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In case you wondered, this is me.

At the moment I am doing an internship with Marty Jaramillo, a physical therapist, as part of my Medical Exercise Specialist certification. A former member of the medical staffs of the NY Knicks, St. John's University, and the 1996 Olympic Games, Marty is founder & CEO of The I.C.E. Sports Health Group at The Sports Club/LA in NYC. He has co-authored a great sports injuries handbook (Men's Health Best, Rodale). I hope you will find the following book excerpts useful for preventing and treating injuries:

It is not just the collision on the field or a bad landing after trying to hit that ball with your tennis racket that can have you limping to the sidelines. Failing to balance your workouts or working some muscles too much while ignoring others can leave you vulnerable to injuries.

Overtraining is the surest way to end up in a doctor's office because you are beating down your muscles with each grueling session. Tired muscles fatigue the tendons that hold the muscles to your bones. The tendons swell and if you work out through the pain, your tendons can begin to scar - nagging aches during your workouts can be a sign that you are overworking the muscles and tendons in your body. Eventually you will pay for pushing your body too hard.

One method to prevent overtraining is to follow the 10 percent rule: Don't increase the mileage your run, the speed of your runs, or the weight that you lift by more than 10 percent per week. This gives your tendons, muscles, and bones a chance to adapt to each new workload.

Also, never go full-speed into your workouts until you have warmed up and broken a light sweat. This indicates that your core body temperature is high enough to make your tendons and ligaments pliable. And it ensures that your cartilage - and the bones it protects - is well lubricated. Stretching just before a workout or sports activity is not necessarily an effective way to prevent injury. Instead, warm up with five to ten minutes of low-impact cardio, such as jogging or cycling, before a game or weight training session. Then, stretch after you warm up and after the game.

If you happen to get injured despite following these pieces of advice, over-the-counter pain medications, such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen, will help relieve pain. Also use RICE:

Treating injuries with RICE

Pain and swelling is the body's way of telling you that something has gone wrong. You can help your body heal and keep things from getting worse, if you know what to do. The best system for dealing with almost every sports injury is the RICE method: Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.

What does rest mean? Generally, it means to stop doing what you were doing when you got injured. If you have got an ankle that is black and blue and swelling up like a basket ball, then don't walk on it. Protect it with crutches or a cane. If it is just a minor sprain, you will want to move it a little, to put some weight on it to see how it feels. In general, your body will "splint" an injury, making it as immobile as it is supposed to be. Try to move any joint that is injured. It will heal faster and better this way. If you can't move it, or if the pain is unbearable, then your body is telling you to leave it alone and hurry to the doctor.

Ice should be applied to the swelling for twenty minutes every four to six hours for the first day or two. Keep applying ice until the pain and swelling go down. Protect your skin from frostbite by wrapping the ice in a towel.

Compression means pressure is applied to keep the swelling down, usually using tape or a bandage. In some cases, it is fairly easy to apply pressure to the area around the injury. For example, if you have sprained your ankle, don't remove your shoe right away. The compression provided by your shoe will help keep the swelling down until you can locate an ice pack.

If you keep the injured body part elevated above your heart, it will help reduce pain and swelling by keeping the fluids from building up in your injury.

Getting Back in the Game after an Injury

The first rule of rehabilitation is to take it easy. Don't rush it. This is especially true if your injury required surgery to repair torn ligaments and tendons. Your goals of rehab:

• Restore your range of motion in the injured joint. You can't use it if you can't move it.

• Restore your flexibility by stretching every day to speed healing and relieve pain.

• Restore your strength and endurance by gradually increasing the demands of your workout program. Use cross-training to maintain your overall fitness level and sports-specific exercises to prepare your body for a return to your activity.

• Restore your sense of balance and coordination. Exercises such as balancing on one foot with your eyes closed help to remind your brain how to sense and move a newly healed leg.

The ultimate goal, of course, is to return your game at your pre-injury fitness level. This could take a few days to several months, depending on how severe your injury is.

In order to succeed in sports and getting and staying fit (and most other things here in life, quite frankly!), one needs to go through a lot of physical, as well as mental training. Use the following quotes for yourself. Share them with your friends and family. Sometimes all one needs to hear are the right words to get out of a slump and succeed with his or her goal! Oh, by the way...since I could only find one quote by a great woman, you will find one by yours truly in the very end - a soon to be great woman:)!

"Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision."
-- Muhammad Ali

"I've always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn't have a chance to win."
-- Arnold Palmer

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
-- Michael Jordan

"No matter how tough, no matter what kind of outside pressure, no matter how many bad breaks along the way, I must keep my sights on the final goal, to win, win, win - and with more love and passion than the world has ever witnessed in any performance."
-- Billie Jean King

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."
-- Aristotle

"One of the things that my parents have taught me is never listen to other people's expectations. You should live your own life and live up to your own expectations, and those are the only things I really care about it."
-- Tiger Woods

Lance Armstrong

"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."
-- Albert Einstein

"You miss 100% of the shots you never take."
-- Wayne Gretzky

"Adversity cause some men to break; others to break records."
-- William A. Ward

"There may be people that have more talent than you, but there is no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do."
-- Derek Jeter

"No matter how bad things are, feeling sorry for yourself will only make them worse. So, snap out of it as soon as possible and do something constructive!"
-- Julia Derek

Ask Julia - Can I work Out If I Have a Cold but No Fever? Q: I'm a 34-year-old male who works out four times a week, sometimes five. I don't feel good if I go a week without working out, but I realize that there are times when working out does more bad than good - like when you're sick. A friend of mine told me you can still work out when you have a cold but not when you have the flu. Is that true?

As always, use common sense. If you're not feeling well but still want to exercise, reduce the intensity of your workout and listen to your body. If your symptoms worsen with exercise, stop and rest. Sometimes, all your body needs is a day or two extra and a good night's sleep (at least 8-9 hours). If you feel OK a few hours past the light-medium intensity workout took place and the next day, you are good to go. This is the best way to approach it.

That second finding is a surprise because prior studies have shown that married people tend to be healthier than singles, said researcher Julianne Holt-Lunstad.

It would take further study to sort out what the results mean for long-term health, said Holt-Lunstad, an assistant psychology professor at Brigham Young University. Her study was reported online Thursday by the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

The study involved 204 married people and 99 single adults. Most were white, and it's not clear whether the same results would apply to other ethnic groups, Holt-Lunstad said.

Study volunteers wore devices that recorded their blood pressure at random times over 24 hours. Married participants also filled out questionnaires about their marriage.

Analysis found that the more marital satisfaction and adjustment spouses reported, the lower their average blood pressure was over the 24 hours and during the daytime.

But spouses who scored low in marital satisfaction had higher average blood pressure than single people did. During the daytime, their average was about five points higher, entering a range that's considered a warning sign. (That result is for the top number in a blood pressure reading).

"I think this (study) is worth some attention," said Karen Matthews, a professor of psychiatry, psychology and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh. She studies heart disease and high blood pressure but didn't participate in the new work.

Few studies of the risk for high blood pressure have looked at marital quality rather than just marital status, she said.

It makes sense that marital quality is more important than just being married when it comes to affecting blood pressure, said Dr. Brian Baker, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

Chinese food tastes so good...but is so fattening! Most dishes are high in calories and fat due to the amount of oil used in cooking. In addition, many of the vegetables soak up the oil like a sponge (especially eggplant). Many of the dishes contain over 800 calories - and this is before you add the rice. And do not let the fact that a particular dish is vegetarian fool you. Some of these dishes are the highest in calories!

The Center for Science in the Public Interest decided to see how fattening Chinese food really was. They bought food from multiple Chinese restaurants and had it analyzed at a lab.

Here are the Calories in Chinese Food:

Egg drop soup (one serving in restaurant) 100 calories for each soup
Hot & sour soup
Wonton soup
Little pack of fried noodles 150 calories

Appetizers
Egg roll	200 calories
Spring roll	100 calories
BBQ spareribs (4)	600 calories
Vegetable Dumplings (6 steamed)	400 calories
Pork Dumplings (6 steamed)	500 calories

Vegetable Dishes
Eggplant in Garlic Sauce	1000 calories
Stir-fried mixed vegetables (Buddha’s Delight)	500 calories
Szechuan string beans	600 calories

Seafood Dishes
Shrimp with garlic sauce	700 calories
Shrimp with lobster sauce	400 calories
Szechuan shrimp	700 calories

These figures do not include rice. Add 200 calories for each cup of white rice

Tips for surviving Chinese food:

• Obviously steamed protein and vegetable dishes are your best bet for 325 calories. Add a few tablespoons of sauce on the side. If you need rice, try to limit it to 1/2 cup of brown rice. All for 445 calories.

• Not a bad idea to start the meal with a soup - no crispy noodles of course. Soup helps to fill you up. One bowl is 100 calories

• Some restaurants also have special diet menus (called Revolution Diet Meals) where the dishes are prepared in a sauce with soy sauce, broth, ginger, black beans or garlic AND no added oil or cornstarch. These dishes would be substantially lower in calories than the regular dishes maybe by 200-300 calories due to the limited anount of oil used in cooking. However steamed food would still be the lowest.

• Try to eat with chopsticks. Hard to shovel in rice with chopsticks.

• Order your dishes lightly stir-fried. Avoid battered, breaded and double fried.

• How about ordering one chicken with broccoli stir-fry dish (700 calories) and one dish with steamed shrimp and veggies. (325 calories). You can mix the two to cut calories. You should then be getting 3 meals from these orders of food for a total of 330 calories per meal. You can add 1/2 cup (100 calories ) - 1 cup of rice (200 calories) to each portion. So these meals will total 430 - 530 calories for entree and rice.

Check out Martha's useful nutrition blog at CityGirlBites

How important is spirituality to our health and well-being?

Japanese spirituality

If you go by the more than 70 research studies published in 2006 that examined the relationships between religion, spirituality and health (most studies were of Judeo-Christian populations in the US) it is very important. Many found positive relationships, the researchers say. Going to church or other places of worship seems to keep people living longer. For example, a US study found that life expectancy at age 20 for people who attended church services more than once a week was, on average, seven and a half years longer than those who never attended. That sounds great. Except for the fact that in Japan, a country where most don't ever go to church, people live on average four and a half years longer than church-going Americans. In secular Sweden - a country in which most people don't even know what a church is - people live on an average two and half year longer than Americans.

Yet, despite my seeming aversion to spirituality, I do believe, as do more and more doctors, that spirituality is indeed very important for an individual's health and well-being. As long as we can agree on that the term "spirituality" is as elastic as a well-designed male contraceptive. It all just depends on who you are and what works for you. It can be, but doesn't have to be connected to traditional religious practices.

Many find singing or simply listening to music spiritual. Others say practicing Yoga, tai chi or other disciplines that use meditation, physical movement and breathing techniques to promote harmony between the mind, body and spirit make them spiritual. Some say mental exercises such as visualization (picturing yourself the way you wish to be) or positive thinking fall into the spiritual realm. Sometimes, just being genuinely kind falls into the category of spirituality.

Here are some personal definitions on spirituality:

- A belief in a power operating in the universe that is greater than myself.

- Acts of charity and kindness and noble self-sacrifice especially from the private ranks of life; all these things and more, inspire a sense of awe in me that I deem to be spiritual.

- My sense of the spiritual seems to reside more in my intuitive rather than my rational sphere. Love, joy, sorrow, hope, empathy, awe all well up within me and sustain me, not so much from the reality of particular situations but seem to come from some deeper wellspring.

- A sense of interconnectedness with all living creatures.

- It is a person's capacity and means to deal with and explain life's issues which have no obvious explanation. It is also the means by which a person conducts life and defines life goals.

- Spirituality is subjectively experiencing life both inside and outside of myself.

- Spirituality is a belief. Even atheists, who do not believe in a creator, have a belief. They cannot prove their belief any more than a "true believer" can prove his or hers.

Did any of these definitions coincide with your own personal definition? (The third one is closest to my definition.)

The following five bullet points which I found on the University of Maryland's Medical Center's Web site are very interesting and thought-provoking. I think they also prove my point that being spiritual is indeed important for your health, but that spirituality doesn't have to be religious.

• Faith. A person's most deeply held beliefs strongly influence his or her health. Some researchers believe that faith increases the body's resistance to stress. In a 1988 clinical study of women undergoing breast biopsies, the women with the lowest stress hormone levels were those who used their faith and prayer to cope with stress.

• Hope. Without hope -- a positive attitude that a person assumes in the face of difficulty -- many people become depressed and are more prone to illness. In a 35 year clinical study of Harvard graduates, researchers found that those graduates who expressed hope and optimism lived longer and had fewer illnesses in their lifetime.

• Forgiveness. A practice that is encouraged by many spiritual and religious traditions, forgiveness is a release of hostility and resentment from past hurts. In 1997, a Stanford University clinical study found that college students trained to forgive someone who had hurt them were significantly less angry, more hopeful, and better able to deal with emotions than students not trained to forgive. Another survey of 1,400 adults found that willingness to forgive oneself and others and the feeling that one is forgiven by God have beneficial health effects. Some researchers suggest that emotions like anger and resentment cause stress hormones to accumulate in the blood, and that forgiveness reduces this build-up.

• Love and Social Support. A close network of family and friends that lends help and emotional support has been found to offer protection against many diseases. Researchers believe that people who experience love and support tend to resist unhealthy behaviors and feel less stressed. In a clinical study of a close-knit Italian-American community in Pennsylvania, researchers found that the death rate from heart attack was half that of the United States' average. Researchers concluded that the strong social support network helped protect this population from heart disease.

• Prayer. The act of putting oneself in the presence of or conversing with a higher power has been used as a means of healing across all cultures throughout the ages. Today, many Americans believe that prayer is an important part of daily life. In a 1996 poll, one half of doctors reported that they believe prayer helps patients, and 67% reported praying for a patient. Intercessory prayer (asking a higher power to intervene on behalf of another either known or unknown to the person praying; also called distance prayer or distance healing) is also being studied. Although it is particularly difficult to study the effect of distance prayer, current research in coronary care units (intensive care units in hospitals devoted to people with severe heart disease, like those who just suffered a heart attack) suggests that there is benefit. Compared to those who were not prayed for, patients who were prayed for showed general improvements in the course of their illness, less complications, and even fewer deaths.