Apres le Deluge, the Blooms

Over 5 inches of rain fell in Central Park two days ago.  Yesterday by noon by the sun was shining and streams were receding, though puddles remained as the temperature climbed to 70 degrees.  Is there anything more diverse than the weather?  Perhaps the plant world. . .

Late-blooming heath heats up the Heather Garden

Once again Fort Tryon Park called out, in part because I wanted to be on higher ground (That means I needed to climb  steps to meet my Fitbit goal of 40 flights per day.) and in part because it was May Day!  All of the flora pictured here is in the Heather Garden.  

A bumble bee "working" the heath.

Species tulips like these caused a financial crisis in 1637.

Will these azaleas be in bloom by the weekend?  It sure looks that way.  Bring on the reds!

Azalea form the backbone of the long perennial border in the Heather Garden.

Still Stepping It Up!

Yesterday Fitbit notified me that I had walked 500 miles since January 8 of this year.   Just one month ago today I increased my daily steps goal from 10,000 to 12,500 and my stairs goal from 35 to 40 per day.  I have met and often exceeded my steps goal on all but 5 of the past 30 days. Distance covered over 30 days is 176.9 miles.  

I climbed 40 floors or more on 15 of the 30 days.  I had 7 days when I climbed more than 50 floors--and one when I hit 101.   I don't like doing too many floors over consecutive days, as I don't want to injure myself.  So far, so good.  My goal for the next month is to keep the same numbers and try to improve it by 5 percent.  I'll do my best to hit my floors goal of 40 flights more consistently and try not to have days that are over 75 floors.  

With spring comes new parts of the parks to explore and new treasures to discover.  Now that there are more people in Fort Tryon Park  I am feeling a little safer about wandering into different areas, specifically the Alpine Garden.  

The Alpine Gardens are on the east side of the Park, not far from Broadway.  In recent years there has been an attempt at restoring the original Olmstead Brother's design.  At the bottom of the steps the first of the spring ephemerals, such as mertensia virginica,  Virginia bluebells are starting to flower:

Along the way I saw the first fiddleheads of the season and unfurled hosta.   At the top of the "Yankee Doodle Steps," so named because George Washington's troops were encamped in this area during the Revolutionary War, you'll  find a lovely magnolia tree and grape hyacinths in bloom.

There are lots more steps to climb and explore in the Alpine Garden.  Every day brings a new surprise.  Step it up!

Personal Best!

Have you been stepping it up?

I have.  Yesterday I logged 21,600 steps, a personal best.  I walked 9.06 miles, half in Northern Manhattan and half in Chelsea, the West Village, and Soho.  The hills around home, plus a few subway stair climbs, brought my floors total to 48.  My Fitbit is on fire!

I've been stepping it up in NYC Parks, including Fort Tryon Park, where these beautiful old granite steps were among the many I climbed yesterday.

Stone steps near the Heather Garden

Can you imagine how many steps were logged by the people who built these steps?  Up and down, and up and down, measuring before the stone was even ordered.  Preparing  the site for the steps. Getting the granite to the site. Cutting the granite. Fitting the stones.  It's mind boggling how much work was involved in the creation of this magnificent park.  I honor the energy of those who designed, engineered, built, and maintain Fort Tryon Park.  Their efforts inspire me to keep stepping it up.

Spring Walk to the Cloisters

My Fitbit inspired me to walk up to The Cloisters for another look on March 23, a beautiful, sunny day with a chilly north wind.  I wanted to visit the Herb Garden, which contains more than 250 species of herbs cultivated during the Middle Ages.  I was curious to see what, if anything, would be peaking up out of the ground. 

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art website (The Cloisters is part of The Met.),  the "Bonnefont" Cloister is pieced together from a destroyed monastery in Tarbes, France, in the high Pyrenees.  "Bonnefont", technically, is a misnomer. In any case, the Herb Garden within the cloister bears all of the hallmarks of a medieval monastic garden:   raised beds, a central wellhead, and wattle fences.  Medieval monasteries   preserved herbal knowledge that had been accumulated for centuries. Hidden from the world,  the monks grew the herbs in "physic" gardens, pounded them into medicines, and published the herbals that a few centuries later became the basis for botany and pharmacology.   The monasteries were factories unto themselves.

Bonnefont Cloister and Herb Garden;
the wellhead remains covered for now.

Helleborus in foreground,
gallanthus, in background

Sheltered by wattle in raised beds, a few herbs showed off their ability to shoot off  green, purple, and white while it's still cold outside:  

Perovskia, most likely

Primula, perhaps

Medicinally, Helleoborus, or Lenten rose, was used to treat gout and insanity during the Middle Ages.  Gallanthus, which we call snow drops, is an antidote to poison.  Today researchers are experimenting with Gallanthus to treat Alzheimer's disease.    Perovskia, commonly called Russian Sage, is used to reduce fever.  Primula, or primrose,   was used to cure rheumatism and gout. Primula is a sedative and is used today to ward off headaches.  All of these plants are commonly found in contemporary gardens.

This espaliered pear appearing in two photographs below was planted at the Cloisters in the 1940s and is a treasure of the collection. Espalier--training trees  in a flat plane--was first undertaken by the Romans and developed into a high art in France in the Middle Ages.  The plant is pruned extensively twice a year and is also tied to a wall to retain its shape.  

Pear tree, late March 2014

Cloisters pear tree  © 2004 Matthew Trump
Notice ten years' growth compared to the tree in the left photo?

A  second espalier pear tree--I don't know when it was planted--is starting to send off new growth, which, presumably, will be pruned when spring really arrives. This tree is in a more protected spot than the older one.   

For five years The Met  published a wonderful blog, The Medieval Garden Enclosed  http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2013/12/,  but no posts have been entered since December, 2013.  Its main creator,  a woman named Deirdre, left the Cloisters and New York   City in 2013.   

Step It Up!

Temperatures are warming, crocuses are blooming, and days are growing longer.   I am going to:

I am increasing my daily step goal on Fitbit from 10,000 to 12,500 steps. In addition to increasing my step count, I am going to increase my "floors" count.  For the past month I have averaged 35 flights per day.  I'm going to try to average 40 flights a day. I've got lots of stairs in my future. . . By the way, Fitbit records a "floor" when it records an elevation change of 10 feet. 

I live in New York City and ride the subway.  I never take an escalator when stairs are available. If I must take an escalator, I keep climbing or descending on it, if it is not crowded. Why? Because stair climbing and walking build bone strength.  Osteoporosis effects an estimated 10 million Americans, eighty-percent of whom are women.  No matter your age, if you are female, you should be thinking about your bone health and making intelligent choices about your diet, exercise, and lifestyle.  

Stair climbing  burns more calories than level walking. I don't advocate running  up a set of stairs like the one below, unless you are a young, fit, athlete, or your nickname is "Rocky." Merely taking your time and climbing stairs at a comfortable pace will improve your heart, build bone density, strengthen your core, and tone the muscles of your lower body.  If you feel more comfortable doing so, hold the railing. 

Start off slowly, practice good posture, and over time you will reap significant rewards. Even descending a set of stairs like those in the photo above is good for your body;  the caloric burn isn't as high while descending, but different leg muscles must contract, creating muscular balance. If you experience pain in the knees or hips, or shortness of breath, consult your doctor.    

Let's face it, climbing stairs is a life skill that we don't want to lose as we age.   Move it, and use it!  Move it, or lose it!  Step it up!  

10,000 Steps: The Art of Manpo-kei

When I first started using Fitbit, in January,  I wasn't hip to the idea that walking 10,000 steps a day was a fitness metric.  It took me a few days to figure out that the community of Fitbit defaulted to 10,000 steps as a daily goal. I  don't get an exploding happy face on my step count unless I reach it.  10,000 seemed like a nice round number to me, though I am just as interested in the number of floors I climb and how many of my minutes are "very active." 

Today I learned that a Japanese watch manufacturer, a man named Yamasa Tokei, invented the pedometer in 1965.  He relied on research from that time by Dr. Yoshiro Hatano to set the 10,000 steps metric. Dr. Hatano  observed that Japanese were walking, on average, between 3500 and 5000 steps a day and were becoming obese.  Tokei's pedometers became popular among Japanese, and before long walking clubs sprang up. Everyone in Japan has a pedometer, apparently, as each household owns more than 3! The Japanese word for the device Tokei invented is called "Manpo-kei,"  which translates into "10,000 steps meter."

Somehow or another--probably when Tokei started selling the pedometers in the US market--the metric stuck.  Here's a Google translation of the company's history of the pedometer from their website:  

1965

"Total number of steps" of Japan's first consumer goods  Released "paces meter" the No. 1 ※ 100 steps a graduated in mechanical analog. Price 2,200 yen each. Walking is reviewed (it was not cheap never starting salary of university graduates at the time because the era of 2-30000 yen) to eliminate the lack of exercise at the time, organizations that recommends exercise, etc. "10,000 steps a day" is positive It became the hit, along with the flow of society as a whole to promote activities such as automatically.  Read the ads and news articles at the time of the release

So is the 10,000-step goal  merely a marketing gimmick? No, it's a baseline.   As it turns out, the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends 10,000 steps a day--as a long-term goal--for good health and to ward off diseases like cancer, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.  According to the AHA website, seven out of ten Americans does not get  "enough" exercise.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) doesn't use a step count, but recommends 5 hours a week of brisk walking plus 2 major muscle groups strength-training workouts.  CDC figures that "brisk walking" results in a 15-minute mile, or four miles an hour, or roughly 7500 steps.  Mind you, that's 7500 brisk steps, not steps between the couch and the refrigerator.  .  .   All of these metrics vary with age, so check for yourself.  Kids should move a whole lot more than adults.  

Since January I've been averaging 10,000 steps--or Manpo-kei-- a day.  In addition, I've been skiing and snowshoeing, taking yoga classes regularly, and riding my bicycle indoors on a trainer.  I am pretty darn active, I am careful about what I eat, and yet, I haven't lost a pound.   Catrine Tudor-Locke, an authority on step counting and fitness and the author of Manpo-Kei: The Art and Science of Step Counting:  How to be Naturally Active and Lose Weight http://books.google.com/books?id=EQ3OxfuICAMC&dq=translate+manpo-kei&source=gbs_navlinks_s recommends a "More than Before" approach.  She encourages establishing a baseline first.   For me, that baseline is now Manpo-kei. To lose the five pounds I would like to shed, I'm going to aim for an average of 12,500 steps per day for the next four weeks and re-analyze at that time.  Let me know if you can  say that  in Japanese. . . 

What about you?  Are you doing what our bodies were created to do and love to do--moving?  And good luck with your Manpo-kei practice!

250 Miles Under My Feet, or Not?

Yesterday I got an email from Fitbit congratulating me on having walked 250 miles since January 9 of this year, when I first started to monitor my steps.  I patted myself on the back and danced a jig, but now it seems that not all steps--or step trackers--are created equal.

Maybe I have only walked  200 miles--or, perhaps, as many as 300!  

Here's a revealing graphic from ABC News about the great disparity of "steps" counted by three different self-analytic devices:  Fitbit, Jawbone, and Nike:

The reporter wore five different devices on different parts of the body and measured steps, calories consumed, calories burned, and hours of sleep.  Take a look at the box on the left labeled "Steps per Day."   The Fitbit bar is in blue, the Jawbone in grey, and the Nike device is represented by the orange bar.   I don't have the actual step count data, but it looks like there is a discrepancy of around 10,000 steps between Jawbone and Nike  devices over the course of three days, with Fitbit falling in the middle.   Ten thousand steps just happens to be my daily goal.  Am I wrong, or is that a  lot of discrepancy?

I am glad I have the Fitbit, which  racked up the median number of steps between the Jawbone and the Nike devices.  Too little,  too much, or just right?  Which brings me to thinking about porridge. I wish I could take a look at the differing data from the caloric burn.  Does Fitbit fall in the middle on that score too?   And what about the hours slept?

I won't go into the caloric intake numbers as I have yet to find a food tracker that easily and accurately measures non-processed, healthy, organic, unsweetened foods--like porridge. I have signed up for Lose It!, which the ABC News reporter used also.  At first glance it looks like the Lose It! data entry program might be superior to My Fitness Pal and the Fitbit food logs in that Lose It! allows me to enter amounts as small as 1/8 of a cup.  We'll see what happens when I have to enter quinoa salad into their program. . .  

Sit up Straight! New Postural Self-analytic Device May Replace Mom

Move over, Fitbit, there's  more competition coming in the self-analytics market.  Lumo Bodytech Inc. http://www.lumobodytech.com/lumolift/ has  created Lumo Lift,  a small gizmo that you can clip onto your clothes on your upper body.  If and when you slouch (Who doesn't?) the device will vibrate, triggering  you to sit  up or stand up straight.  Like Fitbit, Lumo Lift will also measure the number of steps you take and  your caloric  burn.  

Last year Lumo Bodytech  released Lumo Back, for people with lower back problems. Most reviewers of that product found it annoying owing to its cumbersome design and the necessity of wearing it on the lower back.  The  new Lift isn't even on the market yet but if you are an early adopter, you can order one now for $69.   Perhaps they have worked out some of the kinks for this one.

If you round your shoulders and want to improve your upper back posture,  you might find Lumo Lift helpful.  Caveat emptor: the device itself isn't going to improve your posture.  The device is only going to alert you when you have slumped into your customary position.  To improve your posture you have to stretch the tight parts of your front body and strengthen the weak parts in your back body. Without a strategy  to make postural change, I can imagine that  Lumo Lift might quickly begin to terrorize.  I round  my shoulders.   I am intrigued.  I may just order one.  

In the meantime, if you have a pear shaped body, (That is, your lower body is wider than your upper body), there's a good chance you need to strengthen your shoulders and arms more than someone with an apple, hourglass, or  rectangular shaped body.  Here is a fabulous sequence by yoga teacher Sarah Guglielmi that will help you counteract rounded shoulders.

http://yogainternational.com/article/view/asana-anatomy-trapezius-and-serratus-anterior

Practicing  dolphin  and dolphin pushup is another way to strengthen your shoulders.  Get  on the floor on your hands and knees on your yoga mat.  Wrap each of your hands around the opposite elbow to be sure your elbows are squarely under your shoulders.    Then bring your hands together and interlace your fingers,  palms together. Press your the pinky side edge of your hands, wrists, elbows,  and forearms into the floor and turn your toes under. 

Inhale deeply, then exhale as you lift your buttocks up while you straighten yours legs. Breathe consciously here for several rounds.  The crown of your held will lengthen toward the floor between your arms. Engage your core.  Draw your scapulae toward your spine while you broaden your collarbones.  Observe your breath as you continue to push the floor with your hands, wrists, forearms, and elbows.  When you are tired, or, when you have lost sight of your breath, rest in child's pose. This version of dolphin prepares you for headstand.

If you wish, repeat dolphin, increasing the length of the hold yet still remaining aware of the breath. Interlace your fingers the awkward way the second time you do the pose.   Notice how and where the body has to adjust to  just that slight difference.  You can also play with moving your feet further apart, which should make the pose easier.   Now try  moving your feet closer and then further from your elbows.  How do the various stances change the intensity of the posture for you?

Adding movement by practicing dolphin pushup increases the challenge. Go back up into dolphin, being sure to engage the core and the scapulae and to press the arms and hands into the floor. With an exhalation, shift your body and its weight forward, so that your chin will come just over your fingers and your body will be  parallel to the floor. With the inhale, lift the hips high up again. The more fluidly you move, the more fun this will be.  It might help you to think of yourself as a dolphin moving through water.  Exhale forward, inhale on the buttocks upward movement.  Do 8 or fewer repetitions.  Rest in child's pose.  Do another set if you like, again changing how you interlace the fingers.

Never overdo if you are new to any physical activity.  The body takes time to adjust.  If you are patient and practice with care and awareness, the body will respond to the new love you are showing to it.

Let me know what you experience.

Valentine To Myself: Rest Day!

After four very active days filled with walking, downhill, and cross-country skiing, today is a rest day.   I am not just talking about sleep, which is vital.  I am talking about deep rest--physical and mental rest--which I believe is essential to a healthy, rewarding life.

The more I stress my body, the higher my cortisol levels rise.  My body expects me to work hard and stress it again today.  I know it is time for some rest because I didn't sleep well or long enough last night despite lots of physical activity.  Poor sleep is an indication that my body has been overstimulated and exhausted. 

Today I will practice an hour of restorative yoga.  Restorative yoga stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, the "rest and digest" part of the nervous system.  All of the exercise I have been doing has been stimulating my sympathetic nervous system, the "fight or flight" system.   Contrary to the messages I've been sending to my body, I am not being chased by a saber-toothed tiger. I need to send messages to my body that I am back in the cave, surrounded by friends and family, all danger passed.   

I have had the great good fortune of studying restorative yoga with Judith Hanson Lasater, author of the book on restorative yoga,  Relax and Renew http://www.amazon.com/Relax-Renew-Restful-Stressful-Times/dp/1930485298. I recommend you buy it and work with a trained yoga teacher if you want to practice restorative yoga.  

As practiced by Judith Lasater, restorative yoga benefits the body in several ways:  

• Lowers blood pressure and heart rate
• Reduces muscle tension and fatigue
• Lowers serum triglycerides and blood sugar levels
• Reduces cortisol and boosts immunity

By moving my spine in all directions over the course of an hour of so,  the large muscles in my body and my organs will be gently opened, rather than stretched.  Using an assortment of props, I will practice a forward bend, a backward bend, and a twist.  I will also practice a safe, gentle inversion--where my head will be lower than my heart and my feet higher than my heart and digestive organs-- to reduce the effects of gravity on my body.  The inversion will reverse the flow of blood and lymph that has pooled in my lower body, counteracting the skiing, walking, and sitting that I have been doing.    My body will then be ready to relax into my favorite pose: Savasana, for twenty minutes.  

Roger Cole, Ph.D., a yoga teacher and scientist,  has studied the physiological effects of restorative yoga, relaxation, and posture.  He published this wonderful graphic, complete with stick figure images of the different yoga postures on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RogerColeYoga 

One of Roger's students wore a heart rate monitor during Roger's restorative yoga class in Del Mar, CA.  Over the course of the class, the student's heart rate slowed continuously until it reached a low of 28 beats per minute  (bpm) during a supported supta baddha konasana (supported bound angle). You can see from the chart above that the student's heart rate would fall as he settled into the series of postures and then rise whenever he would release out of a pose and set up the next one.  

Notice how long each of those postures was held.  The student practiced a standing forward fold with his head on a block for a few minutes, bringing blood to the head.  Then the chest and was elevated and opened in a supported bridge variation for what looks to be about 5 minutes. Heart rate rose while the student transitioned into a   15-minute supported bridge, where the heart rate fell below 40 bpm.  An 8- or 9-minute supported forward fold quieted the body further.  I'm guessing that the student turned his head from one side to another during this forward fold, because you can see that the heart elevated slightly in the middle of that section.  A suppported spinal twist was practiced on each side of the body;  again you can see where the heart rate elevated when the student switched sides.

   

During his sixth posture, supported baddha konasana, or cobbler's pose,  the student reached the low of 28 bpm.  The decline in heart rate is similar to what happened in the supported bridge, but the student gets deeper and deeper into a resting, restful state.  Then he transitioned into his final posture, a very gentle Savasana with his legs elevated on a chair.  Compare the resting heart rate between the first posture and the last posture and draw your own conclusion.  Do you think the student felt rested when he finished?  Was his mood changed?  Did he sleep well that night?

I can rest my body deeply when I set up the right environment for a good restorative session: support myself properly so that I can be still and open rather than stretching the body;  close the eyes and cover them with an eyebag; practice in a room without music;  cover my body with  a blanket to keep the body warm.  In a sense, I have to recreate that cave I mentioned before.  Judith recommends at a bare minimum a 20-minute Savasana every day. http://www.judithlasater.com/

If I were more of a geek, I could show you a printout of my heart rate during a restorative session at home.  Alas, I have to leave that to others. I await Fitbit introducing an affordable gizmo that could measure the quality of my restorative yoga sessions. . . 

Try a restorative yoga class at a study near you!  Knowing how to rest is a skill you can rely on as you face challenges--both physical and emotional-- in your life.  

Fort Tryon Park Snow Day

Today the park screamed:  get outside and walk!  From the stoop I knew it was going to be a beautiful walk.

Mare's tails and contrails 

Walking down one hill to climb another, with my Fitbit http://www.fitbit.com/store?gclid=CLCLw6mxurwCFU7xOgodDQ0A4Q securely fastened,  my goal was to do some serious walking and climbing. I chose to explore Fort Tryon Park. https://www.forttryonparktrust.org/ Unlike Central Park, which is a landscape created by man, Fort Tryon is a "natural" park.  Fort Tryon Park  was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead Jr.,  (son of the man who created Central Park) in the 1920s and built by workers during the Works Progress Administration.  The park contains 67 acres, much of it with breathtaking views of the Hudson River and the Palisades in New Jersey.  

Carriage road to the Cloisters built during the WPA.  Icy Hudson River on the right.

Fitbit clocked 14 floors climbing the hill to The Cloisters, a medieval museum that is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and that sits on a bluff overlooking the Hudson. Housing a collection of some 2,000 pieces of medieval art, the Cloisters http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/visit-the-cloisters is a mélange of sacred and secular buildings from France and Spain, predominantly, that only some rich Americans, among them John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,  could have collected and glued together in an melting-pot way 75 years ago.         

12th-century apse from Spain reconstructed in NYC

South entrance of The Cloisters

Deeper in the Park lies the Heather Garden, the largest collection of heaths and heathers on the East Coast. The many plants in this three-acre site with stunning views of the Hudson and the Cloisters were blanketed in snow, disturbed only by a lonely jogger.

Heather Garden in Winter

Onward I walked, out of the Park,   south to West 181st Street, where I stopped in at a Russian grocery store to eye the caviar and other exotic foods.  Without a purchase, I turned 'round and headed back home via the city streets.  

By the end of the day I had taken 12,600 steps for 5.37 miles, had climbed 46 flights, and  burned 2050 calories.  Plus I got some much-needed Vitamin D with my time in the sunshine.  Yay, Fitbit! 

Kudos, CVS!

CVS gives up tobacco: http://info.cvscaremark.com/cvs-insights/cvs-quits  CVS will phase out tobacco product sales by October, 2014.  They will also start to phase-in a smoking cessation program.

Makes sense, doesn't it?  The CDC reports that tobacco is responsible for roughly 1 in 5 deaths in America.   CVS is in the health care business with 7600 retail locations.  They have 800 Minute Clinic locations staffed with nurse practitioners and pharmacists. Presumably they plan to expand that part of their service.  Minute Clinics http://www.minuteclinic.com/about/ will service a much healthier clientele without tobacco users in their midst.

CVS will give up $2 billion in tobacco sales annually.  This is a brave move.  Support CVS, so that other retailers--are you listening Walgreens, Walmart,  et al?--get off the butts too.

Still a smoker?  Check out Can't Quit? Bullsh*t:  You Can Stop Smoking by Dr. Richard Brunswick.  http://www.quitsmokingmessageboard1.com/cant-quit-bullsht-you-can-stop-smoking One technique Dr. Brunswick recommends for quitting is to reward yourself with a treat with the money you save when you quit smoking. A FitbitOne http://www.fitbit.com/one might be a great reward.  What could be a better healthy lifestyle choice than to quit smoking and to start measuring your steps?

Full disclosure, I smoked a pack of cigs a day between the ages of 18 and 24.  My mother suffered a long, slow end-of-life with emphysema.  One of my older brothers has COPD.