Fruits and vegetables are tastier, more nutritious, healthier, and more cost-efficient when in season. Seasonal produce is harvested locally and does not need to be preserved for long-distance transportation. When fruits and vegetables have to travel far to get to their destination, they lose freshness, nutritional value, and flavor. In many cases, fresh produce is h...

In Chinese philosophy there is a principle of balance and mutual transformation, called Yin and Yang. It is a very common concept, and most have heard of it, and all of Oriental Medicine believes one hundred percent, completely in it. This elegantly simplistic ideology states that cause and effect are self-perpetuating, and even reversible. That is, given enough time...

There is a fantastically diverse variety of dietary trends, lifestyle mantras, and food-eating philosophies that pepper our nutritional landscape and often times seem to confuse us, just as much as inform us.  Food choices have almost always been equated with medicinal treatments. “Let food be thy medicine,” is classically attributed to Hippocrates, the forefather of...

As a professional in the realm of analyzing body shapes and physiology, I fall into the habit of deconstructing what is attractive to me.  Who is handsome? What qualifies as pretty… anatomically? Sometimes I think about what it is about someone that I actually like to see. “I like the way your foot springs off the ground when you’re happy.  I like the way you hold yo...

There is a famous literary quote ascribed above the gates of Dante’s Inferno that reads as follows, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”  For those suffering under the imprisonment of chronic disability, whether it be of physical, mental, emotional, or social constraint, the burden of an unfulfilled life can feel at times to be just short of a living Hell.  And all...

The goal of attaining a “solid six pack,” “toned abdominals,” or “strong core” is incessantly peddled through the mass marketing engine of society’s fitness ideals.  Billboards, TV commercials, online promotional products, and novelty gyms have all standardized the image of the perfect midsection, located just below the chest and at (or slightly above) the waistline...

There is an old Chinese adage that proclaims, “Where there is movement, there is life!”  But for most of the average American population, this invocation to move functions as more of a tease than it does an incentive.  Many office professions have tethered their employees to the confines of a narrow cubicle, while other more physically laborious occupations push thei...

Almost nothing is ever counseled on the subject of breathing at either the beginning or advanced levels of training.  Occasionally one will receive the obligatory disclaimer, “Exhale while lifting,” or “Don’t hold your breath!” Most clients typically show an understandable level of annoyance when instructed to “breathe,” with objections invariably following.  “If I w...