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

A lot of research is being done on something called Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, or NEAT. It is being performed by a doctor, James A. Levine, M.D. You can see the Mayo Clinic abstracts here:

• The Mayo Clinic – About NEAT

The idea is that it is possible to burn a lot of calories over the day just by fidgeting. Being unable to sit still is actually a good thing when it comes to staying thin. His philosophy is that moving around throughout your day is a way to keep healthy and strong. He hasn’t proved it yet, but he is working on it right now with research.

Until then, how can we fidget productively?

• Every few minutes get up from your desk and walk around the office. Get a glass of water, go to the bathroom or even just stand up and jog in place. If you are tied to your desk, you can still just stand up and stretch.

• Set up an elevated desk in which you can work by sitting or standing.

• We worry so much about efficiency. Stop it. If it takes you three trips to the counter to get what you need, that’s actually better than getting it all in one trip.

• Bounce your leg while you’re sitting. Lift your arms over your head and stretch every few minutes. Roll your shoulders. Any activity burns a few calories. Take the times when your computer is loading a page, compiling a program or saving a document to fidget.

I’m sure Dr. Levine will have an entire program to teach you how to fidget productively and burn calories while you work. Until then, just remember to keep moving.

V is a freelance architect who wanted to have a healthier life. She saw the treadputer ideas and decided to try it on her own. Documenting her journey (and the cost) she has started her own weblog about the process.

She found a used treadmill on Craigslist for $200 and her bulky CRT monitor didn’t work on the shelving, so she has purchased a LCD monitor for only $119. That and a little shelving and she is ready to walk and work.

She has used a monitor splitter so she can work at a desk (work top) if she needs to or work on the treadmill.

V talks about some of the logistics of walking while working:

“The other thing I’ve noticed is, when I get focused on something, I tend to forget to walk. It’s a good thing this machine has one of those thingies that hooks to your clothes and will pull out and turn off the machine if you get too far away from the console.”

I’m interested to see if she is able to draft while walking. Drafting takes a certain precision when using the mouse, so learning to do that while keeping active will be a challenge. If you are considering setting up a treadputer workstation, keep reading her weblog to see how she is able to handle the logistics of working while walking.

Update 08-18-06 12:12 am: Sadly, it looks like V has deleted her weblog.

Joanne Colan, from Rocketboom, learned how to race walk with Stella Cashman and Leo Romero of The Park Race Walkers in New York City. Race walking is an Olympic sport with strict rules defining it versus running.

You can also see the video here:

Rocketboom – August 4, 2006

The benefit of race walking is that you can reach running speeds without the jarring impact of running. It works an entirely different set of muscles than regular walking and running, so that makes it a great cross-training activity so you don’t overwork your body.

For more information about Race Walking:

• Race walking – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Racewalk.com – Introduction to Race Walking Technique

• North Amercian Racewalking Foundation – Home Page

Josh Leo has been trying to figure out why people feel so passionate about sports. He went to a hockey game and was bored, so he thought he’d try to participate in sports to see if that would create a passionate experience for him.

Josh Leo’s Vlog » Josh on Sports – Part 2

I love his final decision on the process:

“I think it’s pretty clear that this isn’t working out. I don’t think that playing sports badly is the best way to get an understanding about the passion that people have for sports.”

He’s right. Passion for sports is not about playing sports so much as being part of a tribe. If you don’t feel connected to your local hockey or basketball team, sports will hold little interest for you. So, the question still remains, if you have never enjoyed sports, how do you get excited for exercise?

Exercise and being active doesn’t have to happen in a sports environment. It also doesn’t have to happen at a gym. You can increase your activity just by changing your life a little bit. Here are a few ways to keep active without resorting to sports:

• Once a week, walk to the grocery store to get your groceries. Only buy as much as you can carry in two bags.

• Once a week, find an alternate route to work that doesn’t require your car. Even if you live too far from your work to walk or ride a bike, there are still alternative routes for you. You could take public transportation. The walk to and from the bus stops will add activity to your day.

• Get an active job. You might not want to give up your lucrative day job, but a part time job that is active (like at a department store stocking shelves) will not only bring in extra money, but move you in ways that you aren’t used to.

Just because sport is the method that so many people use to increase activity, doesn’t mean you have to resort to that option. There are as many ways to exercise as there are people. Go find your own favorite!

Threadless is a strange company. They let anyone post a design for a t-shirt on their website. They let anyone vote on the designs. If the design gets enough votes, then they will actually make t-shirts with that design on it. The person who designed it, gets a $2000 prize. How’s that for cool?

The above photo is a t-shirt design that is currently being voted upon. It’s called Heart Attack! and it’s a pretty accurate depiction of what fast food does to your body. The little hot dog and hamburger look so mean. They’re just going to beat that heart into a bloody pulp.

If you’d like to vote for this t-shirt, you can do so here (registration required):

• Threadless T-Shirts – Heart Attack!

The best thing about Threadless is that they carry plus sizes for their cool shirts. The Girly T runs a little small, even in XL, but the regular t-shirt size comes in a generous 2X size. They allow their users to post pictures of themselves wearing the t-shirts, so you are able to see what it would look like on you. I find this particularly valuable when I am wondering how the shirt will look on a woman with ample breasts. I hate it when you can’t even tell what’s on the shirt because half the design is on the underside of my boobs.

If you are threadless, be naked no more and get yourself a t-shirt!

Watching this video made me eager to dance again. I never was into breakdancing, but moving the body to music is so therapeutic and even cathartic that I miss it sometimes.

You can also see the video here:

Rocketboom – August 11, 2006

When asked, the leader of Fox Force Five, the winners of the competition, described the joy and passion that can come from a sport that you love.

“You put in dedication so that even after you hurt yourself, you know that you can’t wait ’til you get back better because you know that you are going to start all over again. Some people have a kid and say I’m not doing that anymore. A B*Girl will have a kid and be like, ‘Can’t wait ’til I pop that baby out so I can practice again!'”

Next time you can’t imagine jumping on that treadmill once more, put on your favorite tunes and try your hand at dancing. It doesn’t matter if your moves are as smooth as a B*Girl. You can burn just as many calories dancing like a maniac as you would dancing like a ballerina. Let your favorite tunes move you for thirty minutes instead of pounding away at the gym and you might just enjoy your workout a little more.

Yesterday, I did a post about Yahoo! Avatars and how you can make them fat. I redid my avatar to be a more busty version:

What if Avatars were real?

What if you could have any body that you chose?

Would you choose a celebrity body?

Would you keep the one you have, just fitter?

What if they couldn’t make you thin unless you chose a different body?

Would you give up your current body just to be thinner?

What if that meant you had to be stupid? Or cruel? Or boring?

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.

My biggest complaint about Yahoo! Avatars was that I couldn’t make my avatar look even remotely like me.

• Pick Me! » Winter Avatar

Even though I have lost weight, I’m still really curvy and that skinny thing that they came up with looked nothing like the busty version that looks back at me in the mirror. Well, they finally did something about it.

• Yahoo! Avatars

Now, you can choose Plus Size in the Clothing section and your avatar will have a little meat on its bones. You can see my before and after avatars here:

No matter how little I eat or how much I exercise, I could never be as thin as the avatar on the left. I actually prefer the new one. It’s more realistic.

Good Job, Yahoo!

Via: Big Fat Blog: Yahoo! Avatars Expands

to whom it may concern,

I’ve been trying to find an expert to email this question too, can you help me ? my question is.does eating to many sunflower seeds cause cellulight? if you could answer that or maybe send me too someone who can .

thanks DANA

Cellulite is a complicated issue, but it’s not directly caused by eating sunflower seeds. Cellulite is not caused by any food eaten in moderation. Here is some more information from Wikipedia:

• Cellulite – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sunflower seeds, or any other food, does not cause cellulite:

“There appears to be a hormonal component to its presentation. It is rarely seen in males. It is seen more commonly in males with androgen-deficient states such as Klinefelter’s syndrome, hypogonadism, post-castration states and in those patients receiving estrogen therapy for prostate cancer. The cellulite becomes more severe as the androgen deficiency worsens in these males.”

In fact, cellulite isn’t even related to being overweight. I remember reading a story about a woman who managed a gym and had seen a wide variety of women from fat to thin. Cellulite resides on all bodies, not just people who are fat. Once again, Wikipedia verifies this:

“Cellulite is not related to being overweight; average and underweight people also get cellulite.”

There is a huge industry trying to make you feel bad about yourself and those dimples on your bottom. Don’t let them make you feel self conscious. Why is it that dimples on baby bottoms are cute and on grown up bottoms aren’t? Who decided that? Whoever they were was wrong. Cellulite is a natural occurence. Embrace it and the rest of your body with love.

I am NOT recommending this as a dieting technique. This looks very dangerous to me and I don’t want anyone thinking that I even approve of this.

I just wonder how she did this. I guess it’s supposed to be erotic, but all I could think about is how does she do that without choking or filling up her stomach to the point of pain. The balloon looked fully inflated, so I’m just shocked.

Does she regurgitate it? Does it come out the other end? Does it make her unable to eat for days? Does it pop within her body? Is it all a hoax and the video editing just makes it look like she swallowed it? There are so many unanswered questions…

On a more serious note, if you were disgusted by this, just imagine what the medical industry has done to overweight people for years. One of the bariatric surgery techniques used to involve inserting a balloon into the patient’s stomach and inflating it to prevent the patient from being able to eat large quantities of food. How is that different from the sideshow you just saw? Next time you’re tempted by some new drug or weight loss surgery, remember this video and how it’s not so different from what the medical industry is doing.