Hmmm.  No link.  Just a cut pic.

Thanks, Tina!  Fixed it.  :)

Worth repeating over and over:

But prevention is different. We know a lot about it, based on huge bodies of epidemiological research. Most of prevention is fairly straightforward. You've heard the advice again and again. In fact, the repetition may make it easy to tune out.

I'll risk it, though, and tell you again that there really aren't shortcuts to health. Here's what you need to do:

• Get enough sleep.
• Move your body throughout the day.
• Eat well — a healthy assortment of foods. Mostly plants, and not too much. (An idea popularized by author Michael Pollan.)
• Interact socially. Isolation is not good for the body, soul or mind.
• Take some time to reflect on what you are grateful for.

Recently I've come across a couple of sources that do a good job of conveying these messages. One is a set of books and ideas about the world's so-called Blue Zones. If you haven't heard about them, Blue Zones are the places in the world where people both have the healthiest and longest lives.

Ugh, more of your "common sense"! I roll more like this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/nyregion/orangetheory-workout-new-years-resolution-fitness.html

PUBLIC TRACKING of your effort on giant video monitors. Data. Competition. Inequality. What the world is all about today!

I too like franchised fitness, like

 http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2015/07/22/spin-a-susan-sarandon-owned-ping-pong-barrestaurant-coming-to-san-francisco/ and it's coming to San Fran!

Is table tennis really... fitness?

It's the happy part of an overall fitness program.  And it's VERY competitive!

I see the appeal.  From the NYT article on orangetheory:

"She started teaching Pilates classes out of a spare bedroom in her house but was perplexed by a single question, as she put it to me recently: 'How could I get fat blowing off my Pilates clients?'"

I enjoy miniature golf. Especially indoor miniature golf.

So the answer to her question is... switch your Pilates students over to a completely different, almost opposite form of exercise?

You might enjoy the German sport of headis!

https://youtu.be/skxagVPbVro

http://www.businessinsider.com/headis-ping-pong-soccer-hybrid-2014-12

What you can do to get through a crap week:

As summarized by John Schumann of NPR:

One thing that probably won't surprise you: Blue Zoners do not eat refined sugars. They skip the convenient packaged foods that we're trained to eat because they're cheap and widely available.

Summarizing these themes visually in under two minutes is another gem from the idea lab of Dr. Mike Evans from Toronto. You've seen some of his other videos here. I love them. Just watch the one below, and follow his advice. That's what I'm trying to do in my own life.

You know what else Blue Zoners probably don't do? Work in an office.

* Okinawa: major industry tourism, highest unemployment and lowest income in Japan.

* Sardinia: Nuoro and Ogliastra provinces are two of the most mountainous, remote, and least populous in Italy. Many villages have fewer than 4,000 inhabitants who herd sheep and make cheese.

* Costa Rica: remote Nicoya peninsula, tourism is the main industry.

* Greece: Ikaria is a remote mountainous island, tourism and goat herding are the main industries.

* USA: Loma Linda, CA is at the extreme edge of the Los Angeles metropolitan area so I doubt many of the residents commute to the city for work. Published reports suggest a lot of the Seventh Day Adventists -- who only amount to 7,000 very highly self-selected people -- work at their university, in healthcare, or are retired.

Also, if you look at the diets of the various Blue Zoners there is almost literally no overlap -- some gorge on sheep's milk cheese and olive oil, while others eat nuts or tofu on the daily, some drink every day while others never touch the boozes. The only dietary commonality is eating far less meat and processed food than most Americans. But in my view the bigger commonality is that all of these clusters are in areas that are relatively remote and poor enough to require a lot of physical exertion in daily life -- especially walking -- and yet are relatively free of the stresses of modern life and close enough to modern medical care if something really goes wrong.

Universally, no refined sugar.  Not overly processed.  Legumes.  After watching "In Defense of Food", perhaps breastfed, obtaining the healthy microbiomes of their  mothers. Lifestyle:  Not sedentary.  That leaves a lot of room to experiment and find what you're likely to stick with.  

Blue Zone diet, Red Zone fitness for me!

Actually I don't think there's any evidence they never eat refined sugar. Okinawa and Loma Linda are modern Americanized economies, I'm sure the people eat the occasional ice cream... and I'm sure there are sweets in the other areas too. But they don't have refined sugar every day in every food, like we do here in the US.

Although these effects only applied to people who are old enough to have lived most of their lives before there was sugar in these area... so maybe you're basically right.

You're right.  Nobody does never.

Do prominent health gurus live longer?

http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2016/01/do-prominent-health-gurus-live-longer.html

You need to post this as a separate page! Great info :)

Okay, Halibutboy... my first top-level post to PandaWhale.

Thanks dude!

Good stuff!

Congrats on your first top level post!

Link for people who land on this page:

http://pandawhale.com/post/69824/do-prominent-health-gurus-live-longer