gym (book recommendation of the day!)

Read on to learn about these things and more…

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

Healthy Matzo (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Kosher for Passover)

Shabbat shalom! For those observing, this week is Passover, so we thought we’d share this very healthy matzo recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup almond flour (we love almonds!)

  • 1/2 cup tapioca flour (plus extra for rolling out)

  • 1 tbsp psyllium husk (whole husk)

  • 1/4 tsp salt

  • 1/3 cup water

חג פסח שמח וכשר

🥾 MAIN FEATURE

Walking… Better.

We recently reviewed “52 Ways To Walk” by Annabel Streets. You asked us to share some more of our learnings from that book, and… Obviously we can’t do all 52, nor go into such detail, but here are three top tips inspired by that book…

Walk in the cold!

While cold weather is often seen as a reason to not walk, in fact, it has numerous health benefits, the most exciting of which might be:

Walking in the cold causes us to convert white and yellow fat into the healthier brown fat. If you didn't know about this, neither did scientists until about 15 years ago.

In fact, scientists didn't even know that adult humans could even have brown adipose tissue! It was really quite groundbreaking.

Work while you walk!

Obviously this is only appropriate for some kinds of work... but if in your life you have any kind of work that is chiefly thinking, a bunch of it can be done while walking.

Open your phone's note-taking app, lock the screen and pocket your phone, and think on some problem that you need to solve. Whenever you have an "aha" moment, take out your phone and make a quick note on the go.

For that matter, if you have the money and space (or are fortunate to have an employer disposed towards facilitating such), you could even set up a treadmill desk... At worst, it wouldn't harm your work (and it'll be a LOT better than sitting for so long).

Walk within an hour of waking!

No, this doesn't mean that if you don't get out of the house within 60 minutes you say "Oh no, missed the window, guess it's a day in today"

But it does mean: in the evening, make preparations to head out first thing in the morning. Set out your clothes and appropriate footwear, find your flask to fill with the beverage of your choice in the morning and set that with them.

Then, when morning arrives... do your morning necessaries (e.g. some manner of morning ablutions and perhaps a light breakfast), make that drink for your flask, and hit the road.

Why? We'll tell you a secret:

You ever wondered why some people seem to be more able to keep a daylight-regulated circadian rhythm than others? It's not just about smartphones and coffees…

This study found that getting sunlight (not electric light, not artificial sunlight, but actual sunlight, from the sun, even if filtered through partial cloud) between 08:30—09:00 resulted in higher levels of a protein called PER2. PER2 is critical for setting circadian rhythms, improving metabolism, and fortifying blood vessels.

Besides, on a more simplistic level, it's also a wonderful and energizing start to a healthy and productive day!

🌍 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Fitness Walking and Bodyweight Exercises: Supercharge Your Fitness, Build Body Strength, and Live Longer - by Frank S. Ring

A lot of exercise manuals assume that the reader has a "basic" body (nothing Olympian, but nothing damaged either). As we get older, increasingly few of us fall into the "but nothing damaged either" category!

Here's where Ring brings to bear his decades of experience as a coach and educator, and also his personal recovery from a serious back injury.

The book covers direct, actionable exercise advice (with all manner of detail), and also offers mental health tips he's learned along the way.

Ring, like us, is a big fan of keeping things simple, so he focusses on "the core four" of bodyweight exercises:

  1. Pushups

  2. Squats

  3. Lunges

  4. Planks

These four exercises get a whole chapter devoted to them, though! Because there are ways to make each exercise easier or harder, or have different benefits. For example, adjustments include:

  • Body angle

  • Points of contact

  • Speed

  • Pausing

  • Range of motion

This, in effect, makes a few square meters of floor (and perhaps a chair or bench) your fully-equipped gym.

As for walking? Ring enjoys and extols the health benefits, and/but also uses his walks a lot for assorted mental exercises, and recommends we try them too.

A fine book for anyone who wants to gain and/or maintain good health, but doesn't pressingly want to join a gym or start pumping iron!

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Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

The 10almonds Team