He shares a meditation mentor with Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga, adores books with titles like “Becoming Supernatural” and “You are the Placebo” and has tried to battle the toxic aspects of social media by leading a Twitter campaign to fight “negativity in this space.”He is a vegan cookbook author and self-identified Virgo who is conversant with astrology, although not devoted to the practice. And as a New York City media firestorm brewed over whether his diet is as strictly plant-based as he has professed — it is not, he would later admit — Mayor Eric Adams sat in his workout room at City Hall last week, demonstrating how deep-breathing exercises can help combat adversity.“We all breathe incorrectly because we were never taught breathing,” Mr. Adams declared, perched on a workout bench in his socks, a white T-shirt and yellow and brown striped drawstring pants. There was a stationary bike to his right and 25- and 30-pound weights strewn around him, as he offered instruction on alternate-nostril breathing.“My health routine helped me for this moment,” he said of his crisis-laden first weeks in office. “It’s a balance of my physical and emotional stability.”Mr. Adams is best known nationally as a tough-talking former police captain whose centrist views on battling crime helped catapult him to the mayoralty. But he has also emerged as something of an unconventional wellness influencer — a nutrition and fitness enthusiast with hints of New Age tendencies perhaps not seen in a major political leader since Gov. Jerry Brown of California was known to some as Governor Moonbeam.That reputation took a slight hit last week as Mr. Adams acknowledged that he occasionally ate fish, despite previous denials. The episode was humorously referred to as “Fishgate”; yet it also pointed to the mayor’s sometimes-casual relationship with transparency and the truth, following more serious controversies over residency and tax questions.But as Mr. Adams embraced self-help language in his mea culpa — “I am perfectly imperfect” — he also again demonstrated how vastly his leadership style differs from that of his predecessors.New York City is now run by a man who at once sternly warns against “disorder in my city” and invokes his life coach, delights in cooking demonstrations and cites the “healing powers” of spices.ImageMr. Adams’s commitment to fitness includes occasional bicycle rides to work.Credit...James Estrin/The New York TimesIf aspects of his diet are in doubt, the arc of Mr. Adams’s health journey remains central to his identity. He speaks frequently about his transformation from heavyset police officer (“It’s not a myth: cops like doughnuts”) to healthy lifestyle evangelist. Type 2 diabetes impaired his vision and threatened his health before he embraced a plant-based diet in 2016 that he says reversed the disease.“He credits his adopting a plant-based diet to saving his life,” said City Councilman Justin Brannan. “It’s holistic to the way that he sees the world.”Mr. Adams’s beliefs around health serve as a dominant lens through which he views many of the city’s challenges, from education to government inefficiency.“You go agency by agency, and you watch how this malnourished approach to running our city is destroying our cities,” he said on “The Ezra Klein Show.” He added: “If we stop treating symptoms and treat underlying causes, we can turn around our city.”The governing implications of that outlook were apparent from his first weeks in office, as he practiced meditation with schoolchildren and frequented fast-casual salad spots.Last Thursday, the mayor signed two executive orders related to how the city and city agencies approach healthy food. Days earlier, he unveiled an expansion of lifestyle medicine services in New York, which he said was his top wellness-related priority.And after pressing for Meatless Mondays in schools, hospitals and jails as Brooklyn borough president, Mr. Adams recently heralded the beginning of Vegan Fridays in schools — though some parents have criticized the effort for not being well thought out and appearing nutritionally insubstantial.ImageAt Mr. Adams’s urging, city schools recently began their Vegan Fridays program, so far to mixed reviews.Credit...Michael Loccisano/Getty ImagesFor personal fuel, Mr. Adams keeps a NutriBullet blender in his small City Hall kitchen. Last Monday he whipped up a purplish-brown concoction; typical recipes involve “eitherkale, spinach, blueberries and a few superfood powders,” he said, adding that the search for a plant-based Gracie Mansion chef is ongoing.According to the mayor, he completes “at a minimum” half-hour, mostly in-office workouts. He spends 20 minutes each morning and evening practicing meditation, aided by beaded bracelets to facilitateBy: Katie Glueck
Title: The ‘Zen Mayor’: How Eric Adams Mixes Tough Talk With Spinach Smoothies
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/us/politics/eric-adams-wellness-vegan.html
Published Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2022 10:00:19 +0000
Read More
Did you miss our previous article...
https://badpoliticians.com/us-politics/a-long-island-republican-used-a-mask-rebellion-to-resurrect-his-career
UK PoliticsWorld PoliticsVideosPrivacy PolicyTerms And Conditions
