March 2006 Archives
Strength is
"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands--and then just eat one of the pieces." - Judith Viorst
I am so weak 
Reward Thyself
via msn.com
Dieting a total struggle for you? How about exercise? Yep, you and most of the planet. However, there is one simple way to turn it around—a reward system. We do it with our pets, our kids, even our employees, but almost never with ourselves. Commit those goals to paper, and combine each milestone with a (non-food) treat. Lose three pounds—buy that new CD you want. Exercise three times a week—you deserve a massage! Benefits abound.
I'm not good at doing the reward thing, but I've read other losers treating themselves to a mini treat here and there for each 5 or 10lbs lost milestone.
Best Drink for Working Out
This may seem disgusting, but the next time you finish a sweat-inducing workout at the gym or a hard run in the neighborhood park, skip the sports drink. To refuel your muscles reach for a tall, icy cold glass of...
Chocolate Milk!
:O
Chocolate lovers of the world rejoice!
"Chocolate milk contains an optimal carbohydrate to protein ratio, which is critical for helping refuel tired muscles after strenuous exercise and can enable athletes to exercise at a high intensity during subsequent workouts."The study: Nine cyclists biked until their muscles were depleted of energy, rested four hours and then biked again until exhaustion. They did this three separate times. During the rest period, the cyclists drank one of three beverages: low-fat chocolate milk, a traditional fluid replacement sports drink or a carbohydrate replacement sports drink.
The results: During the second round of exercise, the researchers found that the cyclists who drank chocolate milk during the rest period were able to bike nearly twice as long before reaching exhaustion than those who consumed the carbohydrate replacement drink and just as long as those who consumed the fluid replacement drink.
Why? The researchers theorize that the combination of carbohydrates and protein found in chocolate milk is what helped enhance the cyclists' performance and suggest that flavored milk may be an optimal beverage for refueling muscles after exercise. In addition to its ideal combination of carbohydrates and protein, flavored milk contains seven other essential nutrients that are important for an athlete's health, including bone-building calcium. No other sports drink contains the nutrient package found in flavored milk. Chocolate milk is also cheaper than commercial sports drinks. The study findings were published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. [source]
Off to stack up on chocolate. Er. Milk. Chocolate milk. Right. ;)
Gail Sheehy
"If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we are not really living. Growth demands a temporary surrender of security." – Gail Sheehy
FFYFC Week 10
I'm so proud of you all. You made it to week #10. Only one thing left to do, finish. 
Week 10’s goals:
Team Beginner:
This week you'll walk a total of 2 miles or 32 minutes, four days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles or +2 minutes
Team Intermediate:
This week you'll walk a total of 3.25 miles or 50 minutes, five days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles or +2 minutes
Team Advanced:
This week you'll walk a total of 4 miles or 60 minutes, five days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles or +4 minutes
*5 minute warm up & cool down not included in total walk time. Track yourself by either miles walked or minutes done.
Weight loss goal: 1lb
Tell us these five things:
1. What team you are on
2. State your walking commitment
3. Declare that you will lose 1lb this week
4. Total walks you did last week
5. lbs, if any, lost last week
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After you've logged your goals, use this post to log your progress throughout Week 10 or you can wait till the end of the week and do it all in one swoop. It will be stay pinned at the top of the site until next Monday. Current entries appear below.
March 26th Birthday
Debbie over @ Decreasing Debbie.
& her bday twin, Sarah over @ Living to Feel Good.
They share their special day with Dirty Dancing's Baby, Jennifer Grey and Liv Tyler's pops, aka Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.
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No. 1 Body Shape for Women
Rectangle.
WTF?
46 percent of women are shaped like a rectangle where their bust and hips are the same size and waist is less than nine inches smaller.
Uh huh.
Then we have the Spoon or pear.
20 percen have hip measurements at least two inches larger than the bust.
Then the inverted triangles of the world make up 14 percent. This group has bust sizes that are three or more inches larger than the hips.
And finally the hourglass, which is 8 percent of the group. Their bust and hip measurements are nearly equal with a narrow waist.
Not feeling like you've been represented? There's also the triangle, the bottom hourglass and the top hourglass.
Will wonders never cease.
According to Dr. Cindy Istook, the study's lead researcher and an associate professor of textile and apparel technology and management,
"What we're trying to do now is get manufacturers and retailers to understand the idea that people really are different shapes," Istook says. "If we can serve the top four groups, we would have almost 90 percent of the market covered. Right now, the industry is serving less than 90 percent because of the sizing system that's based on the hourglass."
March 24th Birthday
Whitters over @ Polyester Poundage - Fierce and hot, dammit. Fierce and hot!. Ironically she shares her special day with two extremes in the weight world, Lara Flynn Boyle & Star Jones.
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Not too late
The 2006 SELF Challenge is an easy, supereffective three-month exercise and eat-right plan. It's our 10th year and we've added new tools, tips and treats to help you get your best body—FREE! Sign up now to be entered to win today's prize PLUS a grand-prize trip for two to St. Bart's, even before you slip on your sports bra. The Challenge has helped thousands of women lose weight, ban jiggle and go two-piece at the beach. We've made it easier than ever to get the support you need with an unlimited buddy list!
Easy Way for Teens to Lose Weight
Teenagers who give up the sugar-sweetened soft drinks for the diet version are likely to lose weight, reports Reuters of a new study from Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass. [source]
To which I'm sure most teens will respond, "Well duuuhhhhh!"
Belly or Butt
Belly or Butt: Which Is Better? What does your body shape say about you? It reveals more than you may know!
Ah...when I first read this teaser blurb, I thought they meant which body part do I like better and it may be a cultural thing, but I was thinking I'd rather have a big ole butt than a big ole gut. Till I read further....
Belly: Women who gain weight around their middle--the classic apple shape--are more likely to develop heart disease, diabetes, and breast cancer.Butt: Women who gain weight around their buttocks, hips, and thighs--the pear shape--are more susceptible to osteoporosis. [source]
Yea, I still say butt.
March 20th Birthday
Queta she's site-less but a mindreader. Wish her well in your head and she'll hear you 
. She shares her special day with Mr. Do the Right Thing himself, Spike Lee.
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FFYFC Week 9
Two months behind us, many miles walked, the end is near. Don't look now, but you are working out 30 minutes, 3 times a week. 
Week 9’s goals:
Team Beginner:
This week you'll walk a total of 1.75 miles or 30 minutes, four days.
Increase from last week: none
Team Intermediate:
This week you'll walk a total of 3 miles or 48 minutes, five days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles or +4 minutes
Team Advanced:
This week you'll walk a total of 3.75 miles or 56 minutes, five days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles or +3 minutes
*5 minute warm up & cool down not included in total walk time. Track yourself by either miles walked or minutes done.
Weight loss goal: 1lb
Tell us these five things:
1. What team you are on
2. State your walking commitment
3. Declare that you will lose 1lb this week
4. Total walks you did last week
5. lbs, if any, lost last week
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After you've logged your goals, use this post to log your progress throughout Week 7 or you can wait till the end of the week and do it all in one swoop. It will be stay pinned at the top of the site until next Monday. Current entries appear below.
March 18th Birthday
Jodi over @ The Gigglepuss Chronicles - I'm just another gal blabbering my way through my weight loss journey.. She shares her special day with Fame alumni Irene Cara.
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Sleep eating and more
This week we learned:
- The residents of Portland, Oregon reside in the best city for walking.
- You may not be surprised to find out there is a new study that links the Atkins way of eating to a possible health risk:
Doctors from New York University wrote in The Lancet journal of a 40-year-old woman who developed a dangerous condition called ketoacidosis, a dangerous buildup of acids called ketones in the blood which can lead to patients falling into a coma.
- And finally, if you take Ambien, you may very well be packing on the lbs, in your sleep!! [source]
Be safe folks!
Percolating
An off-hours post to give an update on the state of the site and make note of a few things.
- Due to the fact that I have a few things I’m working on I want to have finalized, I haven’t yet updated the directory news section or sent out a newsletter for this month.
- There hasn’t been a giveaway since January I have one more book to give out and another one should be here in a few weeks. Those are on tap for May and June prizes. What about April? See below.
- I’ve teamed up with a company and we’ll be running a really cool contest/giveaway in April.
- There’ll be new site content staring in April as well, more later and in the newsletter.
- Also by April all the outdated sections will be updated, there’s been great growth in the directory in the last month I want to make a note of.
- Finally, the status of The Year Long Fitness Challenge, I’ll still run it, but it won’t be as prominent. All the challenge downloads will remain, I’ll create another section of the site and move them all there and off the front page. Each Sunday I’ll post what’s ahead for the current week, but I won’t do the challenge check-ins nor keep anything challenge related posts pinned to the top of the site.
The truth is, running a group challenge in this manner is quite a bit of work for me each week. If I had a larger dedicated group, the time I put into it would make sense. As it stands, for the last month, only 2 people were checking in each week. For a group that size, I’d much rather run an offline challenge via email.
But it was for the best. I got a great learning experience that I plan to use for other on and offline ideas. I know of at least 2 people, publicly at least, who got something out of this. And for everyone else that trickled away from week 1 to week 8, well, they learned things like this don’t suit them. And who knows, maybe it gave them ideas for something else that ended up jumpstarting their fitness goals. So hey, we all win :)
That’s about it for now. Stay tuned for everything else. I’ll have more details to share by the first week in April; members of the newsletter will get the detailed news first. Again book giveaways start back up for May and June.
Then in July, things may slow down as I have some major personal changes ahead that’ll take up quite a bit off my time offline, but because I plan ahead, the site won’t go blank, just quieter.
As always, thanks for visiting and participating in whatever manner you have been.
Freeze
Be F.A.T.
I know we are fatfighers, but in this case, I like their use of F.A.T.
Mo'Nique's F.A.T. Chance Full-Figured Beauty CompetitionIf you're a larger than life beauty queen, we want you!
Oxygen is looking for 10 full-figured women to star in our 2nd Annual reality TV beauty competition, Mo'Nique's F.A.T. Chance… the winner of which will be crowned America's newest "Miss F.A.T."--that’s Fabulous And Thick!
Want a piece of the plus-sized action? More info
they have a movement too.
Not just women
In Best Life magazine, Hollywood hunk Dennis Quaid revealed that during the mid '90s he suffered from anorexia. At the time he lost 40lbs for the role of Wyatt Earp in Doc Holiday.
"My arms were so skinny that I couldn't pull myself out of a pool," Quaid admits, describing what he suffered from as "manorexia." "I wasn't bulimic, but I could understand what people go through with that."
He also appears to have suffered from distorted body image.
"I'd look in the mirror and still see a 180-lb. guy, even though I was 138 pounds," he says.
He tells the magazine:
"For many years, I was obsessed about what I was eating, how many calories it had, and how much exercise I'd have to do."
I've always heard in passing that a percentage of men also suffer from eating disorders. To this day, my mother swears Brad Pitt has anorexia. After seeing Ocean's 12 she couldn't stop commenting on how gaunt he looked. I can't really see that stuff, not to say it's a relief that men suffer from this crap too, but maybe if it proven that it hits both sexes, treatment won't be casually dismissed as a "woman" thing.
As for Dennis, today he is still trim but with one difference, he is fit. I'll forgive him for Jaws 3-D ;)
Jack Dixon
"If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results."
FFYFC Week 8
Feet don't fail us now, we are walking into month #2. Who knew? 
Week 8’s goals:
Team Beginner:
This week you'll walk a total of 1.75 miles or 30 minutes, four days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles or +5 minutes, +1 more day
Team Intermediate:
This week you'll walk a total of 2.75 miles or 44 minutes, five days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles or +2 minutes, +1 more day
Team Advanced:
This week you'll walk a total of 3.5 miles or 53 minutes, five days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles or +2 minutes, +1 more day
*5 minute warm up & cool down not included in total walk time. Track yourself by either miles walked or minutes done.
Weight loss goal: 1lb
Tell us these five things:
1. What team you are on
2. State your walking commitment
3. Declare that you will lose 1lb this week
4. Total walks you did last week
5. lbs, if any, lost last week
********
After you've logged your goals, use this post to log your progress throughout Week 8 or you can wait till the end of the week and do it all in one swoop. It will be stay pinned at the top of the site until next Sunday. Current entries appear below.
March 12th Birthday
Toshiko over @ [redacted]. She shares her special day with showbiz great Liza Minnelli.
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March 11th Birthday
Quanita over @ Taking up Less Qspace. She shares her special day with the the coolest girl eva Lisa Loeb!
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Don't skip meals
Next time you’re tempted to blow off breakfast (or lunch or dinner), don’t. By under eating, your body shifts into “emergency” mode, thinking that starvation is sure to follow. Fat storage-related enzymes are triggered, waiting for the next food to come down the pike so they can pack the nutrition away for later use. New studies have also shown that people who skip meals tend to be more inclined to crave both salty and sugary foods (read: junk).
I am a walking example of this. Oy.
Change your mind to change your body
How’s your New Year’s fitness resolution coming along? If your exercise plan is still on track, congrats! But now into the third month of 2006, plenty of people who rang in the year with a commitment to shape up are probably sitting it out instead.
With statistics showing that more than half of people who embark on a new exercise plan drop it within three to six months, many who resolved to work out more this year will have fallen off the fitness wagon by swimsuit season.
“Motivation and commitment can rapidly evaporate,” says sport psychologist Jim Gavin, who reviewed the latest findings on exercise psychology in the February issue of the IDEA Fitness Journal, a publication targeted to exercise instructors and personal trainers.
In our overscheduled world, lack of time is often cited as a key reason for not exercising. But Gavin, a professor of applied human sciences at Concordia University in Montreal, says that changing the way you think about exercise can help you to work it into a busy lifestyle.
Some mental strategies can even train your brain to enjoy — or at least not totally loathe — physical activity.
“Your psyche can really help you and it can really hurt you,” says Jenny Susser, a sports psychologist at the Women’s Sports Medicine Center at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.
Here’s how to change your mindset about fitness:
Realize it’s OK to hate gyms
To get fit, you don't necessarily have to get in your car, drives miles to a gym, change, work out, shower, get dressed and drive home. That’s our modern-day idea of fitness but the truth is that you don’t have to set foot in a gym if you don’t want to.
Many people are too intimidated by the club scene to ever do so, says Susser.
“Walking into a gym where you don’t know anybody can be just like walking into a bar or job where you don’t know anybody,” Susser says. Plus, gym newbies may not feel comfortable with their bodies, their clothes or the equipment. The end result: a wasted club membership.
You may be better off spending some of that money on a few sessions with an in-home trainer who can jumpstart your fitness plan, she notes.
It’s also OK if you don’t LOVE to work out
There are things we have to do that we don’t necessarily always like, but we do them anyway. Take work, for instance. “Just because you’re a CEO doesn’t mean you’re dying to go to work,” says Susser.
As an All-American college swimmer at UCLA, Susser trained 30 hours a week. “There were definitely days when I’d have rather stayed in bed,” she says.
But while you may not always look forward to working out, you should try to find activities that you enjoy participating in. That will help motivate you to keep moving.
Remember your childhood
You knew psychologists would ask you to search deep into your past, didn’t you? Well, here’s a good reason: Chances are you actually liked — maybe even loved — physical activity when you were a kid.
“Joy in movement is something you see in children when they move spontaneously,” says Gavin. “We don’t do that as adults.”
Instead, we tend to zone out on treadmills in front of a bank of TVs. And how fun is that? That image turns off a lot of couch potatoes.
“It doesn’t look like joy and fun,” says Gavin. “When people mentally think of being active, that’s where their mind goes. Modern-day fitness is uninteresting to a lot of people. It’s essentially repetitious, monotonous activity as it’s normally practiced.”
So try to put some spontaneity back into your fitness: frolic with the kids at the park; meander along the beach or a lake; or play some of your favorite childhood games such as badminton or hopscotch.
Liken exercise to brushing your teeth
You brush your teeth out of habit. Try to approach exercise with that same mindset, says Craig Wrisberg, president of the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology and a professor of sport psychology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
“The main thing is to make it a regular routine,” Wrisberg says, “just like brushing your teeth.”
If you view physical activity as a key component of a healthy lifestyle, he says, you’ll be less likely to blow it off.
Change your vocabulary
Hate to exercise? Try to not think of it that way.
“Take the word ‘exercise’ and put it in the garbage can,” says Gavin. “It’s a word that has a lot of negative connotations.” He even goes so far as to call it “noxious.”
People often say they hate to exercise. But it’s harder to object to the terms “physical activity” or “movement.”
Exercise is a loaded word that’s often equated with going to the gym or jogging, activities that coach potatoes aren’t keen on, Gavin says. But you don’t have to hit the gym or jog miles to get benefit.
Instead, think about simply getting more movement in your daily life, he advises, such as by walking, biking, gardening or even house-cleaning. It all adds up.
Take the long view
Fitness programs often fail because people have a "one-shot wonder mentality" in which they want immediate results or else they quit, says Wrisberg.
But exercise does not produce dramatic results overnight — or even in just a couple of months. If you were banking on losing lots of weight from January till now, or getting a super-sculpted bod, you just haven't put in enough time. So stay the course.
In the meantime, notice how much better you feel after you exercise. The feel-good effect can be short-lived, but some regular exercisers thrive on it, says Susser.
“I think you get psychologically hooked," she says. "There’s such a sense of power from exercise and sport — not just the competition but the physicality of pushing yourself.”
Research shows that while beginning exercisers are generally motivated by physical goals, over time people are more motivated by how physical activity makes them feel.
"Once people get to the point where they find that activity or couple of activities that work for them, they get sort of a positive addiction,” Wrisberg says. "Getting people to that point is the challenge of exercise psychology. We’re not sure exactly when it happens but it can happen.” [source]
Burn More Calories
changeonediet.com has come up with easy ways to boost your metabolism, or the rate at which you burn calories. They've also thrown in ideas for cranking up the calorie burn of your workout -- without making it longer. Taken together, these tips should be more than enough to shift your weight loss out of neutral and move it full speed ahead again.
1. Sip green tea three times a day.
2. Use interval training to rev up your workout.
3. Fidget.
4. Keep a small squeeze ball with you and work out your hands frequently during the day.
5. Don't starve yourself.
6. Put five rubber bands around your wrist every morning. That's how many 16-ounce bottles of water you should drink during the day to rev your metabolism, helping burn more calories.
7. Exercise outside.
8. Turn up the heat with hot peppers.
9. Eat five small meals throughout the day instead of three large meals.
10. Sip a couple of cups of coffee throughout the day.
11. Don't get discouraged because you've been yo-yo dieting.
12. Walk with intent -- and intensity.
13. Bump up the protein in your diet.
Read the details on why each tip works here.
Of all the tips, I like 1, 2, 6, 9 and 13 the most. I'm not a coffee drinker so that's out. Hot and spicy foods drain my sinuses so that's out too. But I can find a way to incorporate the rest. I am relieved to read #11 and learn that:
Don't get discouraged because you've been yo-yo dieting. Somehow the myth got started that if you've spent your life losing and gaining the same 10 or 20 pounds, your metabolism gets out of whack and winds up slower than an airport security line. Don't believe it. When researchers reviewed 43 studies on the topic, they found no difference in the metabolic rates of yo-yo dieters versus those of everyone else
There's hope yet 
Best exercise for belly fat
Women who lift weights just twice a week for an hour can fight middle-age spread, that buildup of tummy fat that seems to take hold--and rarely let go--as we age, reports The Associated Press of new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Best of all, they flattened their tummies without dieting.
The study: More than 160 overweight and obese women between the ages of 24 and 44 were divided into two groups. One group participated in a two-year weight-training program using both free weights and machines with a focus on the chest, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps, lower back, buttocks and thighs. The other group was given a brochure that recommended they exercise 30 minutes to 60 minutes a day most days of the week. Neither group was asked to change their diets in a way that would lead to weight loss, reports Reuters.
The results: Those who lifted weights for two years experienced a 7 percent increase in intra-abdominal fat, compared with a 21 percent increase among the group that was given exercise advice. Even more encouraging, the weightlifters decreased their body fat percentage by almost 4 percent, while the other group remained about the same. [source]
Fat tax on Soda
One of every five calories in the American diet is liquid. The nation’s single biggest "food" is soda, and nutrition experts have long demonized it.In reports to be published in science journals this week, two groups of researchers hope to add evidence to the theory that soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks don’t just go hand-in-hand with obesity, but actually cause it. Not that these drinks are the only cause — genetics, exercise and other factors are involved — but that they are one cause, perhaps the leading cause.
[snip]
Nutrition experts want 'fat tax' on sugar-sweetened drinks [source]
Even when I was a big soda drinker, up to 3 Cokes a day, I was never a fan of the diet stuff, it seemed to lack the kick. I don't see how they can pull off taxing soda though.
Comment Spam
Early last week the site was flooded with comment spam so I installed a new plugin to nip it in the bud, it automatically closes comments older than 5 days or any entry that has been inactive for 3. But now I can't figure out how to reopen them, that's why the comment was closed on that entry Angie. I changed the days to 7, and that should take care of entries closing too soon.
Welcome Terri, it's not too late to join, another round will start in the middle of April, so you can go through the motions till then, just to get a feel of it, or jump right in.
Thanks for the feedback on the group challenge incentive, I'm still thinking over the best and fairest way to do it, if I even do it at all. Family situation has been taken care of, regular daily posting shall continue on Monday, hope you all had a good week 
FFYFC Week 7
Lucky us, here comes week 7. 
Starting this week, the weekly post will include both the goals for the week and stay pinned at the top for checking in.
Week 7’s goals:
Team Beginner:
This week you'll walk a total of 1.5 miles or 25 minutes, three - four days.
Increase from last week: none
Team Intermediate:
This week you'll walk a total of 2.5 miles or 42 minutes, four - five days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles or +4 minutes
Team Advanced:
This week you'll walk a total of 3.25 miles or 51 minutes, four - five days.
Increase from last week: +.25 miles
*5 minute warm up & cool down not included in total walk time. Track yourself by either miles walked or minutes done.
Weight loss goal: 1lb
Tell us these five things:
1. What team you are on
2. State your walking commitment
3. Declare that you will lose 1lb this week
4. Total walks you did last week
5. lbs, if any, lost last week
********
After you've logged your goals, use this post to log your progress throughout Week 7 or you can wait till the end of the week and do it all in one swoop. It will be stay pinned at the top of the site until next Monday. Current entries appear below.
