I know I’ve been talking about the Nike + iPod a lot lately. That’s because they keep impressing me. They are truly the only thing that has kept me running this holiday season. It’s bloody cold outside here in Utah and the treadmill can be mighty boring. I need a little extra incentive to keep my feet moving and Nike + keeps giving it to me. The latest? Nike + New Year’s Resolutions:
By using my Nike + iPod, I can track how many miles I run in January. My resolution?
I stopped going to Weight Watchers a few months ago, but I have honestly had trouble staying motivated. Every time I feel myself slipping, I use the threat of having to go back to the meetings. I learned a lot from Weight Watchers, but I really don’t want to go back to the weekly meetings. If I don’t run 30 miles in January, I have to go back.
Every year, we make them, but do we really hold ourselves to them? This year try something different. Post your New Year’s Resolutions here. Next year, we’ll post our accomplishments!
What do you want to weigh next year?
How fit will you be next year?
How healthy will your diet be?
What habits will you start to have a healthier life?
What emotional support will you enlist in your life to help you live a healthier life?
What will you be like next year?
It might seem a little early for New Year’s Resolutions, but focusing on what you want will help this Christmas be healthier for you. Take a few minutes today and envision what you want to be like next year.
This is a commercial I found on YouTube for the Master Cleanse Lemonade Diet. What these people are trying to sell you is overpriced maple syrup. What they don’t tell you is what being on the Lemonade Diet is really like. I can do that, however…
All I lost was the weight of poo. Seriously, I hate to talk about it so vulgarly, but I lost five pounds while fasting, nothing more, even though I fasted for two weeks. The minute I started eating healthy again, the five pounds came back on.
Worse still, it took weeks of eating healthy and normal for my normal weight loss to resume. The reason why is that fasting puts your body into starvation mode. It takes a couple of weeks of healthy eating to convince your body that you’re NOT starving. Mine, it took a little longer than that.
The good thing is that I was able to survive the fasting experiment without bingeing, but it took a lot of inner workouts to prevent my MIND from going into starvation mode.
Next time you hear about some great diet that will take off five pounds in five days, just know that you aren’t losing five pounds of fat. You’re losing five pounds of water and stool, which will come right back when you go back to a healthy diet. Don’t believe the hype.
Update 03-04-07: I turned off comments on this post. Fasting of any sort is NOT a recommended course of action. Please read these entries on fasting from Quackwatch:
“Short term fasting causes a starvation response that encourages the body to store fat once eating is resumed. This is one of the pitfalls of Yo-yo dieting. The starvation response is the switching of the body from carb fat energy generation to amino acid fat energy generation. The amino acids are synthesised from the breakdown of muscle tissue. Since muscle tissue is always metabolically active and requires energy to exist, the reduction of muscle tissue also reduces the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Basal metabolic rate is the absolute minimum energy requirement of your body while at rest. (Similar to a car’s fuel requirement when idling.) One of the effects of fasting is to reduce the body’s energy needs during times of scarcity (similar to turning the idle lower or replacing a big engine with a small engine). Thus, when the same amount of food is eaten, less of the calories are required for basal metabolism, the rest (a greater percentage than before the fast) is stored as fat.”
The people who have been commenting on this entry seem very well-intentioned, but are not qualified medical professionals. Taking their advise is not recommended.
I don’t know why you can only get clementines during Christmas. It seems counter-intuitive to me, but when those little orange citrus show up in my grocery store, I’m the first to buy a box. The reason I love clementines so much is because they are EASY to peel. I hate peeling oranges, but clementine peels come off in one easy pull. They are also sweet compared to other citrus fruits. Sweeter than an orange and half its size.
Best of all, they are low in calories. They average 35 calories a fruit, so I can eat two of them for one Weight Watchers Point. Of course, I need to eat two for them to count as a fruit to check off, but I’m alright with that. They taste good and they are low maintenance.
It’s clementine season and it only last a month or so, so get out there and get some. If you have been struggling eating enough fruits and vegetables, here is a welcome addition to your diet. You only get them once a year, so enjoy them while they’re here.
Tom Mangan lived in California for five years before he realized that he was near some of the best trails in the country. Now, he regularly blogs about his hikes, other people’s hikes and the beautiful scenery on the way. I found his weblog to be inspiring and motivating.
Next time you’re dreading working out, remember, you probably live within 30 minutes of a nature trail. Take the drive and take a hike. Your exercise routine will feel like an enjoyable experience instead of a chore of drudgery.
When I first got my Nike +, I noticed the feature in their software to challenge your friends to a race. I thought it was really cool, but I didn’t have any friends with a Nike +, so I just ignored it. After reading the forums, however, I noticed that Nike had set up a whole section of their running forums to find people to race with on challenges. Just in case you missed it, too, here’s the link:
I have to admit that this has become my favorite feature of the Nike + software. I did my walk this morning and as soon as I was done, I ran to the computer to sync my iPod with the computer. As soon as it was finished, I logged onto Nike + to see how I rated on the challenges I’m participating in. For the first time ever, I was in second place. Of course, all of that could change the minute the other challengers sync their iPods, but for a brief moment, I am in second place. I took a screen shot of it just to remember it!
I have had a really hard time with motivation to exercise lately. I had set up goal after goal on my Nike +. I made them really easy goals. All I had to do was run three times a week and I would make it, but it just wasn’t working for me. The minute I joined these challenges, my motivation sky-rocketed. I would look at a runner who was maybe one or two people in front of me and I would try to beat their mileage. My competitive streak just kicked into full gear right in the middle of the Christmas season. Whoever said that it was hard to keep up with your exercise program in December hasn’t been challenged on Nike + yet.
If you have a Nike +, you’re really doing yourself a disservice not joining a challenge or two. If you don’t already have one, I’ll be honest, you don’t need one. You don’t need an iPod, Nike + or even high tech sportswear to stay fit this winter. All you need is the will to do it. Try challenging a friend to log your runs by hand. See who can run the furthest from now until New Year’s. Get a jump on your New Year’s Resolution and start exercising now!
This just in from Jim in Tampa, Florida, Bike-O-Vision has created a series of DVDs that allow you to envision riding the world on your bike. They are very similar to my walking DVDs. You ride your exercise bike in front of your television and watch the beautiful scenery go by. It’s like really being there, except you don’t have to freeze in the cold or sweat it out in the humid heat.
It’s great to see that other companies are doing the same thing. I haven’t been able to record bicycle rides because the vibration is so intense that the video was unwatchable. I’m so glad that a professional company is getting this footage and making it available to all of us!
“Let’s just say the Enviga is true to it’s word and the increased energy expenditure actually leads to fat burning. According to Nestle you need to drink 3 cans per day. So, to burn 1 pound of fat (3,500 Calories) you would need to drink 105 bottles of Enviga over 35 days. That amounts to $147 (average $1.40 per can).
“Enviga is sweetened with aspartame and ace-k. At 3 cans a day – that’s a lot of aspartame going down the hatch.
“This isn’t a weight loss wonder – but simply a stepping stone in a market where carbonated drink sales have been falling.”
Remember, weight loss is big business and companies think we are stupid. Don’t fall for it. Just because they slap a label on something telling you that it will make you lose weight, doesn’t mean it will or that it’s good for you.
A lot of us are trying to eat healthy while we are out Christmas shopping. That can leave us confused and hungry at the mall food court.
What do you eat when you are out shopping?
How do you compensate for it?
Do you pack your own food with you, or risk things at the food court?
What are the healthiest options?
You don’t have to sacrifice health at “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” It’s possible to eat healthy on the go. I want to hear how you have done it.
Svetol is a green coffee extract that is supposed to help with weight loss. The websites promoting it say:
“Clinical studies demonstrate the twin actions of Svetol:
-The slimming action results from a decline of the body mass index which leads to weight management. The results of the study show a reduction in weight of 5.7% after taking the supplements for 2 months.
-The shapelier body contour results for an increase in lean body mass and reduction in fat. The results of the study show an increase of the LM/FM ratio of 4%.”
They are quick to use words such as “clinical studies” and “reduction in weight”, but I can’t find anything online to show the results of the studies, whether they were performed by a reputable facility and whether they were double blind. Without this information, there is really NO PROOF that Svetol does anything but take your money away. Remember, don’t spend any money on a nutritional supplement that hasn’t jumped through the hoops and proved what they are saying.
That doesn’t mean that nutritional supplement manufacturers aren’t going to jump on Svetol like it’s the best thing in the world. Expect to see lots of products with Svetol included like, CoffeeSlender, which is an instant coffee containing the extract. Considering how eager food manufacturers are to put “weight reducing” supplements into EVERYTHING (Remember chromiumn?), let’s just hope it doesn’t poison people or cause horrible side-effects like ephedra did.
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Here is a great review of Enviga, the purported “negative calorie” drink from the Coca-Cola company.
