01 前期回顾
开始今天的故事之前，我们还需要先回顾一下上期的句子分析：
1.The new meditators had increased neural connections between regions of the brain important for staying focused, ignoring distractions, and controlling impulses.
首先我们要分析一下，这句话的主要结构，The new meditators had increased neural connections, 然后，后面跟着的是由between引导的短语，核心成分是regions，这些regions有什么特点呢，important for staying focused, ignoring distractions, and controlling impulses。
2.Another study found that eight weeks of daily meditation practice led to increased self-awareness in everyday life, as well as increased gray matter in corresponding areas of the brain.
这句话的主要结构挺好找的，another study found..., 后面由that引导了宾语从句，这个从句的核心结构是meditation practice led to increased self-awareness as well as increased gray matter. 这里要注意 as well as相当于and ,是并列结构。
02.今天的故事— 锻炼身体，迎接自信的人生
Antonio, a fifty-four-year-old owner of two successful Italian restaurants, was in my class on doctor’s orders. He had high blood pressure and cholesterol, and his waist size crept up an inch every year. If he didn’t change his lifestyle, his doctor warned him, he was going to collapse of a heart attack over a plate of veal parmigiana.
今天故事的主人公是位老年人，但是可不要小看他，他成功经营着两家意大利餐馆，算是某个领域内的成功人士了。
做餐饮的都容易出现大腹便便，我们的主人公也不例外，他有高血压，高血脂，每年手腕都要粗上一公分。整个就是一位油腻的老年人啊，有木有。
他的私人医生警告他了，再这样生活下去，他终将会因为心脏病而倒下。
没有人想英年早逝，主人公安东尼也不例外，他也不想过早的告别亲爱的家人。
所以，他想要改变，他购置了一台跑步机放在办公室，但是一段时间后他发现，跑步机的利用率低的可怜。（我也曾经一时冲动买了一整套瑜伽工具，最后只是默默留在角落积灰。）
Antonio had reluctantly gotten a treadmill for his home office, but it wasn’t seeing much use. Exercise seemed like a waste of time; it wasn’t fun and it wasn’t productive—not to mention the irritation of someone else telling him what he needed to do!
看着那台默默蹲墙角的跑步机，安东尼感觉不到健身的好处，反而觉得这是在浪费时间。耳边张三李四还经常危言耸听：你一定要锻炼啊，你的身体素质太差，怎么撑起宏伟的远大计划啊。。。总之，他对健身锻炼提不起一点兴趣。
人的内心一直住着两个自己，一个是天使，一个是恶魔，天使告诉自己要通过锻炼增强体质呀，恶魔却在说，管他呢，跑了这么久根本看不到效果，跑步健身根本就是个伪命题。
是天使战胜恶魔，还是恶魔压制天使，要看你的价值观里，到底那个信念更重要。在安东尼看来，明显健康更重要。所以，他没有改变自己的价值观，他改变的是思维方式和行动目标。
The idea that exercise could increase brain power and willpower intrigued Antonio, though. He was a competitive guy and did not want to slow down. He started to see exercise as a secret weapon, something that could keep him at the top of his game. It didn’t hurt that it would improve heart rate variability, which is a major predictor of mortality among people with cardiovascular disease. He turned his treadmill into a willpower generator by taping a “Willpower” label over the machine’s calorie tracker (since he didn’t really give a damn how many calories he burned—this was a guy who would throw an entire stick of butter in a pan without thinking twice). As he walked and burned more calories, the “Willpower” number ticked up and he felt stronger.
他听说，锻炼能增强大脑的力量，还能提升意志力，他决定尝试使用这个思维方式思考健身的意义。
争强好胜是他的性格特点，所以，即便年龄大的现实摆在他面前，他也不会轻易认命。
他想让自己看上去仍然充满能量，所以，他把健身当成了一种秘密武器，通过使用该武器，他能保持宝刀不老。
其实，从医学角度来讲，体育锻炼是非常有利于人体健康的，因为锻炼能够提升一个人的心率变异率，而这一指标正是心脑血管疾病患者保持健康的重要参考。
对于安东尼来讲，他跑步的目的并不是减肥或者消耗热量，而是通过锻炼提升自己的能力。于是，他干脆把跑步机上的卡路里消耗指标换成了意志力积累指标。每次只要他在跑步，他就能看到自己蹭蹭往上飙升的意志力指数，这让他自信满满。
He started to use the treadmill each morning to fuel up with willpower for the day’s difficult meetings and long hours. Antonio’s willpower machine did improve his health—what his doctor wanted—but Antonio also got something energized and in control throughout the day. He had assumed that exercise would take away from his energy and time, but found it gave him back far more than he spent.
他越来越离不开跑步机了，每天早上都要跑上一段时间，积累自己的意志力能量，用以应付漫长的会议时间。
一段时间过去了，安东尼发现，他的健康指标完全达标，更让他惊喜的是，他发现自己一整天的精力满满，能轻松掌控一天中的大小事宜。
他对于锻炼的偏见也烟消云散了，过去他曾经认为，锻炼会消耗他的能量和时间，现在，他完全改变了想法： 锻炼带给他的价值完全超出了当初付出的时间和精力。
03 语言点分析
单词和词组
cholesterol : 胆固醇（noun）
a substance that is found in the bodies of people and animals
Examples
* Did your doctor check your cholesterol?
creep up： 逐渐增长
If a rate or number creeps up to a higher level, it gradually reaches that level.
Examples：
The inflation rate has been creeping up to 9.5 per cent.
collapse ：崩塌，打塌（noun， verb）
to break apart and fall down suddenly
to fall down or become unconsciousbecause you are sick or exhausted
a situation or occurrence in whichsomething (such as a bridge, building, etc.) suddenly breaks apart and falls down
a situation or occurrence in whichsomeone suddenly falls down or becomesunconscious because of being sick or exhausted
Examples
* The roof collapsed under a heavy load of snow.
* The chair he was sitting in collapsed.
* The structure is in danger of collapse.
* She was on the verge of collapse.
veal parmigiana：帕尔马干酪小牛肉
meat of a young cow made or covered with Parmesan cheese
reluctant ：不情愿的，勉强的，（adjective）
feeling or showing doubt about doingsomething
not willing or eager to do something
Examples
* We were reluctant to get involved.
* He might agree but seems reluctant to admit it.
treadmill: 跑步机（noun）
* an exercise machine which has a large beltthat moves around while a person walks or runs on it
* a boring or tiring activity, job, etc., in which you repeatedly do the same things
Examples
* the treadmill of exhausting familyschedules
* the treadmill of the morning commute to work
irritate：厌烦，引起恼怒（verb）
* to make (someone) impatient, angry, or annoyed
* : to make (part of your body) sore or painful
Examples
* It's his arrogance that really irritates me.
* The other passengers were irritated by the child's rudeness.
intrigue：阴谋，耍阴谋（noun，verb）
* the activity of making secret plans
* a secret plan
Examples
* a novel of intrigue and romance
* an administration characterized by intrigue and corruption
morality ：道德，高尚行为（noun）
* beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior
* the degree to which something is rightand good
* the moral goodness or badnessof something
Examples
* The group is calling for a return to traditional morality.
* The decision may be legally justified, but I question its morality.
cardiovascular：心脑血管的
of or relating to the heart and blood vessels
tick：发出滴答声，运转，做标记（verb）
* to make the sound of a tick or a series of ticks
* to operate as a functioning mechanism
to mark with a written tick :
Examples
* I could hear the clock tick .
* His old heart is still ticking.
* Tick the box next to your choice.
注意：英语学习中时常出现的一个难点就是动词和各种介词的搭配，比如 put off, put down, put up, put in, put on . 我建议大家千万不要死记硬背中文意思，因为经常会造成不必要的麻烦，更明智的方式是，结合动词本身，比如put，再加上介词指代的时间或空间指向加以理解。举个例子： put down, put 本身就是放置，down 在空间纬度上是下方，所以，put down 的意思就是与“放下”有关的，至于具体含义还需要上下文去仔细推敲，put off，off指的是什么方位呢，还记得物理中的电路图吧，on代表通电状态，on代表断路，所以，put off 就是指，某个东西放在了某处导致了断路。
回到我们的文中，As he walked and burned more calories, the “Willpower” number ticked up and he felt stronger. Tick up 这个短语现在请你分析一下是什么意思？
tick的意思我已经给出来了，你需要根据上下文首先判断选取哪一个意思，然后结合up的向上，你看出来了吗，这里tick up就是指 increase的意思。
04 长难句分析
1.If he didn’t change his lifestyle, his doctor warned him, he was going to collapse of a heart attack over a plate of veal parmigiana.
他的医生警告他，如果不改变生活方式，他终将因为食用帕尔马干酪小牛肉而死于心脏病。
这句话要指出两个注意事项：插入语和介词的妙用。
从用途上来讲，插入语主要是用来补充说明的。比如说，我刚才一直在讲张三的故事，中间我想加上点我个人的想法，这个时候我就可以用插入语了，我会说，“我觉得，我认为，在我看来”之类的语言引出我要表达的内容，而这些“我觉得，我认为”并不是我要表达的核心意思。所以，在我们寻找句子核心的时候不用太过于关注插入语本身，可以选择暂时跳过，不影响句子整体的理解。
这句话的用词精妙之处体现在后半句，collapse of a heart attack over a plate of veal parmigiana. over一词充分体现出了介词的活用，当我们提到over脑海里会闪现什么画面呢，game over 吗？少年，再认真点，collapse一词已经体现出game over的意思了，over还有空间上的指向，在。。。上方。想想看，如果一个人终日盘旋在高热量奶酪牛肉上，会出现什么结果，所以很显然，over这个词比一般的表示“吃”的表达高明了很多。
2.Exercise seemed like a waste of time; it wasn’t fun and it wasn’t productive—not to mention the irritation of someone else telling him what he needed to do!
锻炼看上去就像是一种时间的浪费；它并不有趣，也并不有效，更不用提面对一群旁观者喋喋不休的大道理时的厌烦。
这句话的重点是三个否定。a waste of time 已经奠定了整个句子的基调是消极的，所以，分号后面的句子仍然表达的是消极的思想，not to mention 值得拿出来讲一讲，这个表达是比较特殊的，因为它只能用于表达消极的信息，而且是消极信息的一种递进。
前文讲了锻炼没劲，没有用，比这更难忍受的是，周围一群专家的健康建议。
3.He turned his treadmill into a willpower generator by taping a “Willpower” label over the machine’s calorie tracker (since he didn’t really give a damn how many calories he burned—this was a guy who would throw an entire stick of butter in a pan without thinking twice)
他把跑步机当成了一台意志力生产机器，方法为：做一个意志力衡量标签，覆盖原本跑步机上的卡路里计数器。（这样做是因为他根本不在乎自己燃烧了多少卡路里— 别忘了，这家伙可是能够不管三七二十一直接在餐盘里添加一整勺黄油的）
这句话其实核心结构非常明显，he turned.....into....., by 引导了一组动词短语。
括号在英语里的主要作用和中文差不多，补充说明他这样做的原因是什么。
since在这句话中表示因为，当然，你可能在其他地方也见过since, 表示从什么时候以来，这两种情况下since从句使用的时态会有所区别。
4.He had assumed that exercise would take away from his energy and time, but found it gave him back far more than he spent.
他曾经一度认为，锻炼只会花费掉他的时间和能量，但后来才发现，锻炼偿还给他的远远大于他付出的。
这里要特别注意时态，英语中有8大主要时态，但我想再简化一下，按照时间轴来分，主要就是三个部分：过去，现在，将来，我们这个故事是发生在过去的，所以主要时态是过去时。
你看这句话里面的所有动词形式： had assumed, would take, found, gave, spent，这些都是某种形式的过去时态，found， gave，spent是非常典型的简单过去时，had assumed 是过去完成时，代表过去的过去，是发生在他锻炼之前的故事，would take表示过去将来，指在过去的某个时间设想将来发生的事情。
举个简单的例子，在昨天以前，我还以为我面前这只小狗会无家可归，但是昨天发现它居然是我家楼下的一位老阿姨家的。 I had assumed that the dog would have no place to go, but found it belonged to ....
05 故事与你何干
今天的故事给你带来了什么感想？
一位成功的中年人士，通过健身不仅重获了健康的身体，更重要的是，他感受到了自己对于生活的掌控，这种自信足以让他面对各种挑战。
那么，你呢？
在经历了一天紧张的工作和学习生活后，你是不是用各种借口告诉自己要好好休息，然后刷手机看电视？
其实，已经有很多研究证明，看电视，刷手机，玩游戏等等不仅不能够让你放松，反而会占用你更多的精力。
更科学的放松方式应该是让你紧绷的精神力放松，所以，现在就尝试站起来做做运动吧，你会慢慢发现运动的好处哒。
06 延伸阅读— 健身的秘密（来点科普知识）
Exercise turns out to be the closest thing to a wonder drug that self-control scientists have discovered. For starters, the willpower benefits of exercise are immediate. Fifteen minutes on a treadmill reduces cravings, as seen when researchers try to tempt dieters with chocolate and smokers with cigarettes. The long-term effects of exercise are even more impressive. It not only relieves ordinary, everyday stress, but it’s as powerful an antidepressant as Prozac. Working out also enhances the biology of self-control by increasing baseline heart rate variability and training the brain. When neuroscientists have peered inside the brains of new exercisers, they have seen increases in both gray matter—brain cells—and white matter, the insulation on brain cells that helps them communicate quickly and efficiently with each other. Physical exercise—like meditation—makes your brain bigger and faster, and the prefrontal cortex shows the largest training effect.
作业：请分析以下的长难句
1.Exercise turns out to be the closest thing to a wonder drug that self-control scientists have discovered.
2.Fifteen minutes on a treadmill reduces cravings, as seen when researchers try to tempt dieters with chocolate and smokers with cigarettes.
3.When neuroscientists have peered inside the brains of new exercisers, they have seen increases in both gray matter—brain cells—and white matter, the insulation on brain cells that helps them communicate quickly and efficiently with each other.
