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

Red Octane just announced that they are releasing a Playstation 2 version of the game In The Groove. You can log this in the “Yet Another Reason To Consider the Playstation Format” book. Roxor Games released an arcade version of this game originally in 2002. The gameplay requires more elaborate dance moves than the Dance Dance Revolution format. The arrows look the same, but there are times when some of them are required to be pressed by your hands (think Twister at a quicker pace).

• Red Octane Press Release
• Roxor Games In The Groove Official Site

They are planning on integrating a Fitness Mode that tracks the amount of calories you burn. Hopefully it will be more accurate than the DDR calculations. This mix will have over 70 songs, which is a large enough number to keep the most dedicated players occupied for months. Finally, there is great excitement that Red Octane is the company that will be releasing this product considering the high quality of their dance pads. They didn’t provide a release date, so I am waiting excitedly to hear more.

This article from Prevention.com is an intimate and emotion-driven story.

• Prevention.com – Barricaded Behind Fat by Geneen Roth

I hate that stuff. It makes me want to scream, “Go to Redbook where you belong!” Why am I recommending it? She has damn good advice.

Why Food Can’t Protect You
When you’re tempted to shield yourself by overeating, remind yourself:

• The pain will still be there after the food is gone.

• Eating only makes you feel full, not happy.

• After you’ve eaten, you have two problems: the one you ate to hide from and your physical discomfort.

• No matter how much you eat, even if you go on a monthlong binge, the feelings will someday come back to haunt you.

• Eating can’t make illness, rejection, sadness, loneliness, or fear of death go away.

There are a hundred thousand excuses for not following your eating or exercise program. I could list them here, but they all fall into one category:

BOGUS

You’re rolling your eyes right now. You think I’m just being hard and callous, but you’re wrong. For every excuse, there is someone out there who moved past it. It’s snowing? I’ve seen people run in the snow. It’s too hot? I’ve seen people exercising in the Las Vegas heat and smog. It’s just one chocolate? I’ve known people who have eaten healthy for years, forgoing every hint of chocolate. I don’t care what your excuse is, there is someone on this planet who didn’t let that barrier get in the way of their health.

How do I do it?

(more…)

Fitness Magazine has teamed up with NEC to provide a Fitness Phone. For a monthly fee of $9.99 a month, you can have your personal trainer and dietician in your phone.

• NEC Fitness Phone
• Fitness Magazine

I don’t know what I think about this. I have a hard time imagining someone bringing their phone into the gym and referring to it for each exercise, checking them off as they go. I could do the same thing with Palm software, but I don’t want to bother bringing the thing into the gym with me. A piece of paper is so much easier and even that is a burden when I’m going from machine to machine.

Additionally, some gyms have cracked down on camera phones in locker rooms and this phone has a fully functional camera (including a light for low-light situations ?!). This just seems like technology gone wrong. It might be a helpful reminder to the forgetful, but when you are truly dedicated to putting yourself first, a Post-It Note will do.

High on the list of ways to get fit for free is Burpee Conditioning. There is a great article about this very manly way of getting fit on Bodybuilding.com. It includes videos of how to perform the maneuver so that you are clear about the process.

• Bodybuilding.com – Burpee Conditioning No Nonsense – by Ross Enamait

This form of exercise may be too intense for a beginner, but if you have limited funds or space, it is a great way to have an intense workout. There are even variations at the end of the article that will boost the intensity even higher if Burpee Conditioning becomes too easy for you.

Shape magazine has a Pilates workout that doesn’t require a bunch of exercise toys to complete. It’s a strength training workout that you can incorporate into your schedule. You don’t need a membership at a gym or any weights.

Shape Magazine – Brand new year, hot new bod – by Alexa Joy Sherman

This workout is based on The Pilates Promise by Alycea Ungaro. There are five moves that strengthen your core muscles that you master first, then you move on to strengthening your upper or lower body with different moves. All of the exercises are shown in detail with pictures on the website.

She was angry. The health insurance wouldn’t pay for a gastric bypass surgery for her. I was standing on the other side of her desk with no health insurance benefits and unable to find a company that would insure my husband and me for less than $700 a month and she was complaining because hers wouldn’t cover gastric bypass surgery. I just wanted something that would pay for my husband’s expensive asthma medication that kept him alive and she was considering the same surgery that almost killed her brother.

Thinking about gastric bypass surgery? Try following the diet for a couple of weeks and see if you like it:

• You can eat no more than 2 ounces of anything at a time.
• After you eat, you must wait two hours before you can eat again.
• Liquids count in that 2 ounce figure.
• If you eat more than 2 ounces in a sitting, a big man with a bad attitude will pummel you in the stomach for at least thirty minutes, and maybe as long as an hour. Or at least that’s how it will feel.
• Some foods will make you sick. You don’t get to choose. It might be your favorite food on earth, but you won’t be able to eat it anymore… for the rest of your life.
• Sometimes you will get heart palpitations (called “dumping”), even if you only eat one bite of food. You don’t get to control when this happens.
• Speaking of bites of food, you’ll have to cut your food up into miniscule pieces. Just get used to it. If you swallow anything bigger, you end up “dumping” or that big guy will come punch you in the stomach for a few hours.

Think you can follow that diet? You haven’t seen the huge guy I hired to make sure you follow it. And that’s only if you survive the surgery (1 out of 200 die within 30 days of the surgery). Maybe you’ll never get those side effects, but there is no guarantee. It’s a crap shoot with your health. Even worse, you might survive the surgery and be able to live through the diet, but you never dealt with the issues that made you fat in the first place, so you’ll be one of the lucky 15 percent of people who gain all the weight back and more.

Considering all that, I think her health insurance did her a favor. Lucky girl…

Prevention.com – Life After Gastric Bypass: The Surprising Real Story – by Dorothy Foltz-Gray

Snopes.com, the best urban legend debunking website around, has an article about an email piece that has been hitting the inboxes of people across the United States.

• Snopes.com – Vitamin See – by Barbara Mikkelson

The email in question states that you will no longer be allowed to buy vitamins over the counter if you do not act immediately. The article does a good job explaining why the email is invalid and give a clear and concise explanation of the issues regarding dietary supplements.

This list is from Amazon.com, so you know they are just trying to sell you a bunch of stuff:

Amazon.com Listmania! – Fun Exercise – by Gina

Be that as it may, I really enjoyed looking at this list. There are tons of ideas for different kinds of exercise. Remember that your local library probably has some of these books and video titles available for you to borrow and try out (and if they don’t, Netflix definitely does).

Even when I know why the scale is higher, I find it extremely hard to stay motivated. I wonder how it would be for people who don’t understand the physics of losing weight. Here is some important information that can affect your relationship with the scale.

Weighing Basics:

• Use the same scale each time you weigh yourself. No scale is perfectly adjusted and each will read a little differently.
• Weigh at the same time every day. You’ll weigh the least in the morning after you have used the bathroom.
• Wear the same clothing every time you weigh. The idea that your clothes might account for that extra pound will go away when you wear the same clothes every time.
• Weigh yourself on the same day each week. That means only weigh yourself once a week. There are daily fluctuations in your body, but a week is long enough to see progress (or lack of it).

If you show a gain and you KNOW you had a perfect week, remember the following:

• It may have been extra salt in your diet. A high sodium intake can make your body retain water.
• If you have just started a workout regime or just increased the intensity or time of your workouts, your body may be retaining water. If it has been over two weeks since your last weigh-in, the gain could be extra muscle. Use a measuring tape to see if you have lost any inches.
• Constipation can show a gain at the scale.
• Pre-Menstrual Syndrome has the symptom of water retention. If your cycle is about to start, you can attribute the extra weight to that.
• If you had a large loss the week before, it is normal to maintain your weight or even show a gain the next week.

Health Issues that can create a weight gain:

• Diabetes
• Thyroid / Glandular Problems
• Pregnancy

For these reasons, it’s a good idea to check with your doctor before starting any weight loss program.

In the end, the scale is merely a tool, and often not a very accurate one. If you follow your weight loss program faithfully, the scale will become an indicator or your success, not the final word on it.