mardi 28 mai 2013

Day of the Dead, Ancestors Day or in the USA, Memorial Day

DIA DE LOS MEURTOS  DAY OF THE DAY TOMB SWEEPING DAY
ANCESTORS DAY  AND IN THE USA IT IS MEMORIAL DAY

A message arrived from Irkutsk this morning from a Boryat tribal member. I am going to Siberia of USA, I answered, and explained that today is a holiday honouring ancestors in the USA.

Remember that line, No puedo vivir sin amor.. A drunk Albert Finney in that film, Under the Volcano... on the day of the dead in Mexico.

We remember our ancestors but it is also a time to renew.
Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us. Let them go into the mist of their dreams, as we extricate ourselves from the mist of memories. 

it is a day to say goodbye to young women with larger than life dreams whose paths take a different direction.. in Teheran or in Beijing or in Saigon..

just in the space of one month, I have realized the strength of true friendships.. the kind that leaves a vacuum in the hearts during its absence...in Malaysia.. in the desperate parts of the Indian country..
and in my beloved little Island..

I have never seen people so happy ..

The flight delayed on this Day of the Dead for two hours, because of a storm, then at the mile high city, an aging propeller plane reminiscent of  the cadavers in the cemeteries took me silently away to a mountainous land stolen from the Indians..

to those who leave us, we light the path to the cemetery of their kisses.
We must wish no one any harm, especially on this day of the dead.. but metaphorically they too join the kisses now interred in that cemetery, where the tombs are gently cleaned by slender hands of so many asians..

A new day begins in this Siberia of North America.. I am promised home cooked meals for the next week .. and a friend is waiting in a far away city with elegant boulevards and exquisite red wine...and the music that one can transport one's soul at three am...

it would be nice to dance again, three am as the southern breeze touches your skin, along the port of inconsolable memories.. where the blind writer could recite from memory the flavours of his youth..

it is time to say Good Bye to those who find it too difficult to love us..

May be the Americans have the right idea, it is not a day to mourn or remember, but get yourself a nice comfortable place, raise your glasses and enjoy the shows in the skies..

samedi 25 mai 2013

THE LIST OF THE READER OF SIOUX CITY, IOWA IN THE UNITED STATES



Steve Avery tries to read about 900 pages per month,and as you can see, his literary taste does not fall into any particular genre
He notices the substance of the writing and can quote
Charisma is when a person can convince others around him that he is as good as he thinks he is!

Whereas I would know more about the author or the context, because of my anthropological training. But he has read much more than me. 
I may know that Alberto Menguel who wrote the book History of Reading, is jewish, was born in Buenos aires and had once read to Jorge Luis Borges. Of course, i would know who is jewish.

Steve posed the question
It makes you wonder when 2000 million Christians and 1500 million Moslems have something against 14 million jews..

We had a nice discussion about curiosity and intelligence and Judaism is an evolving faith rather than taking the Bible in its literal terms. We have the running commentary. the Talmud!


BOOKS


Books read in 2009
1. Giordano Bruno - Philosopher, Heretic. Ingrid D. Rowland
2. The Condition, Jennifer Haigh
3. Light Action in the Caribbean, Barry Lopez
4. The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent, Lionel Trilling
5. The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf
6.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Restless Genius, Leo Damrosch
7. Hat Trick, Lisa Kusel
8. The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein
9. The Shell Collector, Anthony Doerr
10. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Richard Hofstadter
11. The Secret of Lost Things, Sheridan Hay
12. The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, Andre Comte-Sponville
13. Gallatin Canyon, Thomas McGuane
14. Wisdom from the Robber Barons
15. The Winter Vault, Anne Michaels
16. Human Smoke, Nicholson Baker
17. Angels and Ages, Adam Gopnik
18. The Earth Hums in B Flat, Mari Strachan
19. The Garden of Last Days, Andre Dubus
20. Why this World. A Biography of Clarice Lispector, Benjamin Moser
21. The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector
22. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
23. The Passion According to G. H., Clarice Lispector
24. American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips
25. The End of the Story, Lydia Davis
26. The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt
27. The Limits of Power, Andrew J. Bacevich
28. Circling the Drain, Amanda Davis
29. A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Lawrence G. McDonald
30. The Book of Fathers, Miklos Vamos
31. A Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau 


Books read in 2010
1. The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk
2. Last Words, George Carlin
3. Continental Drift, Russell Banks
4. The Good Parents, Joan London
5. Platform, Michel Houellebecq
6. Freefall, Joseph Stiglitz
7. What is Called Thinking?, Martin Heidegger
8. The Infinities, John Banville
9. Bright-Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich
10. Summertime, J. M. Coetzee
11. Ill Fares the Land, Tony Judt
12. Skylark, Dezso Kosztolanyi
13. The Abyss of Human Illusion, Gilbert Sorrentino
14. Flaubert, A Life, Geoffrey Wall
15. Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
16. The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman
17. The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
18. In Praise of Slowness, Carl Honore
19. Three Delays, Charlie Smith
20. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov 
21. Toxic Talk, Bill Press
22. Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Keilson
23. Memory Wall, Anthony Doerr
24. The Accidental Billionaires, Ben Mezrich
25. The Art Instinct, Denis Dutton
26. Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels
27. The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
28. Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
29. Still Broken...USHealth Care System, Stephen M. Davidson
30. The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
31. The Information, Martin Amis


Books read in 2011
1. Three Stages of Amazement, Carol Edgarian
2. Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
3. Sentimental Education, Gustave Flaubert
4. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
5. The Library at Night, Alberto Manguel
6. The Wisdom of the World, Remi Brague
7. A Fairly Honourable Defeat, Iris Murdoch
8. A Changed Man, Francine Prose
9. Great House, Nicole Krauss
10. Factotum, Charles Bukowski
11. Tinkers, Paul Harding
12. Examined Lives, James Miller
13. Forgetfulness, Ward Just
14. The Social Animal, David Brooks
15. Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow
16. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
17. The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau 
18. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
19. The Power of Place, Harm de Blij
20. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley 
21. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
22. Two Novels by Robbe-Grillet
23. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
24. Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin
25. Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
26. Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence
27. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton 
28. The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am, Kjersti A. Skomsvold
29. Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
30. A Passage to India, E. M. Forster
31. Virginia Woolf, Alexandra Harris


Books read in 2012
1. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
2. Proust and the Squid, Maryann Wolf
3. The Map and the Territory, Michel Houellebecq
4. Native Son, Richard Wright
5. This Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche 
6. The Cat's Table, Michael Ondaatje 
7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
8. At Last, Edward St. Aubyn
9. The Lifeboat, Charlotte Rogan
10. Internal Family Systems Therapy, Richard C. Schwartz
11. It's Even Worse than it Looks, Thomas E. Mann & Norman J. Ornstein
12. Distinction, A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Pierre Bourdieu
13. Parrot & Olivier in America, Peter Carey
14. By the Iowa Sea, Joe Blair
15. The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope
16. Pity the Billionaire, Thomas Frank
17. The Dogs and the Wolves, Irene Nemirovsky 
18. Absolution, Patrick Flanery
19. Pere Goriot, Honore de Balzac 
20. The Age of Insight, Eric R. Kandel
21. A Separate Peace, John Knowles
22. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
23. The Hundred Brothers, Donald Antrim
24. Plutocrats, The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, Chrystia Freeland
25. The Round House, Louise Erdrich
26. The Republic, Plato
27. The Fran Lebowitz Reader
28. Canada, Richard Ford
29. The Social Conquest of Earth, Edward O. Wilson 


BOOKS READ in 2013
1. The Death of the Adversary, Hans Keilson
2. The Point of View for My Work as an Author, A Report to History, Soren Kierkegaard
3. Wash, Margaret Wrinkle
4. Madness, Rack, and Honey, Mary Ruefle
5. Waiting for the Barbarians, Daniel Mendelsohn
6. When Foxes Wore Red Vests, Bruce Hopkins 
7. How to be Good, Nick Hornby
8. Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose
9. Assholes, A Theory, Aaron James
10. Reflections, Walter Benjamin 
11. Buddha's Brain, Rick Hanson with Richard Mendius, MD




Sent from my iPhone

STEVE AVERY THE LITERATE MAN OF SIOUX CITY, AMIDST THE ILLITERATE DESERT WITHOUT OASES

the literate man of sioux city
surviving in a non literate city


the weekend was upon us, the Americans were celebrating the Mexican equivalent of the Day of the Dead, or the Vietnamese equivalent of the Tomb Sweeping Day.. it is called Memorial Day in the USA.
Also symbolically denotes the beginning of the light hearted summer festivities: food festivals, so called cultural festivals, riverside festivals, in general an indication for people to get out and have a good time, as the winter has almost become a memory and no one has to worry about heating their homes up for few more months.. in this part of the world..

I have been coming to visit the Indians who live in their reservations just few miles south of this city, which was once a centre of trade and commerce and now even churches have hard times surviving..the language is going from those of the European Migrants to those of Latin American especially Central American migrants and in fact, it is their presence that gives the city any sort of spark, otherwise it would have already joined the multitudes of middle american cities lying in their coffins.

Iowa is a very conservative state, said an educated patient of mine, and in Iowa, Sioux City is the most conservative! so it is no wonder that I have made no friends here despite visiting the town for occasional eating adventures, mainly to the Vietnamese or Thai restaurants.

with one exception
that is Steve Avery!

Coffee Works on the top of Pierce Street was the first decent coffee shop in town which opened in 1994, by an photographer who had spent some time in Thailand. So i had felt comfortable that distant day when i entered and settled down with my coffee and a book.
Sitting across me was a gentleman, who bears resemblance to Michael Douglas, reading the Sunday Edition of New York Times! In those days, Manna from Heaven was easier to find than NYT in a city of the size and temperament of Sioux City.
As Roberto Menguel the erudite Argentine says in his book on READING, the book you are reading, changes the context of your personality. I dont think i would have said Hello to Steve Avery had he been reading the National Enquirer or Reader's Digest...

we have been friends ever since even though our intense conversations are shared only once or even less per year. i am here to be with the indians and the less contact i have with Sioux City the better (the maltreated Indians call the city, the Sewage City). 
But on this day of remembrance, I had a desire to see and say hello to Steve, and what better place than Coffee Works. The owner, the photographer, was only glad to oblige to call Steve who was bicycling thirty minutes distance away.
Tell him I would be there in thirty minutes..
the next two hours, when the owner gave us the keys so that we can lock up when we leave, as he was going home, the conversation was 
intense
analytical
innovative 
creative
supportive..

It made me think of Paris of Nin and Neruda, London of Naipaul and Vargas LLosa..cities that attract and cradle intellectuals ..

but sioux city? it has to be the least literate place of all the places that i routinely visit, worse than Singapore or Kuala Lumpur ..
I also thought of that erudite man of Kuala Lumpur, Mr Ho!

How do such intellectual people survive these illiterate deserts where there are no oases?

Steve is provocative, he has a reputation for READING and he shared his reading list with me. He is a conduit for me to American Literature since my inclination lie elsewhere. This book power gives him respect and the narrow minded well off residents of this city that lies in another century, grudgingly would say
Steve you know more, because you read a lot!

we touched on a thousand subjects, all related to our reading. somehow we had begun with philosophical reading, so he expounded on Benjamin from where we went on to Foucault and some ancient philosophies and the attractive aspects of Atheism..

If you are a truly clever person, it is difficult to believe in these attractively clothed rituals that passes for religion, he added

the minutes raced past, it was time to say good bye until our next serendipitous meeting.
I thought of the city of my heart, San Cristobal de la Habana, to me one of the most intellectual cities in the world that carries me.. The great metaphor for Steve here in this desert would be the plants trying to grow out of the crevices of long abandoned colonial edifices in that city..

Here is what Steve has read, he tries to read 1000 pages a month, he says he succeeds in reading 900.. and all the books are easily available and it is a compendium of curiosity, the hunger that is satisfied only by holding a book, to question...

Books and readers provide knowledge and understanding..

So when i returned to the comfort of the Blue House among the Indians, I wrote this down, dedicated to the Literate Man from the Illiterate Desert with no Oases..

If you cannot accept the growth and evolution of the knowledge and understanding .. that the external world provides through our experience of it- then you are living in an un natural cocoon of sense,  you are locked in, not liberated. All senses undergo change.

Reading is a tool of that change.

Thank you, dear Friend and companion, Steve Avery of Sioux City, Iowa in the United States of America.

vendredi 17 mai 2013

RASTA AND DIABETES...AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL COMMUNICATION


RASTAFARIANS AND DIABETES
CAN A TRUE RASTA GET DIABETES?

The beautiful island of Jamaica in the West Indies is visited by millions of tourists each year, most of them coming on package holidays from USA or Canada and to a lesser degree from Europe.
Too few of them are lucky to meet or become acquainted with the philosophy of Rastafarians…but take home the erroneous belief that it has something to do with smoking Ganja. the name for the good quality Marijuana grown in Jamaica, in local speak.
I was lucky enough to be introduced to the philosophy of Rasta, during my sojourn in Jamaica and had great respect for its practitioners, who were from all walks of life and socioeconomic strata. It is a philosophy of life, much like Yoga Philosophy, of harmony with nature and inner self, practising a non-violent way of life. Most religions have rituals, whether it is vegetarianism or idol worship or chewing peyote or smoking Ganja, which are just small parts of the overall belief systems. Remember, Alcohol is considered a drug and banned in certain places, is part of the social milieu in another, and central in some religious ceremonies.

So all those good memories came rushing back when I read a scientific article published and publicized in the USA just this week.
Especially of interest to an Endocrinologist!
Current Ganja (I prefer this term to the sterile Cannabis) smokers were found to have lower levels of Fasting Insulin levels and were less likely to be Insulin Resistant than non-smokers.
Insulin resistance is a hallmark of Obesity, Pre Diabetes and Diabetes.
HDL cholesterol is a “good” form of cholesterol that protects you from heart disease and pharmaceutical companies have been trying various drugs and combinations of drugs to market. Since a majority of the westerners have lower levels of this cholesterol and thus “susceptible” to heart disease. But so far they have not been able to…or failed in their attempts. Obviously they have been looking at the wrong places.

Ganja users in general were less overweight and also had higher HDL cholesterol levels in this study, published in the American Journal of Medicine on May 16, 2013
Previously it had been noted that regular Ganja users had less obesity and Diabetes but this was the first study to investigate the relationship between Ganja use and Fasting Insulin, Glucose and Insulin Resistance.
There are an estimated 17.4 million current users of Ganja in the USA of whom 4.6 million are regular users.
As an anthropologist I would add yet another dimension to this.
Stress through its hormonal effects increases insulin resistance and chronic stress releases hormones, which can cause Diabetes. Ganja use either in context as in Jamaica or in social usage as in the Western countries, may decrease these hormones and their damaging side effects.

This adds yet another Explanatory Model to our world of doctor patient relationships:
No, Police Officer, I was just trying to reduce my chances of getting Diabetes. You Know, both my father and mother have Diabetes and the doctors tell me I have to do every thing to prevent getting it!

jeudi 16 mai 2013

NESPRESSO IN BRUSSELS.. WHAT ELSE?

It is not often that I get excited about shops and boutiques, but I have to admire when someone takes something so quotidian such as Coffee and make it so elegant a product!
My supply was running low, also wanted to take some with me to the USA, so decided to visit Nespresso Boutique at Luizalaan 1 in Brussel.
The usual subdued elegance as you enter but the Belgian friendliness exhibits itself from the very begining. Whereas the Nespresso boutique at Opera in Paris is an elegant affair and the attendants dressed immaculately, but they lack the smile and spontaneity of their Belgian counterparts.
You are given a number and you ascend a spiral stairways to another floor where your Nespresso capsules are dispensed. I waited for about five minutes before my number was flashed upon the screen. I found myself in front of Desk 2, and unlike the French Ones, this gent greeted me in French and English and our conversation was in English, which wouldn't have been the case in Paris, where they are blissfully ignorant of this most popular idiom.
We talked about various flavours of Nespresso, and I ordered a few of each and then he recommended the latest additions which are stronger than normal. He also made a special Nespresso ID for me, in case I find myself in this neighbourhood of Bruxelles I can come in for a cup of Coffee of my choice.. complimentary of course..


After paying he personally escorts me to the cafe dispenser downstairs and asks for my favourite flavour.. Rosabaya from Colombia I say. He personally fixes me a shot and wishes me well before disappearing.
This level of service I have not received in two of the Paris branches, or in Amsterdam where it is sold in the largest supermarket or Nespresso at Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.
I was quite impressed..
Please note that the tasa for Rosabaya is exactly the same shape and colour as the Capsule for Rosabaya!

lundi 13 mai 2013

SHORT INTENSE EXERCISE WITH REST AND ITS HEALTH BENEFITS: LESSONS FROM THE HUMBLE MAN OF BOGOR


We look at Doctors as guardians of our health, and expect them to follow what they preach: Eat Well and Exercise.
A recent study published in the USA, makes you realize that what the ancient wise men had repeatedly said: There is no meaning to words if they are not followed by action.
NEARLY ONE IN TWO PRACTISING PHYSICIAN DID NO EXERCISE AT ALL. AND MORE OR LESS THE SAME PROPORTION, ONE IN TWO, WERE OVERWEIGHT OR OBESE.
It was interesting to note that the physicians who were happy in their professions did exercise more and were leaner!
If the doctors can’t follow their own advice, how can you expect the patients who are counseled by them to do?
Nearly 2 out of 3 persons living in richer countries are not doing sufficient physical exercise. Even though they have come up with this magical number of 150 minutes of physical activity per week, one has to make this part of your everyday activity such as eating.
I remember the Humble Man of Bogor telling me, if you just do what you can EACH day you would soon realize that it will become like an “addiction” and you will begin to feel the absence. (Sure enough, within a few weeks of beginning daily activity, when the winter set in the northern hemisphere, I lamented each day that I could not do some physical activity)
Not every one should aim to look like body builder or behave like one (Arnold Schwarzenegger comes to mind!) but the ancient sages including the American Indian elders when talking about Harmony in our lives, talked about the slow and smooth flowing of daily life.
Breathing exercises or Greeting of the Sun in the morning or offering of prayers of gratitude were all parts of the cultures, some of which survive amidst us to this day.
It is not only that the modern lifestyle leaves you with less time, but also with less harmony in life. So one has to strive for harmony: within oneself, with ones environment and workplace and of course harmony with friends and family.
Let us concentrate on Physical Activity for a minute!





Lancet, the British Medical Journal, had a report of a symposium of some leading researchers in this field:

The team of 33 researchers drawn from centres across the world also said governments needed to look at ways to make physical activity more convenient, affordable and safer.
It is recommended that adults do 150 minutes of moderate exercise, such as brisk walking, cycling or gardening, each week.
The Lancet study found people in higher income countries were the least active with those in the UK among the worst, as nearly two-thirds of adults were judged not to be doing enough.

The World Health Organization also says physical inactivity is the fourth largest contributor to global deaths, and increases risk of some cancers, diabetes and heart disease.
This above statement is no surprise, as we know that Physical Inactivity is the GREATEST contributor of ILL HEALTH not only in richer countries but also in emerging countries such as India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia etc.,

How much should you weigh? On the average, you should weigh
100 lbs. for the first five feet of your height and then
Six pounds for each additional inch if you are man and five pounds for each additional inch if you are a woman
So if you are five foot five woman, the ideal body weight is 125 pounds and for a man of the same height, it would be 130 pounds. These are not hard and fast rules but a general guideline. If you are five foot five and you are very athletic, your muscles would contribute your weight and you may weigh more than 130 pounds, in which case you have to make sure that your adult weight has remained stable over a period of time.
Body Mass Index is calculated by dividing your weight in Kg by square of your height in metres and expressed as Kg/M2.
For Europeans, normal is considered to be 25, but there is an attempt to bring it down to 24, as 25 kg/m2 of BMI does not clearly take into account the body fat, which is far more important a measurement with regards to health.
Asians, normal Body Mass Index is considered to be 22 kg/m2, unless you are very fit in which case the muscle mass will increase it slightly. But for an average person BMI of 24 is overweight and a BMI of 27 can be considered Obesity if you are Asian or part Asian.

What sort of activity should you do?
First of all, it is very important to understand the role of Activity in Health. It is not good to think of exercising to loose weight, even though it might be a beneficial side benefit of it. You should exercise to feel good and contribute to your own health.
Depending upon where you live, your social and cultural situation (Saudi Arabian Women are not known to exercise, for cultural reasons and the Malaysian girls are already sweating under their head to toe coverage under the hot and humid sun) you can choose the level of your participation in physical activity.
One thing is very important. Whatever you decide to do, what is MOST important is not the amount, intensity of your physical activity but the fact that you have to be consistent with it.
You can read in any ancient philosophy and they repeatedly advise you to be consistent, it is not enough to do it once in a while whether it is being good to your fellow human beings or breathing exercises (Pranayama) or walking or High Intensity Exercise.
As the Humble Man of Bogor explains: Hey, Doc, you have to do it every day!
Whether it is New York or Singapore, one refrain I hear is: I don't have time.
I silently ask them: What do you have time for?
A person who says they don't have time, it also means that they don't have time for you, and your friendship.
But we cant neglect our friendships with them, even if they don't have time for us, so we have to find ways of counseling them about exercise and physical activity.
This lack of time has given rise to some High Intensity Work outs and they last only seven to ten minutes at a time. Presto. Scientifically shown to decrease Insulin Resistance and BP and in general increase well being.
In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science.









“There’s very good evidence” that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,” says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.

Work by scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and other institutions shows, for instance, that even a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.

Interval training, though, requires intervals; the extremely intense activity must be intermingled with brief periods of recovery. In the program outlined by Mr. Jordan and his colleagues, this recovery is provided in part by a 10-second rest between exercises. But even more, he says, it’s accomplished by alternating an exercise that emphasizes the large muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. During the intermezzo, the unexercised muscles have a moment to, metaphorically, catch their breath, which makes the order of the exercises important.

The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each, while, throughout, the intensity hovers at about an 8 on a effort and discomfort scale of 1 to 10, Mr. Jordan says. Those seven minutes should be, in a word, difficult but bearable. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.

Believe it or not, our humble man from Bogor has been doing just that.
Once stuck in a hotel gym because the outside weather wouldn't permit him to do his exercises, he struck up a conversation with an American who instructed in the quick intense exercise programme. He brought it home to Indonesia and each and every morning, after the running and Jogging around the Sentul Lake, the managers who have joined him for the Sentul Lake reunion, come back to the office and Pak Joe leads the gang in quick succession of high intensity exercises. It lasts no longer than 20 minutes with intervals for rest and chatting. He is able to do it without discomfort but I see varying degrees of discomfort and when I participated in it, muscles I knew not to exist began hurting. But the effect was immediate. After just two days, I could feel the effects on the abdominal wall.

On my last visit to Bogor and my friends there, the humble Man of Bogor agreed to do a video for the staff of the American Indian Programme on prevention of Diabetes among Adolescents. He was very careful to modify the High Intensity Programme knowing full well that even staff members involved in the prevention of Diabetes may find the intensity too much; he only included exercises, which ANYONE can do.

So even if you are partner in Crunchem and Stealem EYMG Accountants, in New York or Kuala Lumpur, you can spare four minutes per day, The life you save would be your own, and you no longer have to sleep alone with your iPhone or iPad as others may find you more attractive than before!

It was interesting to see Dr Moseley who is a Medical Correspondent for the BBC, undergoing tests to prove or disprove the High Intensity Training; he was pleasantly surprised that his Insulin Resistance did come down, making him less liable for future Diabetes. This is what he had to say:
Based on what I've learnt I've been trying out my own 'Twenty Plus' campaign; 20 seconds of intense activity when I can (running up stairs, cycling like crazy for short bursts on my bike), a minimum of 20 minutes of walking every day, and no more than 20 minutes of sitting at my computer or in front of the television without getting up and moving around.
Dr Michael Moseley BBC




Good Advice!
20 minutes of walking per day, High Intensity Exercises at 20 second interval spurts and not sitting in front of TV or Computer more than twenty minutes at a time.
Say also NO to Facebook, Google Plus, Yahoo Messenger. Make your iPhone your helper and not the Nazi Dictator it has become!
Spend more time with your friends, face to face, even if you have to travel a long distance to do that.
The Humble Man of Bogor had this to add for my American Indian friends: (echoing the studies done in Florida University)
When you are doing this short Body Works Exercise programme, you are not using just leg muscles but also the upper body muscles, including the muscles of your neck, so that 80 per cent of the body’s muscle cells are activated. If you do only running or jogging, only about 20-40% of the muscle cells are activated: walking or moderate intensity jogging or normal bicycling.

Welcome to Bogor, Welcome to Indonesia, Welcome to our Group of Friends of Pak Joe. And regain your health or improve your health.
See you at 6 am at the Sentul Lake, from where you can see the majestic Gunung Salak looking benignly at you!


 My good friend in KL, MC, who was my Yoga Teacher would recognize certain of these poses as Asanas prescribed by Patanjali. As it is said in Yoga Sutra, without understanding the philosophy behind ones action, stretching exercises such as Modern Yoga practised by the Fake Yogis of the West would be just stretching exercises only bereft of the great benefits Yoga can render to a person, their personality, their personal life and not to mention the health benefits.

For a person who is unaware of Yogic Philosophy, he seems to be a Practitioner of it, fully integrating Practice with Action.

 This is the BP and Pulse rate of the Humble Man of 
Bogor
98/68 mmHg
62/min
Needless to say these readings are Excellent for a Man of any age!

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