You are warmer when you are calm. I learned this from Dr. Calihan on one of our very first visits. It seems when we are under stress our bodies tend to shut down the blood supply to places it’s not needed to rush it to where it is needed, such as the brain and heart; the result is, our extremities get cold without that warm blood flowing through them the way it usually does.

Remarkably, if you are under stress – chased by a tiger, hounded by a boss, haunted by a deadline – you can calm yourself down by simply thinking about being calmer, and bringing your body temperature up.

She proved this to me using a little thermometer that every once in a while I taped to my index finger with a piece of surgical tape. For the next couple of days I checked my temperature at various times to see if I was running hot or cold. If I was cold – such as when trying to finish a project for someone who was waiting for it – I took a minute to close my eyes and calm myself with soothing thoughts.

It worked. It also worked the other way. During a baseball game on TV I found my temperature to be on the warm side and could induce the thermometer to actually go up by focusing on the outcome of the inning. Or by yelling at my kids to put their dishes in the dishwasher.

You learn something every day. You get warmer as you get calmer. Pretty cool.

By the way, something is beginning to happen to my body. My wedding ring is getting looser. That’s never happened. My belly is still an object of self-scorn, but there are changes taking place.

When the weekend comes I don’t get to do the home cooking that Beth Eckhaus has convinced me not only feeds my body, but my spirit, and the spirit of my family as well. There are other things that go into a homecooked meal besides fresh, chemical-free ingredients — love of my family, for one.

But weekends scare me. The four of us usually go in different directions and eat whatever is available. I don’t get my usual snacks of fresh veggies and hummus or cashew butter on celery (it’s my current favorite). And there’s usually more wine involved on the weekend than on week nights, which I attribute to my Monday-morning weight gain.

So I’m going to take Beth’s advice and eat mindfully: Choose what feels right at the time; think ahead of what is going to happen to me as a result of eating certain things; and observing any reactions I have, from immediately to up to 72 hours later. That way I get a correct reading on what effect things have on me, so that I either don’t do it again or I prepare for it better.

But it’s Friday. And I’m scared. I’ve been so good all week . . .

For details on the Five Stones program, see here: http://integrativefamily.com/

The kettlebells are here!

Chris Mattice shows up at the door with his usual bag of mats, tubes and straps, but this time in his hand he has a yellow kettlebell. It’s a singularly simple device — and iron ball with a rubberized coating and a handle on it — weighing 16 k (35 pounds). It was popularized in Russia beginning in the 18th century and came to define what “strongman” arts was all about.

We’re hardly there yet. After our usual stretching and warming up, Chris has me go through the motions of what I will do when I have the kettlebell in my hand so as to train my body to do it correctly when I finally pick it up.

Today I’ll be doing a basic squat and swing, raising the bell to about eye level, letting it drop to between and behind my legs and then swinging it up again to eye level. Repeat. And then repeat some more.

Chris instructs me to make sure I pinch my shoulder blades back on each swing and to tighten the butt cheeks each time the momentum of the bell brings me upright.

After just a few minutes I’m impressed with exactly where the bell has made its impact — in my upper arms, my upper legs, my abdomen, my shoulders, my butt cheeks. This is a total core workout, and best of all, it feels good. Really good. There’s “healthy sweat” as Chris calls it in no time, and there’s unmistakable exhilaration when we’re done.

But we’re not done. We’re just warming up. Now we move into the weight room for some bench presses; Chris’ idea of “resting” between sets is to do some rowing with the kettlebell. I’ll go into that later, because right now, I’m knackered.

Beth Eckhaus (see her bio here) has me “playing with my food” big time. I’m reading EVERY SINGLE food label before I put anything into the grocery cart, and I’m going into the sections that I don’t usually go into at the store; the other day I spent a good 20 minutes in front of the huge dark mass of leafy greens in the produce section, a section I usually zip past on my way to the (boring) green beans and broccoli. Kale! Collards! The leafy tops of beets! It’s all surprisingly flavorful.

Beth also has me getting more whole grains into my diet, without adding wheat (much, much more on wheat later), so I’ve taken to making brown rice when I fix the kids’ breakfasts and adding it to my salads or soup for lunch. Guess what? It’s good. I put a layer of rice at the bottom of the salad bowl; that way a little dressing gets to it, but it doesn’t dominate the salad. By the time I’m done with the leafy greens on top, the rice is gone too. The additional carbs keeps me from getting hungry any time soon AND my energy level goes through the roof after lunch, instead of sending me to the napping couch.

Now Beth wants me to try quinoa. I don’t even know how to say it much less how to cook it or eat it. Any ideas?

Breakfast today was organic banana slices and cashew butter on a slice of toasted spelt.
If you had told me a few weeks ago that is what I’d be eating, I would have asked – what the heck is spelt?

I have dreams of running. I’m in my rugby gear and I’m running down the field, with the wind in my face and no fear of pain in my legs. I’m laughing as I run, even though I don’t have the ball. I focus on my dream and I see that I’m the referee. I’m easily keeping up with the far younger players on the field. This is why I’m laughing.

I once was a rugby referee. There is one ref for 30 players, all of whom are trying to kill the other. I liked the odds. You had to be fit and fast to keep up with all the action for 80 minutes (no time outs! A five minute halftime! No huddles!). If you are not the third person to arrive at a two-man tackle, the next five people there would pile up, and that’s trouble. The ref has to be there to keep the next arriving players on their feet, otherwise the non-stop action of rugby stops.

I loved it. I refereed every weekend in the spring, fall and summer from 1992, after an 11 year career as a player; my whistle took me around the world as I refereed all around the U.S., parts of Europe and, as a finale, Australia. I ran with many, many very fine athletes.

To stay fit I used to run a lot, three times a week, middle distances and short sprints. But I quit running two years ago, when my right leg refused to keep up. I also had to quite refereeing rugby.

Damn right leg. Orthopedics and neurologists could not figure out why it dragged behind, why I would occasional stub my toes on a curb, why I had a noticeable limp in cold weather. Because of this, whenever I ran my left leg had to compensate for the right, and I more often than not I ended up spraining my left calf, a painful, inconvenient injury that took two weeks to heal.

So now I ask my trainer, Chris Mattice, about, you know, maybe one day we can do some running instead of lifting weights, swinging kettlebells and pulling rubber tubes.

He’s all for it, and he’s aware of my case history, so he has some ideas as to how were going to do this without causing harm – or embarrassment. I haven’t done heavy duty cardio for two years – I’m a more than a little concerned about how long I can go.

We set the date for my first running session.

I realize I’m not just concerned, but I’m nervous.

My dream of running again is set to become reality. But can I do it?

Every summer my foot cracks on the pad below my big toe. It cracks so badly that it bleeds. Worse, and brace yourself: You can spread the folds back and see clear, clean muscle tissue a good quarter of an inch deep. I mean you can, but I try not to. I went to a dermatologist once about it and she gave me a prescription for a tube of cream that had no effect on my foot but took $37 out of my bank account.

So I was hesitant to even mention my seasonal foot cracking to Dr. Martha Calihan during our initial interview for the Five Stones program. I always blamed it on wearing Tevas or flip-flops. But I mentioned it anyway, along with the problematic patch of Athlete’s Foot that never seems to go away under my left pinkie toe. Not the right pinkie toe, just the left one. Strange.

“Have you tried tea tree oil?” she asked.

I’d never heard of tea tree oil.

“What’s it taste like?”  I asked.

As it happens, tea tree oil is made from steaming the leaves of the Melaleuca altemifolia, an Australian plant; the stuff has been used for untold eons by Aboriginals for healing just about everything, from cuts and boils to lice infestations and yeast infections. And you don’t drink it after all: You put a few drops on a cotton ball and swab it on whatever ails you.

It smells a little like turpentine or mineral spirits, but less abrasive. I dabbed it on the bottom of my foot each day for a few weeks in the spring and was happy to note that I went the entire summer wearing flip flops without the toe pad rupturing once. The tea tree oil seemed to soften the skin, keeping it pliable as I marched along in foot wear that provides less support than regular shoes.

Chalk one up to Dr. Calihan.

The little spot of Athlete’s Foot, however, was tea tree oil resistant.

My trainer Chris Mattice gets this look in his eye now and again, and it’s kind of a wild look. I’ve come to learn the look arrives just before he introduces something new, and quite possibly, painful.

“Let’s go outside,” he says, “and go up the stairs to the deck.”

There are 14 steps in the staircase. First he has me stand in “prisoner pose,” that is, fingers interlocked, hands behind the head, head upright, and take the steps two at a time, leading with the right foot first all the way up and leaning into the leading leg hard. Then back down and up again, leading with the left foot.
This is harder than it sounds, particularly if your right leg is half dead, which mine is.

Then we go three at a time in the same manner. It’s a struggle to keep my hips forward, but that’s the goal I would find out later.

It’s hard. But I make it. Chris knew I would.

Then he has me take the stairs with my hands first, Spider-Man style, three at a time.

Easy, right? You try it.

When I get to the top he has be go back down the same way.

Now, standing on my hands upside down on my deck stairs is not something I ever imagined doing.
The blood is rushing to my head and all of my 213 pounds is driving right through my shoulders. Gravity is the enemy.

I get to the bottom, exhilarated.

“Let’s do it again,” Chris says before my face has had a chance to return from crimson to its usual pallor.
So I do, up and then back down, on my hands.

It wasn’t easy, but I did it.

Chris knew that I would.

Beth Eckhaus has given me a gift. It’s a thin, curved piece of steel. “Have you ever had a tongue cleaner?” she asks.

Um, no.

“Well, you have one now.”

I sometimes run my toothbrush over my tongue just for chuckles, most often on Sunday mornings following Saturday nights when I’ve apparently eaten and drank things that tend to stick to non-stick esophageal surfaces.

As it happens, bacteria that causes all manner of ill health effects live on the back of the tongue and the cleaner scrapes it away. The things you learn.  See here, although they don’t have a photo of the bent steel one Beth gave me.

Beth tells me to use it at least once a day, and that I probably will find that the results are so profound I may want to use it more than once a day. “Food tastes better, your breath is better and your kisses will taste better,” she says in all earnestness. “Try it.”

Before you brush your teeth you take the ends of the cleaner in your hands, put it as far back on your tongue as you can without gagging and pull it forward along your tongue. Press down slightly, pull forward and . . . ohhh, yuck, this brown foam rolls to the front of your tongue. Or at least on my tongue.

I spit it out, rinse the scraper and do it again. The foam is less brown.

I notice in the mirror that my wife has been watching.

“Hey,” I say, “want to see if my kisses taste better?”

She rolls her eyes. “Not after seeing that crap,” she says. “That’s gross.”

Beginning tomorrow, I’m cleaning my tongue in private.

During one of our first workout sessions, my trainer Chris Mattice told me he wanted me “walking with purpose.” “I watch people and I can tell a lot about them by just the way they walk,” he said. The first impression he gets of a job candidate is when they walk into the room, and he’s watching to see if they walk with purpose.

Walking with purpose is standing upright, with your arms involved with the walking action, left arm out when the right leg lifts, and vice versa. The pace is brisk, as if you are going somewhere – with purpose.

I instantly take to this notion. If I catch myself dragging or wondering where my energy is, I immediately shift gears into a “purpose” mode and get my body involved. It’s a small adjustment, but it does wonders for bringing your energy level up, not to mention getting you to where you want to go a little faster.

And now I watch people, at the grocery store, at the mall, at a baseball game, and I see who walks with purpose and who does not. Most people do not.

Try it, and let me know what you think.