The Disabled Traveler Gets Ready for his Next Adventure

 

Caters News Agency picture
Caters News Agency picture

Justin Skeesuck and Patrick Grey are truly inspirational. Best friends, they have decided to be the first people to conquer the 500 mile trip between France and Spain using a non-motorized wheelchair. Hailing from Idaho, they will be the first to attempt the “French Way” route across the Pyrenees towards the shrine of the apostle St. James the Great in Galicia.

They both believe that life is about facing challenges and they are ready for this one. Justin, known as the “Disabled Traveler” on his blog, teaches other people with disabilities how to travel the world.

As they said, ‘Our aim is to help others realize that life is too short and anyone really can achieve their own dreams if they just make that first move.’

Justin was finally diagnosed with Multifocal Acquired Motor Axonopathy (MAMA), a rare progressive autoimmune/neuromuscular disease which selectively targets muscles throughout the body and causes them to stop functioning.

Exercise Linked to Performance in School Says New Study

exerciseGetting your kids out the door for some fresh air and exercise just might help improve their test scores. This is the latest idea discussed in a new study published in the Journal of Paediatrics. Researchers looked at the links between physical fitness and academic performance.

As Irene Esteban-Cornejo, of the Autonomous University of Madrid, said: “Because these physical fitness components are highly associated with each other, it is important to differentiate which physical fitness components are important in relation to academic performance.” The study included more than 2000 Spanish children and teenagers from 6-18 and looked at their physical fitness, their body composition and their academic achievement.

They found that both cardio-respiratory capacity and motor ability were related to academic achievement. The link was strongest for speed, agility and coordination.


As Dr Esteban-Cornejo said: “Having high levels of cardio-respiratory and motor fitness may, to some extent, reduce the risk of school failure.”

Of course, more studies may be necessary since this could certainly be a chicken-egg situation. Children who exercise more and are more motivated physically may also be more alert in class and more interested in reaching their potential. More studies will help to elaborate on the cause-effect relationship.

Travel in Style…to a Treehouse

treehouseIf you’ve always wanted to get away from it all up in a tree, now is your chance. Nick and Tara Culverhouse were trying to figure out how to preserve a tree that is on the grounds of their 200 year old hotel. And they have done so by turning it into its own little hotel.

The house has a master bedroom on the top floor, a room for two kids with bunk beds and a sitting room on the main floor and a full kitchen and bathroom.


Staying in this tree house won’t be a cheap holiday, as the unique location on the grounds of the Fox and Hounds Country Hotel in Eggesford, Devon starts at £245 a night.

Calculate Your Life Expectancy

Have you ever wondered how long you’re going to live? And how much your lifestyle habits are influencing your life expectancy?

These are the questions that are addressed in the life expectancy calculator below. Called Project Big Life, it was created by a team that was investigating the deaths of 70,000 people while looking at how health behaviors affect the risk of death. Canadian medical experts, along with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and others have created the calculator.

 

What would you like us to calculate for you?

Age:     (between 20 and 79 years)
Sex
Height: cm   or
Weight: kg   or   pounds

 

Smoking Status
What is your smoking status?

 

Alcohol Consumption
How often do you consume alcoholic beverages?

 

Fruit & Vegetable Diet
How many times did you have each of the following in the past week?
Fruit juice: (0 to 70)
Fruit: (0 to 70)
Salad: (0 to 70)
Potatoes: (0 to 70)
Carrots: (0 to 70)
Other vegetables: (0 to 70)

 

Leisure Physical Activity
How much time did you spend jogging or running in the past week?
(0 to 35) hours

 

How much time did you spend playing ice hockey, soccer, basketball, volleyball, or rollerblading in the past week?
(0 to 35) hours

 

How much time in the past week did you spend doing other leisure activities? (i.e. walking, cycling, gardening, exercising, golfing, bowling, skating, fishing, baseball, tennis etc.)
(0 to 35) hours

 

Self-Perceived Stress
Thinking about the amount of stress in your life, would you say that most days are:

 

 

Postal Code (Optional):   (e.g. K1Y 4E9) Postal code is used to adjust for geographic variations
Did you immigrate to Canada?

 

What is your Household Income?

 

Which of the following Conditions do you have?

 

Does illness limit your ability to participate in activities?
Provide this information if you would like to see the probability of living until a future event of your choice.
For example, will I live to see
    – the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup?
– my grandchild get married?
– my grandchild’s graduation?
– my retirement?
– my 100th birthday?
Event name:   (e.g. Your child’s or grandchild’s wedding)
Event year:     (YYYY – e.g. 2019)

 

 

Terracotta Army…Made from Pizza Dough

picture from WENN.com
picture from WENN.com

If you can’t get to China to see the famous Terracotta Army – then maybe you can see them at the PizzaExpress chain in Beijing. Opening soon, the chain decided to have British food artist Annabel de Vetten recreate the entire Terracotta Army – out of pizza dough.

That’s right. The artist who specializes in cakes for her company Conjurer’s Kitchen, used PizzaExpress’s signature dough to create each warrior. The warriors have been recreated in such detail that each one has a different hair style and realistic folds in his clothes.

The Beijing PizzaExpress will join many other eateries at the Taikoo Li shopping center in Sanlitun, but chances are none of them will have quite such an elaborate display as part of their restaurant.

Prudent Advice About Prunes

prunesWe all know that prunes are good for constipation, but little did we know that they are great for dieting too. Liverpool University researchers tracked the weight and appetite of 100 overweight and obese men and women who were being given dieting advice.

Half were given prunes to snack on. The men who were given prunes were asked to eat 170g a day, about 15 prunes. The women were asked to eat 140g, or about a dozen, a day.

At the end of the three month study, both sets of groups lost about four pounds of weight and an inch off of their waistlines. However, the ones who ate the prunes felt fuller and had faster weight loss.

As Jason Halford explained, the appetite-suppressing effect of the prunes outweighed the damage done by the sugar content of the food.

As Professor Halford (who, by the way, received funding from the California Prune Board) said, “One of the biggest problems with dieting is that it makes you hungry. This doesn’t necessarily mean that prunes are the new weight loss miracle but they don’t undermine dieting.”

In addition, he mentioned that eating the prunes could also help you to achieve your goal of having five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.