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

I hadn’t heard anything about this game for a while, so it’s nice to know they are still working on it.

• Gamespot – EyeToy: Kinetic Hands-On Review

Based on the review, I am a little disconcerted by the idea that the trainer might be too vocal. I hope they have an option to turn the voice off if I want to. That really helped Yourself! Fitness last longer for me. Turning off Maya’s voice and listening to the ocean waves was a lot more bearable after exercising with her for a few months.

I have been waiting for this game for so long that I probably will have a Playstation by the time it comes out. The Xbox is really cool, but there are just more things available for Playstation. I guess I’ll start saving my pennies.

Via: DDR4Health

Everyone is talking about the new USDA Pyramid. I like this entry the best:

• The Food Museum Blog – What Pyramids, Where?

For all of you out there that are complaining that the food industry’s fingerprints are all over the new pyramid, remember one thing: it was made by the USDA. This wasn’t an eating and fitness plan created by the AMA or the AFAA. It was created by the food industry.

Glean from it what you can and discard the rest. Did anyone really believe that we needed 7-9 servings of grains?

I read a lot of comic books when I was young. I vividly remember the ads for the Charles Atlas program. I know they were marketed to boys and men, but I studied them. There were several things that I decided about life based on these ads.

• Crowded beaches are a hotbed of bullies.

• Men who are very muscular are bullies and should be avoided at all costs.

• Getting sand kicked in your face is an insult.

• I was never going to be one of those stupid girls who just stands around and lets her boyfriend get beat up.

• I was never going to be one of those stupid girls who is proud of her boyfriend when he beats up another guy.

• Saying, “What a man!” isn’t an insult.

I don’t think any of these are actually an indication of real life, but to this day, I avoid crowded beaches and muscular men. I wonder if the Charles Atlas program actually inspired people to be stronger and healthier, because their ads did nothing for me.

• Comic Book Ads – Charles Atlas “Hey Skinny” Classic Ad

• Charles Atlas Official Website

I’ve had my Nordictrack treadmill for over six years. It has been a really good machine. It got a little damaged in the move, so we replaced a part. It has been running with me every day for the last year, ever since we moved it out of storage.

About a month ago, however, the tread started slipping. (more…)

Today is the last day of April. Maybe you got the treadmill for Christmas. Maybe it was part of your New Year’s Resolution. Whatever made you purchase it four months ago, you look at the thing now and it’s covered in dust and you haven’t folded down the tread for weeks. Here’s an article to spice things up:

• LA Times – Treadmill going nowhere? Mix it up – by John Briley, Washington Post

My favorite thing to do while on the treadmill is to watch movies or television shows on DVD. Stopping a movie halfway through is a guaranteed way to get me on the treadmill the next morning. Having a new movie that I’m excited to see is another.

I like to mix up my workout routines with changes in speed or incline. Interval and hill workouts are the best to build speed. Download my Treadmill Workout Spreadsheet for ideas on how to change your workout intensity.

Via: SportsGeezer

Hoodia Gordonii is a cactus that is supposed to suppress the appetite. Everything that I have read about this stuff sounds like hype. I’ve found some articles recommending that you avoid the supplements because they tend to not contain what they say they do (surprise, surprise), but very little information about clinical trials or safety.

• Wikipedia – Hoodia

• BBC News – Sampling the Kalahari cactus diet – by Tom Mangold

• CBS News – African Plant May Help Fight Fat – by Lesley Stahl

• Fit FAQ – All About Hoodia Gordonii

• News Target – Hoodia Gordonii weight loss pills scam exposed by independent investigation

• Really Useful Fitness Blog – Hoodia Gordonii Alert

Wouldn’t it be funny if the stuff has a million calories and fat in just one bite? It would explain the appetite suppression…

The Wikipedia entry on Hoodia gordonii sums it up perfectly:

There is no published scientific evidence that Hoodia works as an appetite suppressant in humans. The safety and/or effectiveness of Hoodia Gordonii as a dietary supplement must thus be considered as unsubstantiated.

I have been obsessed with weight control since I was in eighth grade (1983). In those past twenty-two years, many foods have gone in and out of style. Grapefruit, salads before every meal, eight glasses of water every day, and cabbage soup have all gone in and out of fashion.

It seems like foods that are good for you “get discovered” and are the hot topic for the next few years. Right now, dairy foods are the hottest thing in dieting circles:

• 24/24 Milk Your Diet

• About.com – Say Yes to Yogurt! – by Jennifer R. Scott

• WebMD – Dairy Foods Help Burn Fat, Speed Weight Loss – by Jennifer Warner

• The Seattle Times – Got weight? Get more dairy – by Shari Roan

• American Dietetic Association – Milk Your Diet: A New Approach to Fuel Your Weight Loss Efforts

• About.com – Lick Your Weight Loss With Dairy – by Larrian Gillespie

• NPR – Exploring the Link Between Dairy and Weight Loss – by Allison Aubrey

This is only the tip of the iceberg. I could have listed three times as many articles on this subject. Milk is the new Grapefruit Diet. Dairy is the new Eight Glasses of Water Every Day. Yogurt is the new Eat a Salad Before Every Meal. Cheese is the new Cabbage Soup.

The funny thing is: all of these things are good for you. Grapefruit is low in sugar and provides lots of vitamins. Keeping hydrated not only curbs your hunger, it makes your skin healthier. Salads and cabbage soup fill you up with vitamin-packed fiber. Milk and dairy products provide calcium and vitamin D. All of these things are healthy; I just find it amusing which ones the media decides to obsess about.

I usually don’t like to recommend unnecessary equipment. If you want to get fit, all you need are a good pair of shoes and a door to walk out of. Too many times I’ve seen people say that they can’t exercise because they don’t have a gym membership or a treadmill. You don’t need those things. All you need to do is get your butt out of the door every day and run.

Then again, I’m a gadget freak. I love to play with new exercise toys. Sometimes a new exercise toy will inspire me for months. Just having a new toy to play with when I get my butt out the door is enough to keep me exercising sometimes. This looks like a fun new toy:

• Fitsense Speedometer Systems

This is a speedometer, heart rate monitor and a link to upload your workout data to the computer. There is a pod that connects to your shoe that measures your distance and speed, a watch for your wrist, a heart rate monitor strap and a USB uplink to connect to your computer. If you don’t want to shell out $250, you can pick and choose which parts you want and upgrade later.

Benefits:

• Speedometer, heart rate monitor, distance and chronometer all on one watch. They all display on one screen. You won’t have to push buttons to see what you want.

• Compared to GPS systems, it is relatively inexpensive. Additionally, GPS tracking has problems in “urban canyons”, where the signal bounces off the large buildings.

Negatives:

• The watch is rather large and bulky. The display is designed to be easy to see while running or walking, but that makes it slightly unwieldy, especially if you’re a woman.

• If you already have a heart rate monitor, stopwatch or distance meter, you would have to buy extra items in order to have them all be in one watch. Either that or wear two watches.

• The uplink to your computer is an Internet based system, which is unnecessary. I would prefer software that just runs on my computer. I don’t want to depend on my unreliable ISP in order to upload my workout data.

My current heart rate monitor is a Timex, so you know it’s going to last a hundred years. I’m thinking that I’ll never get a chance to try this new toy, but if you are in the market for a heart rate monitor, it looks like this one will give you the extra benefits of speedometer and distance measurement. Check it out.

I grew up with Cookie Monster bingeing on cookies at every opportunity. I remember noticing that he ate so quickly that half the cookies ended up on the floor. I remember thinking, “If he was careful, he would get a lot more cookies in his mouth.” I consciously took notes, “When bingeing on cookies, make sure to eat slowly so you can get every crumb.” I had no grasp of the concept that Cookie Monster was a muppet and couldn’t actually swallow the cookies he was crunching. Now, it looks like Cookie Monster is slimming down.

• Sesame Workshop – Healthy Habits

I don’t know what to think of this. Cookie Monster wasn’t my favorite of the Sesame Street characters. I would have to go with Oscar first and then Burt and Ernie. So, with Cookie Monster at a distant fourth (or maybe fifth, I forgot about Grover), do I really care that he is changing? The main feature of his personality was that he was obsessed with cookies. I was too. I always felt like I never got enough cookies to fill my mouth. Cookie Monster eventually always found enough cookies. He had so many that he didn’t have to eat up every crumb.

When I finally got a job and had enough money to buy all the cookies that minimum wage could afford, I ate a lot. Much of the money I earned at K-Mart went right to the junk food industry. Ironically, when I can have all the junk food that I want, I’m less obsessed with it.

So, Cookie Monster is going to tell kids how great mangoes are. I guess I think this is a good thing. Childhood idols enticing kids to eat different fruits and vegetables is probably the best way for them to at least try healthy food. Of course, Popeye and his spinach addiction has been doing this for years. Looks like Cookie Monster is just trying to jump Popeye’s train.

Via: The Salt Lake Tribune – ‘Sesame’ teaches kids to trade in cookies for carrots – by Kathy Stephenson

Interested in a high tech game of tag? Here’s something fun for you.

• Pac Manhattan

Their description of the game is as follows:

Pac-Manhattan is a large-scale urban game that utilizes the New York City grid to recreate the 1980’s video game sensation Pac-Man. This analog version of Pac-man is being developed in NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications graduate program, in order to explore what happens when games are removed from their “little world” of tabletops, televisions and computers and placed in the larger “real world” of street corners, and cities.

A player dressed as Pac-man will run around the Washington square park area of Manhattan while attempting to collect all of the virtual “dots” that run the length of the streets. Four players dressed as the ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde will attempt to catch Pac-man before all of the dots are collected.

Using cell-phone contact, Wi-Fi internet connections, and custom software designed by the Pac-Manhattan team, Pac-man and the ghosts will be tracked from a central location and their progress will be broadcast over the internet for viewers from around the world.

Via: Fitness News and CNet