Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

This video is Not Safe For Work (NSFW). Okay, there was NOTHING in this video that offended me, but these days, it seems like any Internet surfing offends employers…

This video shows women posing with household appliances in sexually suggestive positions and double entrendres flashed to their side. No one would have even noticed this video if it wasn’t for one thing:

The women are amply endowed.

Some people are calling it sexist crap, others are feeling empowered that plus-sized women could be shown in such a sexually positive light. The true irony of this song is the chorus keeps repeating over and over, “She’s so skinny.”

What do I think?

All I can think is, “Man, where can I find those clothes because I want to look that sexy!!”

How do you feel about it? It seems to have touched a nerve with people…

Via: Big Fat Blog: Lighten Up, Skinny

Here it is. I tested the Nintendo Wii with my heart rate monitor. We played Wii Sports, Monkey Ball Banana Blitz and Rayman Raving Rabbids. This commercial gives you a pretty good idea of how much movement you will be doing when you play. There is a scene where the mom is running in the game and she can’t help but move her feet. That exact thing happened to me. We were playing Rayman and I had to run as fast as I could to deliver a bomb to a bunny instead of letting it blow up in my face. You run by moving your arms up and down as if you’re jogging. You could do it sitting down, but you really are faster if you stand up. I couldn’t help but run in place. Mike said, “You don’t need to move your feet.” I shouted back, “Shut up!” and got the fastest time of anyone else. Moving your feet makes you move faster too and my heart rate monitor read 129 bpm.

On the whole, however, most of the games didn’t get my heart rate any higher than it was while I sat on the couch watching others play. Tennis, bowling and baseball on Wii Sports didn’t really do anything for me. The boxing, however, got my heart rate up to 127 bpm. It was a little frustrating, however, because it didn’t feel like my punching in the air had anything to do with what was happening on the screen. Worse still, Dan knocked me out in only three rounds. I hate to lose.

Monkey Ball Banana Blitz sucks. Sorry… I really hate to say it because I have LOVED Monkey Ball on the Xbox, but the mini-games are NOT intutitive at all. They really didn’t use the Wii controller well. None of the games got my heart rate up at all except the Monkey Boxing. Ironically, the Monkey Boxing was way more responsive than the boxing on Wii Sports. If you like boxing, I would totally recommend Monkey Ball. Every time I threw a punch, my monkey moved it’s arms. It may not have hit the other monkey, but it at least tried, which is more than I can say for the responsiveness of the Wii Sports boxing.

The hands down favorite, however, is Rayman Raving Rabbids. From cow throwing to shooting bunnies, it was the most fun. It didn’t bring my heart rate up at all except on “Bunnies Don’t Give Gifts” where I had to sprint with the bomb and the “Bunnies Don’t Know What To Do With Cows.” If Rayman wasn’t a cardio workout, it definitely did something for my arms because the next day, Mike, Dan and I had arm soreness. Stacey was tough, but I think she works in at an insurance company where she has to lift thousands of claim forms every day or something…

On the whole, the Wii Workout isn’t that great. It’s not quite intense enough to get your heart rate up for an extended period of time and it isn’t too much of a muscle workout. Is it exergaming? Not really… Is it better than any other gaming console for getting you out of the couch? Heck yeah!

What would you do if you could just start walking and just keep on walking for thousands of miles through North Carolina’s natural beauty? You would find yourself on the Mountains to Sea Trail.

• N.C. Mountains to Sea Trail wins award – Yahoo! News

Although it’s not completed it recently won the Steward for the Environment Award from REI. The idea of being able to start on a path and just keep walking until you hit the ocean is beautiful to me. There are a couple of trails like this planned all across the United States. There just might be a local trail in your area that might be good enough for a winter walk in the snow. It might not be 1000 miles, but then again, how often are we able to walk 1000 miles?

For More Information:

• FMST: Friends of the Mountains to Sea Trail

• REI Stewards for the Environment 2006

Winter makes me want soup and sandwiches, but I can only eat tomato soup three ways: plain, with skim milk and with Mexican spices. Min Jung Kim gives us the recipe for her Pumpkin Curry Soup that looks delicious and healthy.

• MinJungKim.com – Braindump v 5.0 » MJ’s Awesome Pumpkin Curry Soup Recipe

One word of warning, the Golden Curry spices are a little high in fat, so make sure you take that into account when you are calculating your caloric intake. On another note, it’s completely worth it. I’ve never been able to spice things up right without Golden Curry. You should be able to find it in your grocery store with the Asian cuisine. If not, you can order it online here:

• S&B – Golden Curry Sauce Mix

If the cold weather has made you rushing indoor for soup, here is a recipe for you that will warm your mouth and belly.

Valerie from iPortion was the first to send me a link to this video game bike controller.

• I Make Projects – VR Bike Simulator

I was so excited about it, but the specifications looked out of my league, so I emailed Mike, my personal hack-king. This project is very clever, but the components probably won’t stand up to heavy duty use. If you ride your exercise bike as much as I do during the winter, then you’ll probably have to reattach or readjust parts of this controller from time to time. You may even need to replace the most vulnerable components with repeated use.

More importantly, my house is very small, so my exercise bike sits in the living room. There’s no way that I’m going to let a Frankenstein video game controller sit in the living room with the Christmas tree and the puffy pillows. Sadly, I’m far too vain to even try this really cool controller, but that doesn’t mean that people with bigger houses can’t make something like this work. It might be ugly, but it looks like it works pretty well.

The question of the week comes from a comment from a reader:

Hi all.

I’m heading into week 4 of the WW plan with the girls from work. So far it’s going well, but I’m finding it hard with the holiday approaching. I’m getting sick of smart pop popcorn, and find myself craving things I never did before. Does anyone know some good snack ideas that are low points for the holidays?

Sally

What do you do when the feeling to snack hits you? Do you choose items that are low in calories so you can eat a lot or do you choose a small serving of a beloved food?

Help Sally out and leave your ideas on the comments here.

Elaine left this post on my entry about Nike clothes being so elitist:

• Starling Fitness » Why I’m Angry At Nike

“I have this experience every time I go to REI and most of the outdoor shops locally, not so much with tops as with bottoms. What, a woman with some hips can’t go hiking?

“I really need a pair of rain pants to keep cycling in the fall/winter, and I’m totally dreading the experience. (Suggestions welcome, actually.)”

The cool thing about REI (unlike Nike) is that they listen. They left this comment on Elaine’s weblog:

• emergency weblog » links for 2006-11-14

“I read a commentary of yours from 9/3 regarding REI not having any rainpants to fit you (Why I’m Angry at Nike). Please keep your eyes open at REI (especially REI.com) beginnig in Jan. 2007! I hope you will be pleased. If you have any questions please email me – I am personally working on this project. Take care!”

Next time you feel hopeless about the way you’re being treated, remember Elaine’s experience. She let the world know what she needed and the world listened and responded.

A big kudo to REI for releasing plus-sized exercise wear!

That was the email that was one of the 130 emails I had to wade through when I got back from my trip to Vegas. It was from Self Magazine, and the email didn’t actually say anything about a healing yoga routine that Jennifer Aniston loves. It had a few dorky tips about having a positive attitude about exercise and avoiding winter sniffles. Mostly, it was just trying to get me to subscribe to Self Magazine again.

I’m not.

The last three magazines went right into the recycle bin without even opening them. Why? Do I suddenly hate Self Magazine now? No. They’re okay. They keep saying the same things over and over again, but they aren’t really evil. They have a pretty positive attitude about body, diet and health. My only problem is that I just am sick of reading the same articles. It’s not like they are recycling their stories, but how many times can you say eat less and exercise more without sounding like a broken record?

I also don’t like the articles that promise to flatten my belly in six weeks. They aren’t really realistic. The exercise routines just seem like a fashion photo shoot for exercise clothes instead of actual workouts. Not only that, they send me email with titles like, “Try the healing yoga routine Jen Aniston loves.” Jennifer Aniston is a beautiful woman, but I really don’t think the yoga routine that she does will make my body look like hers. We’re two different people. Sure, it would be nice to be as fit as she is, but a simple yoga routine in an email isn’t going to get me there. Worse still, they didn’t even include the routine in the email…

I just got back from a quick trip to Vegas. Rather than brave the Christmas shopping, we hit Sin City. I saw this commercial for Carl’s Jr. before we left. To our surprise, The Palms actually offers the Carl’s Jr. meal on their room service menu. If Sin City has everything for everyone, why is it so hard to get a healthy meal there? I guess healthy eating doesn’t really fall into the category of sin, does it?

Via: SupersizedMeals.com – The Carl’s Jr. $6,000 combo meal

The Diet Blog has a funny article about the advertising for a cookie from Japan that is supposed to help you lose weight.

• The Okara Cookie

The English translation accentuates the hilarity of eating cookies to lose weight:

“The most effective way to diet is to eat Okara cookies instead of usual supper. However, it is a serious thing isn’t it? First of all, we encourage to eat cookies for the breakfast.”

The poor English aside, Okara cookies aren’t very different from meal replacement shakes or protein bars. Skewing full meals prepared with fresh, whole foods in favor of processed shakes or bars has never worked for me. I always feel more hungry after a diet shake than I did if I had eaten the same number of calories in “real” food. The awkward translation just makes it more obvious.

Next time you are tempted by meal replacement shakes, bars or even Japanese soy cookies, remember that there is no replacement for healthy food. It may take a little longer to prepare or require that you plan ahead, but your health is worth it. You deserve a little extra preparation and planning. Give it to yourself.