Benefits of Walking

Benefits of walking

  • Walking helps to improve your overall health and fitness and is a great way to lose weight, tone your muscles, strengthen your heart and instill a general feeling of well-being and positive self-esteem. 
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  • It burns calories
  • It can help towards maintaining a healthy weight
  • It helps to boost your metabolism
  • It helps to reduce body fat
  • It boosts your energy levels
  • It strengthens your legs
  • It helps to strengthen the immune system
  • It improves your circulation
  • It lowers your blood pressure
  • It helps to prevent and control diabetes
  • It promotes positive mental health, including higher levels of self-esteem
  • It helps you to manage stress and release tension
  • It helps to improve the ability to fall asleep quickly and sleep well
  • It may motivate your children to walk more if that’s what they see you doing and provides an activity to share with family members and friends
  • It can be done almost anywhere
  • It’s more environmentally friendly than driving
  • It’s free

Fit More Walking Into Your Day

At Work

  • Park your car in the space that is the furthest away and walk to the office
  • If you take the train/bus get off a stop or two early and walk the rest of the way 
  • Walk to work  
  • On your lunch break go for a walk around the block
  • If you need to speak to somebody in the office walk over to them instead of phoning them
  • Walk to the local shop to buy your lunch
  • Don’t take the lift, use the stairs

With the Kids

  • Walk the children to school/playgroup
  • Walk to the park and back with the kids at the weekend
  • Find the time for one walk each week with each child – make this your special time when the two of you are alone and you can chat / catch up
  • Plan fun exploration walks for the kids – get out and explore your local neighborhood
  • Make it your mission to plan a new walk for each weekend – look out for local parks, country walks, etc
  • If you drop your children at clubs / parties, don’t spend the time driving back and forth, go for a walk instead

With Friends

  • Plan to go walking for fitness once a week with a friend  
  • If you plan to meet friends walk to their house, or get them to meet you half way
  • Offer to join your friend when they are walking the dog  
  • Rather than meeting your friends for coffee, suggest going for a stroll

At Home

  • Get up early and go for a walk  
  • Cancel the paper / milkman and walk to the shop instead  
  • If you run out of essentials, walk to the local shop to buy them – don’t take the car
  • Walk whilst talking on the phone
  • Set yourself a goal to walk up and down the stairs a certain amount of times per day  
  • Use the upstairs bathroom 
  • Whilst watching T.V. always get up and walk around during the adverts 

How many calories will you burn walking?

 A linear relationship exists at walking speeds of 3 to 5 km/hr and oxygen uptake but at faster speeds oxygen consumption rises making walking less economical. 

Body mass can predict energy expenditure with reasonable accuracy at walking speeds of 2 to 4 mph (3.2 to 6.4 km/hr). The following table provides the amount of calories you will burn per minute for ranges of body mass (weight) and speed when you walk on a firm level surface (road, track or grass).  

Speed Body Mass
Kg 36 45 54 64 73 82 91
mph km/hr Lb 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
2.0 3.22      1.9 2.2 2.6 2.9 3.2 3.5 3.8
2.5 4.02 2.3 2.7 3.1 3.5 3.8 4.2 4.5
3.0 4.83 2.7 3.1 3.6 4.0 4.4 4.8 5.3
3.5 5.63 3.1 3.6 4.2 4.6 5.0 5.4 6.1
4.0 6.44 3.5 4.1 4.7 5.2 5.8 6.4 7.0

If your body mass is 64 kg and you walk at a speed of 5.63 km/hr then you will burn approximately 4.6 Calories/minute – if you walk for one hour you will burn 60 × 4.6 = 276 Calories

Benefits of Running

When running at identical speeds, a trained distance runner runs at a lower percentage of aerobic capacity than an untrained athlete does, even though the oxygen uptake during the run will be similar for both athletes.

The demarcation between running and jogging depends on the individual’s level of fitness. Independent of fitness it becomes far more economical from an energy viewpoint to change from walking to running when your speed exceeds 8km/hr (5 mph). Above 8km/hr the oxygen intake for a walker exceeds the oxygen intake of a runner. At 10km the walker’s oxygen (O2) uptake is 40 ml/kg/min compared to 35 ml/kg/min for the runner.

Benefits of Running

When running at identical speeds, a trained distance runner runs at a lower percentage of aerobic capacity than an untrained athlete does, even though the oxygen uptake during the run will be similar for both athletes. 
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The demarcation between running and jogging depends on the individual’s level of fitness. Independent of fitness it becomes far more economical from an energy viewpoint to change from walking to running when your speed exceeds 8km/hr (5 mph). Above 8km/hr the oxygen intake for a walker exceeds the oxygen intake of a runner. At 10km the walker’s oxygen (O2) uptake is 40 ml/kg/min compared to 35 ml/kg/min for the runner.

Body mass can predict energy expenditure with reasonable accuracy when running on a firm level surface (road, track or grass). The amount of calories required to run 1 km equals your weight in kg – a runner of 78 kg will burn 78 Calories/km. This amounts to 15.6 liters of oxygen (O2) consumed per kilometer (1 liter of O2 = 5 Calories)

The following table provides the amount of calories you will burn per minute for ranges of body mass (weight) and speed when you run on a firm level surface (road, track or grass).

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Speed Body Mass (Kg)
km/hr 55 65 75 85 95
8 7.1 8.3 9.4 10.7 11.8
9 8.1 9.8 11.0 12.6 14.4
10 9.1 10.8 12.2 13.6 15.3
11 10.2 11.8 13.1 14.7 16.6
12 11.2 12.8 14.1 15.6 17.6
13 12.1 13.8 15.0 17.0 18.9
14 13.3 15.0 16.1 17.9 19.9
15 14.3 15.9 17.0 18.8 20.8
16 15.4 17.0 18.1 19.9 21.9

Abdominal exercises to weight loss

Burning fat should be the main purpose of the best abdominal exercise and the most effective activities for burning fat directly are aerobically based exercises like swimming, rowing or brisk walking. These exercises not only help burn fat directly from fat cells but also burn many more calories than doing 200 sit ups.

abdominal exercises to remain slim and trim and also lose weight

The following are the exercises for the reduction of abdominal fat which is the most tough one to reduces and is a major source of over weight. Flat abdomen automatically means that you keep you weight in control and live an active life. [hana-code-insert name=’rectangle’ /]Excess fat in body start showing up on the abdomen in men in general and on the hips and buttocks in women to start with and expanding to other parts of the body gradually.

The main reason for this is the abdomen muscles are least put to use during our modern daily routines.

The function of the abdominal muscles is to make our upper body straight while walking or sitting. As we normally have a sitting job and our back rests on the back support of chairs, our abdominal muscles are also put to rest and start accumulating fat above them.

Burning fat should be the main purpose of the best abdominal exercise and the most effective activities for burning fat directly are aerobically based exercises like swimming, rowing or brisk walking. These exercises not only help burn fat directly from fat cells but also burn many more calories than doing 200 sit ups.

The following are the most popular abdominal exercises

Double Leg Lifts

Lie down on your back, with your hands placed under your butt, with the palms facing the floor. Then, contracting your lower abdominal muscles, and tightening the muscles of your legs, lift them straight up vertically, and hold them there for a few seconds. Then lower them down until they are a few inches off the floor, and hold it there again for a few seconds. Repeat 5-8 times to begin with. Later, as you feel your abs getting stronger, increase the reps to 15-20 times. Then, as you get even stronger, you can lift your head and shoulders off the floor while performing the leg lifts.

Alternating Leg Walks

Begin by lying on your back, placing your hands under your butt, and take a few deep breaths. Then, contract the lower ab muscles and lift your right leg up slowly, until it is 90 degrees to your body. The, equally slowly, lower it back down, until it is a few inches off the floor, while simultaneously raising your left leg. Keep lifting your legs alternatively about 8-10 times to begin with. Later, as your abs become stronger, you can increase the count to 15-20 times. And, as in the previous one, lift your head and shoulders off the floor while performing the exercise.

Double Leg Reverse Crunches

Lie down on your back, with your hands under your butt. Lift both your legs up until they are in a vertical position. Now bend your legs at the knees, so that the lower part is parallel to the floor. Then, contracting your lower abs, and maintaining your bent knees, gradually lower your legs until the soles of your feet are just a couple of inches off the floor. Keep your abs contracted and hold this position for a few seconds. Then increasing the contraction in your abs, lift your knees up again, bringing them towards your chest. This is a somewhat challenging exercise, so begin by doing just 3-5 reps. Later, as you feel yourself getting stronger, increase the reps gradually, until you can do 15-20 reps.

Scissors

Lying on your back, with your hands under your butt, contract your lower abs and tighten your leg muscles and lift both your legs up, until they are about two feet off the floor. Now, without bending the knees, get your right leg across your left leg, so that both legs are crossed. Then open your legs out, and close them again, reversing the positions of the legs. Keep repeating this scissoring action, keeping your lower abs contracted, about 8-10 times, to start with. Then, increase that to 15-20 reps as you get stronger.

Double Leg Circles

Lie down on your back, with your hands under your butt. Then, contracting your lower abs, lift both legs a few inches off the floor. Now, rotate both legs together in circles. Make 5 circles in a clockwise direction. Then lower the legs to the floor, and relax for a few seconds. Then repeat the exercise with 5 anticlockwise circles. You can increase the number of circles to 10-15 as you get stronger.

Note

It is essential to do these exercises slowly

If you do them too fast, momentum kicks in, and the exercises become ineffective. As is evident, all these exercises require you to place your hands under your butt. This is important for avoiding lower back stress. You don’t want to end up developing lower back pain while getting those washboard-flat abs.

Home use fitness equipment

The market for home-based fitness equipments is pretty large. The allure of being able to get rid of fat at the comfort of home is so attractive that people are flocking in hordes in order to grab a couple of cool exercise machines. Going by the market demand, one would wonder why so few people actually manage to loss weight successfully.

fitness equipment to loose weight at home

The market for home-based fitness equipments is pretty large. The allure of being able to get rid of fat at the comfort of home is so attractive that people are flocking in hordes in order to grab a couple of cool exercise machines. Going by the market demand, one would wonder why so few people actually manage to loss weight successfully.
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You see, buying a fitness machine is one thing, and losing weight quite another. You may have the latest and best exercise machine at your home, but unless you really workout with it, you won’t loss weight. According to the market researchers, less than half of those frenzy buyers of exercise equipments actually use it.

Unless you are 100% sure that you are going to use the exercise equipment you want to buy, don’t buy it and invest your money somewhere else.

So the first step is to make sure that you are really ready, both physically and mentally, for working out using home exercise equipments, and for that, you need to prove it to yourself that you are really ready, again both physically and mentally, to lead an active lifestyle.

Scientists believe it takes 21 successive days of acting in a desired way to create a new habit. Do the lose weight exercises for one month continuously. If you are able to do so then you are determined to lose weight and  you will not waste money by not using the exercise equipment.

Health clubs and gyms are great choices and offer a social environment and inspiration. However the time wasted driving to the club or waiting in line for equipment, or the recurring membership fees may be costs you can avoid by exercising at home.

Exercising at home is convenient because you can do it on your own time, anytime you like.

Try Before You Buy

Many options are available when you are ready to buy home exercise equipment. Take your time, shop around, and think carefully about what best meets your needs. Never buy exercise equipment on impulse. In fact, you should try out any equipment (wearing exercise clothes) at least several times before you buy.

these are the two common home exercise equipment.

Treadmill

For walkers and runners a treadmill is a logical choice. Smooth treadmills are the most efficient equipment to burn calories and lose weight; that is why they are the most popular.

Elliptical Cross Trainers

Elliptical trainers offer a no-impact workout that exercises numerous muscle groups. This is more useful for people having knee joint pains, old age people as this is a non impact exercise equipment which is completely safe from any kind of impact leading to injury.

Exercise Bike

Ch 4: Air: Clothing

Air may be shut out not only by tight houses but also by tight clothes. It follows that the question of clothing is closely related to the question of ventilation. In fact it is a reasonable inference from modern investigations that air-hygiene concerns the skin quite as much as the lungs. Therefore the hygiene of clothing assumes a new and hitherto unsuspected importance. A truly healthy skin is not the waxy white which is so common, but one which glows with color, just as do healthy cheeks exposed to the open air.

Porous Clothes

The hygiene of clothing includes ventilation and freedom from pressure, moderate warmth, and cleanliness. Loose, porous underclothes are already coming into vogue. But effective ventilation, namely such as will allow free access of air to the skin, requires that our outer clothes – including women’s gowns and men’s shirts, vests, vest-linings, and coat-linings – should also be loose and porous. Here is one of the most important but almost wholly neglected clothing reforms. Most linings and many fabrics used in outer clothes are so tightly woven as to be impervious to air. Yet porous fabrics are always available, including porous alpacas for lining. To test a fabric it is only necessary to place it over the mouth and observe whether it is possible or easy to blow the breath through it.

Air-baths

At times we can enjoy relief from clothing altogether. An air-bath promotes a healthy skin and aids it in the performance of its normal functions. Not every one can visit air-bath establishments or outdoor gymnasia or take the modern nude cure by which juvenile consumptives are sometimes treated (even in winter, after becoming gradually accustomed to the cold); but any one can spend at least a little time in a state of nature. Both at the time of rising in the morning and upon retiring at night, there are many things which are usually done while one’s clothes are on which could be done just as well while they are off. Brushing the teeth, washing the hands, shaving, etc., necessarily consume some time during which the luxury of an air-bath can be enjoyed. Exercises should also be taken at these times. Exercising in cold air, if not too cold, with clothing removed, is an excellent means of hardening the skin and promoting good digestion.

Tight Clothing, Shoes

The constriction from rigid or tight corsets, belts (the latter in men as well as in women), tight neckwear, garters, etc., interferes with the normal functions of the organs which they cover. All such constriction should be carefully avoided. The tight hats generally worn by men check the circulation in the scalp. Tight shoes with extremely high heels deform the feet and interfere with their health. The barefoot cure is not always practicable, but any one can wear broad-toed shoes with a straight inner edge and do his part to help drive pointed toes out of fashion. Such a reform should not be so difficult as to rid the women of China of their particular form of foot-binding. Several anatomical types of shoes, that is, shoes made to fit the normal foot instead of to force the foot to fit them, are now available. In all except cold weather, low shoes are preferable to high shoes. When possible, sandals, now fortunately coming into fashion, are preferable to shoes, especially in early childhood (but the adult, whose calf-muscles and foot-structure are not often adapted to such foot-gear, must be cautious in their use lest flat-foot result).

Cottons, Linens, Woolens

Only the minimum amount of clothing that will secure warmth should be worn. Woolens protect most, but they require the least exercise of the temperature-regulating apparatus of the body. While wool is also highly absorbent of moisture, it does not give off that moisture quickly enough. Hence, if worn next to the skin, it becomes saturated with perspiration, which it long retains to the disadvantage of the skin. Consequently woolen clothing is best confined to overcoats and outer garments, designed especially for cold weather. The underclothes should be made of some better conducting and more quickly drying material, such as cotton or linen. In winter light linen-mesh and medium wool over that, or “double-deck” linen and wool underclothes, can be worn by those who object to either linen or wool alone.

Color

As to color, the more nearly white the clothes the better. This is especially true in summer, but there is believed to be some advantage in white at all seasons.

Those who have learned to clothe themselves properly find that they have grown far more independent of changing weather conditions. They do not suffer greatly from extreme summer heat nor extreme winter cold. Especially do they note that “raw” or damp cold days no longer tax their strength.

Ch 2: Air: Housing

How to Live; Rules for Healthful Living: By Irving Fisher, Eugene Lyman Fisk, M.D.

Air is the first necessity of life. We may live without food for days and without water for hours; but we cannot live without air more than a few minutes. Our air supply is therefore of more importance than our water or food supply, and good ventilation becomes the first rule of hygiene.

Living and working rooms should be ventilated both before occupancy and while occupied.

It must be remembered that the mere construction of the proper kind of buildings does not insure ventilation. We may have model dwellings, with ideal window-space and ventilating apparatus, but unless these are actually used, we do not benefit thereby.

Features of Ventilation

The most important features of ventilation are motion, coolness, and the proper degree of humidity and freshness.

Drafts

There is an unreasonable prejudice against air in motion. A gentle draft is, as a matter of fact, one of the best friends which the seeker after health can have. Of course, a strong draft directed against some exposed part of the body, causing a local chill for a prolonged time, is not desirable; but a gentle draft, such as ordinarily occurs in good ventilation, is extremely wholesome.

Air and Catching Colds

It goes without saying that persons unaccustomed to ventilation, and consequently over-sensitive to drafts, should avoid over-exposure while they are in process of changing their habits. But after even a few days of enjoyment of air in motion, with cautious exposure to it, the likelihood of cold is greatly diminished; and persons who continue to make friends with moving air soon become almost immune to colds.

The popular idea that colds are derived from drafts is greatly exaggerated. A cold of any kind is usually a catarrhal disease of germ origin, to which a lowered vital resistance is a predisposing cause.

The germs are almost always present in the nose and throat. It is exposure to a draft plus the presence of germs and a lowered resistance of the body which produces the usual cold. Army men have often noted that as long as they are on the march and sleep outdoors, they seldom or never have colds, but they develop them as soon as they get indoors again.

Of course, one must always use common sense and never grow foolhardy. It is never advisable that a person in a perspiration should sit in a strong draft.

Windows

The best ventilation is usually to be had through the windows. We advise keeping windows open almost always in summer; and often open in winter.

One should have a cross-current of air whenever practicable; that is, an entrance for fresh air and an exit for used air at opposite sides of the room. Where there can not be such a cross-current, some circulation can be secured by having a window open both top and bottom.

Window-boards

In winter, ventilation is best secured by means of a window-board. This is a board the edge of which rests on the edge of the window-sill, the ends being attached firmly to the window-frame. It affords a vertical surface three or four inches high and situated three or four inches in front of the window, so as to deflect the cold air upward when the window is slightly opened. The air will then reach the breathing-zone, instead of flowing on to the floor and chilling the feet, which is the usual consequence of opening a window in winter. It seems tragic to think that for lack of some such simple device, which anyone can make or buy, there is now an almost complete absence of winter ventilation in most houses.

Air-fans

Air should never be allowed to become stagnant. When there is no natural movement in the air, it should be put in motion by artificial means. This important method of practising air-hygiene is becoming quite generally available through the introduction of electric currents into dwellings and other buildings and the use of electric fans. Even a hand fan is of distinct hygienic value.

Heating Systems

A wood or grate fire is an excellent ventilator. A heating-system which introduces warmed new air is better than one acting by direct radiation, provided the furnace is well constructed and gas-proof.

Cool Air

The importance of coolness is almost as little appreciated as the importance of motion. Most people enervate themselves by heat, especially in winter. The temperature of living-rooms and work-rooms should not be above 70 degrees, and, for people who have not already lost largely in vigor, a temperature of 5 to 10 degrees lower is preferable. Heat is depressing. It lessens both mental and muscular efficiency. Among the employes of a large commercial organization in New York who were examined by the Life Extension Institute, some of the men in one particular room were suffering from an increase of body temperature and a skin rash. On investigation it was found that the room in which they worked was overheated. There was no special provision for ventilation. A window-board was installed, with the result that the men recovered and no other cases of skin rash occurred in that room.

Dry air

As to dryness of air, there is little which the individual can do except to choose a dry climate in which to live or spend his vacations. Unfortunately, there is not as yet any simple and cheap way of drying house air which is too moist, as is often the case in warm weather.

Humidity

In the cold season, indoor air is often too dry and may be moistened with advantage. This may be done, to some extent, by heating water in large pans or open vessels. But for efficient moistening of the air, either a very large evaporating-surface or steam jets are required. The small open vessels or saucers on which some people rely, even when located in the air-passages of a hot-air furnace, have only an infinitesimal influence. Vertical wicks of felt with their lower ends in water kept hot by the heating apparatus yield a rapid supply of moisture. Evaporation is greatly facilitated if the water or wicks are placed in the current of heated air entering the room. By a suitable construction, the water may be replenished automatically. In very cold dry weather, the air-supply of an ordinary medium-sized house requires the addition of not less than 10 gallons of moisture every 24 hours, and sometimes much more.

Some authorities doubt any ill effects from extreme dryness. This is a subject yet to be cleared by experimental research.

Freshness

It is obvious that fresh pure air is preferable to impure air. Air may be vitiated by poisonous gases, by dust and smoke, or by germs. Dust and smoke often go together.

Lighting by electricity is preferable to lighting by gas, as some of the gas is liable to escape and vitiate the air.

Tobacco Smoke

A very common and at the same time injurious form of air-vitiation is that from tobacco smoke. Smoking, especially in a closed space such as a smoking-room or smoking-car, vitiates the air very seriously, for smoker and non-smoker alike.

Dust

As to dust, the morbidity and mortality rates in certain occupations, particularly those known as the dusty trades, are appreciably and even materially greater than in dustless trades.

An accumulation of house-dust should be avoided. The dust should be removed – not by the old-fashioned feather duster which scatters the dust into the air – but by a damp or oiled cloth. Dust-catching furniture and hangings of plush, lace, etc., are not hygienic. A carpet-sweeper is more hygienic than a broom, and a vacuum cleaner is better than a carpet-sweeper. The removable rug is an improvement hygienically over the fixed carpet.

Bacteria

The bacteria in air ride on the dust-particles. In a clean hospital ward, when air was agitated by dry sweeping, the number of colonies of bacteria collected on a given exposure rose twenty-fold, showing the effect of ordinary broom-sweeping.

Sunlight

The air we breathe should be sunlit when possible. Many of our germ enemies do not long survive in sunlight.

Ch 2: Introduction

How to Live; Rules for Healthful Living:  by Irving Fisher, Eugene Lyman Fisk, M.D.

The purpose of the Life Extension Institute embraces the extension of human life, not only as to length, but also, if we may so express it, as to breadth and depth. It endeavors to accomplish this purpose in many ways, but especially through individual hygiene.

Thoroughly carried out, individual hygiene implies high ideals of health, strength, endurance, symmetry, and beauty; it enormously increases our capacity to work, to be happy, and to be useful; it develops, not only the body, but the mind and the heart; it ennobles the man as a whole.

Medieval Ideals

We in America inherit, through centuries of European tradition, the medieval indifference to the human body, often amounting to contempt. This attitude was a natural outgrowth of the theological doctrine that the “flesh is in league with the devil” and so is the enemy of the soul. In the Middle Ages saintliness was often associated with sickliness. Artists, in portraying saints, often chose as their models pale and emaciated consumptives.

We are beginning to cut loose from this false tradition and are working toward the establishment of more wholesome ideals. It is probably true, for instance, that the man or the woman who is unhealthy is now handicapped in opportunities for marriage, which may be considered an index to the ideals of society.

The Present Health Movement

A great health movement is sweeping over the entire world. Hygiene has repudiated the outworn doctrine that mortality is fatality and must exact year after year a fixed and inevitable sacrifice. It aims instead to set free human life by applying modern science. Science, which has revolutionized every other field of human endeavor, is at last revolutionizing the field of health conservation.

Medical Practise

The practise of medicine, which for ages has been known as the “healing art,” is undergoing a gradual but radical revolution. This is due to the growing realization that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As teachers and writers on hygiene, as trainers for college athletes, as advisers for the welfare departments of large industrial plants, and in many other directions, physicians are finding fields for practising preventive medicine. Even the family physician is in some cases being asked by his patients to keep them well instead of curing them after they have fallen sick.

Furthermore, the preventive methods of modern medicine are being applied by the people themselves, as witness the great vogue to-day of sleeping out of doors; the popularity, not always deserved, of health foods and drinks; the demand for uncontaminated water supplies, certified milk, inspected meat and pure foods generally; the world-wide movement against alcohol, and the legislation to correct wrong conditions of labor and to safeguard the laborer.

Labor itself to-day is being held in honor, and idleness in dishonor. Ideals are being shifted from those of “leisure” to those of “service.”

Work was once considered simply a curse of the poor. The real gentleman was supposed to be one who was able to live without it. The king, who set the styles, was envied because he “did not have to work,” but had innumerable people to do work for him. His ability to work, his efficiency, his endurance, were the last things to which he gave consideration. To-day kings, emperors, presidents are trying to find out how they can keep in the fittest condition and accomplish the greatest possible amount of work. Even among society women, some kind of work is now “the thing.”

High Ideals

One of the most satisfying tasks for any man or woman to-day is to take part in this movement toward truer ideals of perfect manhood and womanhood. Our American ideals, though improving, are far inferior to those, for instance, of Sweden; and these, in turn, are not yet worthy to be compared with those of ancient Greece, still preserved for our admiration in imperishable marble. With our superior scientific knowledge, our health ideals ought, as a matter of fact, to excel those of any other age. They should not stop with the mere negation of disease, degeneracy, delinquency, and dependency. They should be positive and progressive. They should include the love of a perfect muscular development, of integrity of mental and moral fiber.

There should be a keen sense of enjoyment of all life’s activities. As William James once said, simply to live, breathe and move should be a delight. The thoroughly healthy person is full of optimism; “he rejoiceth like a strong man to run a race.” We seldom see such overflowing vitality except among children. When middle life is reached, or before, our vital surplus has usually been squandered. Yet it is in this vital surplus that the secret of personal magnetism lies. Vital surplus should not only be safeguarded, but accumulated. It is the balance in the savings bank of life. Our health ideals must not stop at the avoidance of invalidism, but should aim at exuberant and exultant health. They should savor not of valetudinarianism, but of athletic development. Our aim should be not to see how much strain our strength can stand, but how great we can make that strength. With such an aim we shall, incidentally and naturally, find ourselves accomplishing more work than if we aimed directly at the work itself. Moreover, when such ideals are attained, work instead of turning into drudgery tends to turn into play, and the hue of life seems to turn from dull gray to the bright tints of well-remembered childhood. In short, our health ideals should rise from the mere wish to keep out of a sick bed to an eagerness to become a well-spring of energy. Only then can we realize the intrinsic wholesomeness and beauty of human life.

Ch 1: forward and preface

By Irving Fisher, Eugene Lyman Fisk, M.D.

To one who has been an eye-witness of the wonderful achievements of American medical science in the conquest of acute communicable and pestilential diseases in those regions of the earth where they were supposed to be impregnably entrenched, there is the strongest possible appeal in the present rapidly growing movement for the improvement of physical efficiency and the conquest of chronic diseases of the vital organs.

Through the patient, intelligent and often heroic work of our army medical men, and the staff of the United States Public Health Service, death-rates supposedly fixed have been cut in half.

While it is true that to the public mind there is a more lurid and spectacular menace in such diseases as small-pox, yellow fever and plague, medical men and public health workers are beginning to realize that, with the warfare against such maladies well organized, it is now time to give attention to the heavy loss from lowered physical efficiency and chronic, preventable disease, a loss exceeding in magnitude that sustained from the more widely feared communicable diseases.

The insidious encroachment of the chronic diseases that sap the vitality of the individual and impair the efficiency of the race is a matter of increasing importance. The mere extension of human life is not only in itself an end to be desired, but the well digested scientific facts presented in this volume clearly show that the most direct and effective means of lengthening human life are at the same time those that make it more livable and add to its power and capacity for achievement.

Many years ago, Disraeli, keenly alive to influences affecting national prosperity, stated: “Public Health is the foundation on which reposes the happiness of the people and the power of a country. The care of the public health is the first duty of a statesman.” It may well be claimed that the care of individual and family health is the first and most patriotic duty of a citizen.

These are the considerations that have influenced me to co-operate with the life extension movement, and to commend this volume to the earnest consideration of all who desire authoritative guidance in improving their own physical condition or in making effective the knowledge now available for bringing health and happiness to our people.

New Haven

Preface

The purpose of this book is to spread knowledge of Individual Hygiene and thus to promote the aims of the Life Extension Institute. These may be summarized briefly as: (1) to provide the individual and the physician with the latest and best conclusions on individual hygiene; (2) to ascertain the exact and special needs of the individual through periodic health examinations; (3) to induce all persons who are found to be in need of medical attention to visit their physicians.

A sad commentary on the low health-ideals which now exist is that to most people the expression “to keep well” means no more than to keep out of a sick-bed. Hitherto, the subject-matter of hygiene has been considered in its relation to disease rather than to health. In this manual, on the other hand, it is treated in its relation to (1) the preservation of health; (2) the improvement in the physical condition of the individual, and (3) the increase of his vitality. In short, the objects of the manual are positive rather than negative. It aims to include every practical procedure that, according to the present state of our knowledge, an athlete needs in order to make himself superbly

“fit,” or that a mental worker needs in order to keep his wits sharpened to a razor-edge. For this reason some suggestions, which might otherwise be regarded as of minor importance, have been included and emphasized. While it is true that a moderate infraction of some of the minor rules of health is not inconsistent with maintaining good health in the sense of keeping out of a sick-bed, such infraction, be it ever so moderate, is utterly inconsistent with good health in the sense of attaining the highest physical and mental efficiency and power.

Future advances of knowledge will doubtless occasion additions to, or modifications of, the conclusions stated herein, and these will form the subject of subsequent publications by the Institute.

In order that the Institute may have at its disposal the latest and most authoritative results of scientific investigations, its Hygiene Reference Board was created. The present book is the first general statement of the conclusions of this Board after a year of careful consideration. These conclusions are the joint product of the members of the Board, with the active co-operation of the Director of Hygiene of the Institute. They may fairly be said to constitute the most authoritative epitome thus far available in the great, but hitherto neglected, realm of individual hygiene.

The Chairman of the Board has exercised the function of editor, and is responsible for the order and arrangement of the material.

Friends of the Institute may help its work by spreading the ideas given in the following pages and by increasing the number of its readers. Such profits as may be received by the Institute from the sale of this book will be devoted to further philanthropic effort by the Institute.

Irving Fisher,
Eugene L. Fisk.