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Behold, the beautiful yet mysterious persimmon: You’ve long admired this golden-orange or yellow fruit—and wondered what the heck to do with it. Think of persimmons as the heirloom tomatoes of winter. They’re versatile and high in fiber and immune-boosting vitamins A and C, but there’s a short window for when they taste good—typically, late October through January. There are two main types: Fuyus are squat with a mildly sweet, cinnamon taste—they’re perfect for dicing into salads or salsa or eating sliced with some nut butter....

Choose a walking shoe Any old shoe may work, but a shoe designed for walking will decrease your risk of injury and boost performance. A good one will be flexible in the ball of the foot, but not in the arch. (A shoe that bends in the arch will place increased stress on the plantar fascia.) The heel should be cushioned (you don’t need a lot of padding in the forefoot) and also rounded to speed your foot through the heel-toe motion with ease....

But your post-workout smoothie shouldn’t just appeal to your taste buds, explains Megan Hoffman, fitness director of the new-and-chic Oxygen Fitness in New Canaan, Connecticut. It should meet the refueling needs of the workout you just did. “If you’ve just hit a spin or a high-intensity interval training class, then you want to replace nutrients and have some protein; if you do hot yoga, then you should sip something super hydrating,” says Hoffman, who created the O Bar juice and smoothie recipes at Oxygen....

However, when we use plastic for unnecessary conveniences, we’re putting not just the planet, but also ourselves, in peril. Here are six freaky places plastic lurks and does damage: The Great Lakes.
Plastic microbeads are added to facial scrubs and other personal care products for exfoliating purposes. “The fact that we wash our faces with plastic bits that are designed to go down the drain, where they will almost inevitably end up in waterways, to persist for centuries, is emblematic of the carelessness with which we use plastics,” Freinkel says....

Do you remember when you got your first period? If not, think harder because your doctor may soon be asking. In the last year, research has linked the age of first menstruation to health risks ranging from allergies and heart disease, to diabetes and cancer. Scientists don’t yet know the exact connection, but it may involve your weight at the time your period arrived. “Estrogen is tied to fat,” says Taraneh Shirazian, MD, a gynecologist at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York....

Meditation sounds so easy: Just sit still for as long as it takes to let your mind go blank, and feelings of negativity or distress will drift away. But who has such limitless time? And can one generic exercise really relieve all the ways we get overwhelmed? We asked three meditation gurus to confront these nagging questions. The result: 8 simple meditations to change 8 common, troublesome mind-sets in just 10 minutes....

SPINAL ARCH AND CURL Strengthens and stretches back, increases flexibility, and helps improve posture Photos by Buff Strickland START POSITION Sit straight on edge of seat, feet hip-width apart, knees in line with ankles, and palms flat on thighs.MAIN MOVE Press heels into ground and contract butt muscles, sliding hands up toward hips. Gently arch back and look up while tightening ab muscles. Continuing to hold ab muscles in, round back, slide hands toward knees, and look down at ground....

Blake Cady, MD, director of the Breast Health Center at Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, RI, agrees. “This is not only good for general breast health, but it’s also recommended for overall health. Americans eat too many fatty foods and calories. Instead of a plant-based diet, we have a cholesterol-based diet, which stimulates the endocrine system to produce more hormones. Each generation of American women is getting heavier and taller, and they’re menstruating earlier and having menopause later than their ancestors....

This was no small request, given his condition: Prostate cancer had spread to his bones and was headed for his brain. After 2 years, not even his titanium will and weekly doses of Taxol could curb its progression. The reality that my father was about to die left me breathless. I had no road map for this final leg, only a sense of urgency. Indifferent to my inexperience, time marched on....

[sidebar]Instead, you should work up to doing crunches. These are similar to sit ups but you’re bringing only your head, shoulders and upper back off the floor. Crunches are much more effective because they specifically target your abdominal muscles—not your hip muscles, which are used during a full sit up. If you’re still having trouble doing crunches, start with pelvic tilts. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor....

In the study, healthy young men absorbed up to 9 times more carotenoids—a group of antioxidants found in foods like tomatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, and spinach—in their blood after eating a raw, mixed-vegetable salad topped with 3 cooked eggs than when they just ate a plain salad. Carotenoids like beta-carotene and lycopene boast a host of anti-inflammatory benefits that can help keep your heart healthy. And past research has linked greater consumption of these carotenoids to lower risks of prostate, bladder, and lung cancers....