The Best Places In San Diego!

A whopping 33 baseball players from San Diego High Schools played in Major League Baseball this year. That is an impressive statistic, which I doubt any other metro area can match. To put it in perspective, I came from a state, albeit a small one - Delaware - where it was big news when one player finally made it to the majors - Delino DeShields. Maybe Los Angeles can give us a run for our money but I couldn’t find a list of baseball players from L.A.

Some of the more recognizable major league players who got their start in San Diego include Barry Zito, Cole Hamels, and our own Padre, Adrian Gonzalez. See the full list of Major League Baseball Players from San Diego, which is maintained by the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum. (By the way, the San Diego Sports Museum is the largest sports museum in the country.)

The Sports Museum also maintains lists of NBA and NFL players from San Diego high schools. The number of NFL players from San Diego is quite impressive as well and is likely one of the best in the country. To boot, we had two local football players from the same high school nominated as finalists for the 2004 Heisman Trophy, which was a first in Heisman Trophy history.

So, if you were every curious as to who from San Diego is current playing in professional sports, you now know you can keep track of them with the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum web site.

Go San Diego!!!

Do you remember the days in school when you would hit up the Coke machine for a cool, refreshing drink (or to keep yourself awake in class) and then the snack machine for a Twinkie or a box of mini-chocolate donuts (especially when the cafeteria options that day stunk)?  Snacking on junk food and sugary drinks didn’t seem to matter all that much to our health or physical looks.  We were lucky not to have the internet or 200 channels of TV.  Instead, we were outside running around until we could barely see the end of our nose and our parents were yelling for the umpteenth time that it was time to get inside and wash up.  All of that excercise kept us in great shape.

Boy how times have changed.  Kids nowawdays sit inside a lot more than we did.  They flip through hundreds of TV channels, chat online, play video games, and even watch the gardener take care of the yard, and the maid clean up the bathroom.  (Whatever happened to chores; another activity that always kept us active?)

Our new sedate lifestyles can no longer cover up the effects of sugary drinks, Twinkies, and donuts.  The government and other organizations have been encouraging kids to become more active like we were in our school days but it just isn’t happening.  There are just too many distractions that keep kids from playing outside until mom or dad pulled them by the collar into the house.

The lastest effort to combat poor health and obesity is through a better diet.  Out go the Coke machines and the junk food vending options and in come the flavored waters and vegetable chips.

If you been reading this blog, it’s no surprise that a San Diego company is once again leading the way on creating a healthier America.

YoNaturals, a Solana Beach company, has taken the lead to bring healthy food vending machines to schools across America.  The company has been in business for two years and the accolades from school administrators are already pouring in.

YoNaturals has now launched a new program with its web site called schoolhealthyvending.com.  The new program makes it easy for schools to use the healthy vending machines as fundraisers. I can tell you from personal experience that this is a great idea.  I was in charge of running the Coke machines in school as a class president.  It was such an awesome money maker that I started peddling Otis Spunkmeyer Cookies for the school business club. Yes, I’m guilty of pushing junk food but you’ll have to admit, it was during a time when it didn’t seem to matter since we were so active as kids and burned off all the calories.

If you take a look at the YoNaturals snack and drink choices for their vending machines, I think you’ll agree with me that healthier snacking will become attractive to kids.  If I were still in school, I would certainly push these healthier options. I’m confident they would bring in just as much money and with what we know now, I wouldn’t feel as guilty pushing them.

Will these healthy snack options finally tackle the problem of childhood obesity?  I think they are something that will put us in the right direction but there’s nothing better than running around and staying active like in the good-ole-days.

The Admiral Baker Golf Course was recently named the 7th best bargain golf course in the nation. This distinction was made by Golflink.com, which is the most popular online golf site with over 1 million visitors a month. You can read user comments about the two 18-hole courses at Admiral Baker Golf Course.

The list of top bargain courses was based on analysis of those courses that incur greens fees under $50. Topping the list was the Bethpage State Park Golf Course in New York, which hosted the 2002 U.S. Open Championship and will once again host the U.S. Open in 2009. Considering Admiral Baker is on the same Top 10 list as Bethpage is quite a tribute to bargain golf in San Diego.

You do have to be a member of the military family or the guest of one to access the courses at Admiral Baker. You can check out the Navy’s MWR web site for more information on the Admiral Baker Golf Course, which is located in Mission Valley. Current rates range from $9 to $29 for a round of golf. I don’t think you will be able to beat those rates anywhere.

Walk Score has published a walkability index for every community in the country. As a whole, San Diego ranks 16th in the country for walkability. The most walkable communities in San Diego are all downtown.

Not only does Walk Score rank each neighborhood, they also provide a nice color map of the San Diego region, with the most walkable areas colored in green.

See how your neighborhood ranks for walkability. If you want to help improve the walkability of your neighborhood, learn how you can help at WalkSanDiego.com. Walk San Diego is a grassroots organization that has become very active in building more walkable neighborhoods in San Diego.

Travel + Leisure Magazine just released its World’s Best Awards for 2008. They too heap honors on San Diego Spas, just like my recent posts noted about Conde Nast’s Top Spas issue and the Zagat’s Survey for the best spa in the country .

Despite writing a few posts about San Diego Spas being ranked among the tops in North America, it appears each new release introduces a spa that I have yet to write about. So, for the first time, I introduce you to Cal-A-Vie in Vista, Travel + Leisure’s #1 Destination Spa in North America. They were the only spa to earn a score in the 90’s, at a hot 94.44 out of 100.

I’ll talk more about Cal-a-Vie in a moment. I want to point out Travel + Leisure lists the Golden Door in Escondido as the #2 Destination Spa in North America. San Diego appears to have cornered the market for world-class destination spas by garnering the top two spots in this year’s Travel + Leisure World’s Best rankings. The Zagat post I mentioned earlier provides more details about the Golden Door.

Travel + Leisure also places the Spa at the Hotel Del Coronado in the Top 20 for Top Hotel Spas. I’ll look to write about them in a future post. For now, I want to concentrate on North America’s #1 Destination Spa.

I can’t speak to it from experience, but from my research, Cal-a-Vie is a spa resort that offers a retreat for people looking to develop a stronger connection with their inner soul. The spa resort’s mission is “to provide guests with a peaceful atmosphere in which to inspire positive changes in their attitudes and lifestyles…”.

To accomplish this, accommodations are limited to 24 guests nestled away on 200 private acres. To get a glimpse of the atmosphere at Cal-a-Vie, you can read a description and view a few photos on the Setting and Accommodations pages.

Cal-a-Vie offers all-inclusive packages for a minimum of three nights starting at $3,600. However, the typical package is a week long and includes accommodations, meals, fitness classes, spa treatments, and instruction on nutrition and cooking. You can check out the full list of packages on their reservations page.

If you enjoy a particular activity, such as tennis, Pilates, or sipping tea, you should check out Cal-a-Vie’s listing of special program weeks that emphasize a particular activity.

If you have any experiences with our great San Diego Spas, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

You can view all of Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards on their web site.

If you have worked with a Fitness Trainer or if you’ve read articles about fitness in your local paper, chances are the San Diego based American Council on Exercise had something to do with it.

Founded in 1985, today ACE is one of the largest fitness certification, education and training organizations in the world. They have certified over 200,000 fitness professional around the globe. They have created one of the most referenced fitness information web sites, which includes all of the information you could ever need on the proper form for weightlifting, stability training, yoga poses and more.

Their exercise library lists multiple resistance training exercises for each muscle group allowing you to find a variety of exercises that work best for you. On their Fit Facts page, there is documentation on how to choose a fitness trainer, what exercises to perform when you are pregnant, and how to manage an exercise program for several different health challenges, including arthritis, heart disease, and stroke. Their Fit Facts page also provides resources for Nutrition, Supplements, and Kids Fitness issues.

Considering that new studies often result in changes to fitness and nutrition recommendations, you can stay up-to-date on the latest in health and fitness from American Council on Exercise.

If you think that is a lot of information, they also have a section of Frequently Asked Questions on Health and Fitness as well as over 2,000 healthy recipes.

This goes to show that not only do San Diegans do a great job of living a healthy lifestyle, which we’ve discussed in previous posts, but we also do a great job of trumpeting the need for rest of society to live a healthy lifestyle through San Diego based organizations, such as the American Council on Exercise and companies, such as Jazzercise. To read about other ’started in San Diego’ firsts when it comes to health, I’ve created a new category called Health / Fitness / Nutrition. Enjoy.

The American Heart Association has released its list of most heart friendly and least heart friendly cities for women. San Diego County is 8th best in the country. Twenty-two factors were included in the analysis, including risk factors (we probably scored quite well here due to our fabulous living environment and our generally healthy lifestyles), current state of heart health for local residents, and heart disease statistics.

From my personal experience, I can certainly tell the difference in heart healthy lifestyles between my previous hometown, the Philadelphia metro area, and San Diego. When I got in my car to drive across the country, I was in great shape relative to my peers. Once I arrived in San Diego a week later, I found myself to be well out-of-shape compared to my peers. I also went from having a donut shop and hoagie deli on every street corner to being at a loss for finding donuts and hoagies in San Diego. If you’ve moved from another city, share your comparisons relative to the healthy lifestyle we find here in San Diego.

You may have seen him in the morning on The Today Show or Good Morning America. Maybe you saw him in the afternoon with Dr. Oz on Oprah or The Tyra Banks Show. Geez, maybe it could have been VH1 or Entertainment Tonight or CNN. The person whose face has been popping up everywhere to help people build their six-pack abs and a healthy diet is San Diego’s own Jorge Cruise.

You can read Tom Blair’s interview with the former UCSD student in the June issue of San Diego Magazine. Cruise has written three books, which have made the New York Time’s Bestseller List. His health video clips on YouTube have been viewed over 750,000 times!

To tell you the truth, I must be living in a cave since I had not heard of Jorge Cruise until I read about him in San Diego Magazine.

You can follow Jorge Cruise through his blog or visit his web site. You can even join his online club to get continuing support to reach your health goals.

On another, “it started in San Diego” note, San Diego magazine was supposedly the first city magazine in the country. Until recently, their web search description noted they were first in the county to create a localized magazine. Although I was not able to verify that anywhere else, I didn’t find anything to the contrary. It goes to show that San Diego is a trendsetter, just another great reason to live in America’s Finest City.

The U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista is the only U.S. Olympic Training Center in the United States open year-round for athlete training. There are two other Olympic Training Centers operated by the United States Olympic Committee, one located in Lake Placid, NY and the other in Colorado Springs, CO . The one in Lake Placid, home of two prior Winter Olympics, hosts many Winter Olympic athletes while the one in Colorado Springs offers high-altitude training.

The Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista is open year round and offers facilities for nine Olympic Sports, including (more…)

With the nation’s largest urban park (Balboa Park), the seaside hiking trails of Torrey Pines State Reserve, and a total of 35 square miles of parkland and open space, the City of San Diego made U.S. News & World Report’s Top 10 List for Greenest Cities in America for Retirees.

San Diego was noted for its miles of trails and the presence of over 100 senior citizens organizations. The 10 Greenest Cities were selected from over 1,000 cities on the U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best Places to Retire.

To give you a point of comparison, San Diego has three times as much land devoted to parkland than Chicago, another city on the Top 10 list. When you include developed parkland, San Diego’s total reaches 62 square miles or nearly 40,000 acres.