If You’re Not Flexible, These Are The Only 3 Stretches You Need, To Fix That
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If you can’t put your leg behind your head while standing, try doing the splits against a wall first, and progress from there! ← text version of an item from a “if you can’t do this yet, try this first” picture set this writer saw on Instagram once upon a time
So, what if you’re more at the point of not quite being able to touch your toes yet?
From zero to…
Liv, of LivInLeggings fame, has these three starter-stretches that are actually starter-stretches:
Stretch 1: Reverse Tabletop with Foot Tuck Variation
- Sit on the floor, feet slightly wider than your hips, lean back onto your hands (fingertips pointing outward).
- Lift your hips towards a reverse tabletop, engage your glutes, and flatten the front of your hips.
- Add a foot tuck variation by stepping one foot back and pressing your weight forward.
Benefits:
- Stretches multiple muscles, including the soles of the feet.
- Improves foot arches, balance, and stability.
- Loosens fascia, enhancing flexibility in subsequent stretches.
Stretch 2: Squat to Forward Fold
- Start in a low squat (feet wider than your hips, toes mostly forward).
- Alternate between a low squat and a forward fold, keeping your hands on the floor or your toes.
Benefits:
- Stretches hamstrings, glutes, and lower back.
- Maintains good form and avoids overstraining.
Stretch 3: Side Lunge with Side Body Reach
- Begin in a tall kneeling position, step one foot out to the side (toes pointing outward).
- Lunge your hips towards your front ankle, keeping your tailbone tucked.
- Add a side body reach by resting your forearm on your thigh and reaching the other arm overhead.
- For a deeper stretch, cradle the back of your head with your hand, pressing lightly for a tricep stretch.
Benefits:
- Stretches inner thighs, lats, and triceps.
- Improves posture, shoulder mobility, and low squat ability.
For more on each of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Test For Whether You Will Be Able To Achieve The Splits
Take care!
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Walden Farms Caesar Dressing vs. Primal Kitchen Caesar Dressing – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing Walden Farms Caesar Dressing to Primal Kitchen Caesar Dressing, we picked the Primal Kitchen.
Why?
As you can see from the front label, the Walden Farms product has 0 net carbs, 0 calories, and 0 fat. In fact, its ingredients list begins:
Water, white distilled vinegar, erythritol, corn fiber, salt, microcrystalline cellulose, xanthan gum, titanium dioxide (color)
…before it gets to something interesting (garlic purée), by which point the amount must be miniscule.
The Primal Kitchen product, meanwhile, has 140 calories per serving and 15g fat (of which, 1.5g is saturated). However! The ingredients list this time begins:
Avocado oil, water, organic coconut aminos (organic coconut sap, sea salt), organic apple cider vinegar, organic distilled vinegar, mushroom extract, organic gum acacia, organic guar gum
…before it too gets to garlic, which this time, by the way, is organic roasted garlic.
In case you’re wondering about the salt content in both, they add up to 190mg for the Walden Farms product, and 240mg for the Primal Kitchen product. We don’t think that the extra 50mg (out of a daily allowance of 2300–5000mg, depending on whom you ask) is worthy of note.
In short, the Walden Farms product is made of mostly additives of various kinds, whereas the Primal Kitchen product is made of mostly healthful ingredients.
So, the calories and fat are nothing to fear.
For this reason, we chose the product with more healthful ingredients—but we acknowledge that if you are specifically trying to keep your calories down, then the Walden Farms product may be a valid choice.
Read more:
• Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy?
• Caloric Restriction with Optimal NutritionShare This Post
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Kidney Beans vs Fava Beans – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing kidney beans to fava beans, we picked the kidney beans.
Why?
It’s a simple and straightforward one today!
The macronutrient profiles are mostly comparable, but kidney beans do have a little more protein and a little more fiber.
In the category of vitamins, kidney beans have more of vitamins B1, B5, B6, B9, C, E, & K, while fava beans boast only more of vitamins B2 and B3. They are both equally good sources of choline, but the general weight of vitamins is very much in kidney beans’ favor, with a 7:2 lead, most of which have generous margins.
When it comes to minerals, kidney beans have more iron, phosphorus, and potassium, while fava beans have more copper and selenium. They’re both equally good sources of other minerals they both contain. Still, a 3:2 victory for kidney beans on the mineral front.
Adding up the moderate victory on macros, the strong victory on vitamins, and the slight victory on minerals, all in all makes for a clear win for kidney beans.
Still, enjoy both! Diversity is healthy.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Chickpeas vs Black Beans – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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Thai-Style Kale Chips
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…that are actually crispy, tasty, and packed with nutrients! Lots of magnesium and calcium, and array of health-giving spices too.
You will need
- 7 oz raw curly kale, stalks removed
- extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 tsp red chili flakes (or crushed dried red chilis)
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 2 tsp water
- 1 tbsp crunchy peanut butter (pick one with no added sugar, salt, etc)
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 tsp Thai seven-spice powder
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Pre-heat the oven to 180℃ / 350℉ / Gas mark 4.
2) Put the kale in a bowl and drizzle a little olive oil over it. Work the oil in gently with your fingertips so that the kale is coated; the leaves will also soften while you do this; that’s expected, so don’t worry.
3) Mix the rest of the ingredients to make a sauce; coat the kale leaves with the sauce.
4) Place on a baking tray, as spread-out as there’s room for, and bake on a middle shelf for 15–20 minutes. If your oven has a fierce heat source at the top, it can be good to place an empty baking tray on a shelf above the kale chips, to baffle the heat and prevent them from cooking unevenly—especially if it’s not a fan oven.
5) Remove and let cool, and then serve! They can also be stored in an airtight container if desired.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
- What’s The Truth About MSG?
Take care!
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Dancing vs Parkinson’s Depression
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
This is a fun study, and the results are/were very predictable, and/but not necessarily something that people might think of in advance. First, let’s look at how some things work:
Parkinson’s disease & depression
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative neurological disease that, amongst other things, is characterized by low dopamine levels.
For the general signs and symptoms, see: Recognize The Early Symptoms Of Parkinson’s Disease
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of reward, is involved in our language faculties and the capacity to form plans (even simple plans such as “make a cup of coffee”) as well as being critical for motor functions.
See also: Neurotransmitter Cheatsheet ← for demystifying some of “what does what” for commonly-conflated chemicals
You can see, therefore, why Parkinson’s disease will often have depression as a comorbidity—there may be influencing social factors as well (many Parkinson’s disease sufferers are quite socially isolated, which certainly does not help), but a clear neurochemical factor that we can point to is “a person with low dopamine levels will feel joyless, bored, and unmotivated”.
Let movement be thy medicine
Parkinson’s disease medications, therefore, tend to involve increasing dopamine levels and/or the brain’s ability to use dopamine.
Antidepressant medications, however, are more commonly focused on serotonin, as serotonin is another neurotransmitter associated with happiness—it’s the one we get when we look at open green spaces with occasional trees and a blue sky ← we get it in other ways too, but for evolutionary reasons, it seems our brains still yearn the most for landscapes that look like the Serengeti, even if we have never even been there personally.
There are other kinds of antidepressants too, and (because depression can have different causes) what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. See: Antidepressants: Personalization Is Key!
In the case of Parkinson’s disease, because the associated depression is mostly dopamine-related, those green spaces and blue skies and SSRIs won’t help much. But you know what does?
Dance!
A recent (published last month, at time of writing) study by Dr. Karolina Bearss et al. did an interventional study that found that dance classes significantly improved both subjective experience of depression, and objective brain markers of depression, across people with (68%) and without (32%) Parkinson’s disease.
The paper is quite short and it has diagrams, and discusses the longer-term effect as well as the per-session effect:
Dance is thought to have a double-effect, improving both cognitive factors and motor control factors, for obvious reasons, and all related to dopamine response (dancing is an activity we are hardwired to find rewarding*, plus it is exercise which also triggers various chemicals to be made, plus it is social, which also improves many mental health factors).
*You may have heard the expression that “dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire”, and while that may not be true for everyone on an individual level, on a species level it is a very reasonable hypothesis for why we do it and why it is the way it is.
Want to learn more?
We wrote previously about battling depression (of any kind) here:
The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
Take care!
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Be A Plant-Based Woman Warrior – by Jane Esselstyn & Ann Esselstyn
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Notwithstanding the title, this book is not about being a woman or a warrior, but let us share what one reviewer on Amazon wrote:
❝I don’t want to become a plant based woman warrior. The sex change would be traumatic for me. However, as a man who proudly takes ballet classes and Pilates, I am old enough not to worry about stereotypes. When I see a good thing, I am going to use it❞
The authors, a mother-and-daughter team in their 80s and 50s respectively, do give a focus on things that disproportionally affect women, and rectifying those things with diet, especially in one of the opening chapters.
Most the book, however, is about preventing/reversing things that can affect everyone, such as heart disease, diabetes, inflammation and the autoimmune diseases associated with such, and cancer in general, hence the dietary advice being good for most people (unless you have an unusually restrictive diet).
We get an overview of the pantry we should cultivate and curate, as well as some basic kitchen skills that will see us well for the rest of the book, such as how to make oat flour and other similar mini-recipes, before getting into the main recipes themselves.
About the recipes: they are mostly quite simple, though often rely on having pre-prepared items from the mini-recipes we mentioned earlier. They’re all vegan, mostly but not all gluten-free, whole foods, no added sugar, and as for oil… Well, it seems to be not necessarily oil-free, but rather oil-taboo. You see, they just don’t mention it. For example, when they say to caramelize onions, they say to heat a skillet, and when it is hot, add the onions, and stir until browned. They don’t mention any oil in the ingredients or in the steps. It is a mystery. 10almonds note: we recommend olive oil, or avocado oil if you prefer a milder taste and/or need a higher smoke point.
Bottom line: the odd oil taboo aside, this is a good book of simple recipes that teaches some good plant-based kitchen skills while working with a healthy, whole food pantry.
Click here to check out Be A Plant-Based Woman Warrior, and be a plant-based woman warrior!
Or at the very least: be a plant-based cook regardless of gender, hopefully without war, and enjoy the additions to your culinary repertoire
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Quercetin Quinoa Probiotic Salad
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This quercetin-rich salad is a bit like a tabbouleh in feel, with half of the ingredients switched out to maximize phenolic and gut-healthy benefits.
You will need
- ½ cup quinoa
- ½ cup kale, finely chopped
- ½ cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
- ½ cup green olives, thinly sliced
- ½ cup sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1 pomegranate, peel and pith removed
- 1 preserved lemon, finely chopped
- 1 oz feta cheese or plant-based equivalent, crumbled
- 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tbsp capers
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Note: you shouldn’t need salt or similar here, because of the diverse gut-healthy fermented products bringing their own salt with them
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Rinse the quinoa, add the tbsp of chia seeds, cook as normal for quinoa (i.e. add hot water, bring to boil, simmer for 15 minutes or so until pearly and tender), carefully (don’t lose the chia seeds; use a sieve) drain and rinse with cold water to cool. Shake off excess water and/or pat dry on kitchen paper if necessary.
2) Mix everything gently but thoroughly.
3) Serve:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Tasty Tabbouleh with Tahini ← in case you want an actual tabbouleh
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
Take care!
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