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

In what has become a silly extension of the worry about the environment, everyone is asking whether riding your bike to work is better for the environment than driving your car.

• Roger Kramer Cycling: The Blog Page

The study Nye speaks was written by Karl T. Ulrich of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and it’s titled “The Environment Paradox of Bicycling” (PDF file). In short, the study suggests there is an immediate energy savings by bicycle riding, since a cyclist is up to nine times more energy efficient than a single-occupant car. However, the study suggests cyclists increase their longevity by 10.6 days for every year of cycling. Because of that, they consume more energy over their lifetimes, thus doing more harm to the environment.

Which is more important: human life or the environment? If you really believe that the environment is more important than your own life, then you should commit suicide now. There are none of us with a carbon footprint of zero.

If it’s at all possible for you to ride your bike to work, you should DO it! It will help the environment in the short run and keep you alive in the long run. I’ve written about this in the past:

• Starling Fitness » Riding My Bike To Work

• Starling Fitness » Save Gas By Walking or Riding Your Bike

• Starling Fitness » How To Ride Your Bike To Work

• Starling Fitness » PostSecret: Bike To Work

• Starling Fitness » You ARE Traffic

I found this advertisement for Quaker Puffed Wheat cereal from 1969:

It reads:

You can win the battle of the bulge.
Eat the 56 calorie cereal.
You don’t have to skip breakfast.
Just calories.
Quaker Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice have only 56 per bowl. A satisfying yet frugal way to start the day.
From your friends at Quaker.

In the days before nutrition facts, the statement of “56 calories per bowl” could mean almost anything. What size of bowl? Now that we have nutrition facts at our disposal, it’s VERY easy to see that Quaker wasn’t lying to us back in 1969.

You can have 1 and 1/4 cups of Puffed Wheat for only 55 calories, 0.3 g of fat and 1.4 g of fiber. With nutrition facts like that, Quaker Puffed Wheat is one of the better cereals to choose for breakfast.

Of course, The Battle of the Bulge is a war that not many of us are fighting now. I haven’t heard that phrase for a LONG time…

Photo via: Found in Mom’s Basement: 1969 ad for low-cal puffed wheat cereal

I have been looking for a good iPhone application to keep track of my Weight Watchers Points for a long time. Weight Watchers Online has a page that works with the iPhone, but it is SEVERELY lacking in usability, so I kept looking.

Back when I had a Palm Treo, I used to keep track of my points using WWCalc. It was a GREAT program, but Weight Watchers shut them down. I used to wish that the programmer would alter his program so that it could just keep track of anything and allow me to put a formula of my own in it. That is EXACTLY what Edibles has done for me.

You can download Edibles for your iPhone here:

• Edibles – Diet Journal [iTunes Link]

Here is a detailed guide to setting up Edibles to work with Weight Watchers: (more…)

I’ve talked about Raw Food Vegans before, but here is some information that makes me think that maybe they are on to something.

• Rudd Sound Bites: There May Be More Links between Big Tobacco and Big Food than We Realize

There are many mixed messages about whether certain foods or food preparation methods also contribute to cancer risk. One substance that is particularly controversial is acrylamide. Acrylamide is found in both cigarette smoke and in food products produced by high-temperature cooking. Acrylamide has been found at especially high levels in potato chips and French fries. Rodent studies have shown that acrylamide exposure increases the risk of several types of cancer in the animals, but human studies are incomplete.

Here is more information about acrylamides:

• Acrylamide in Food and Cancer Risk – National Cancer Institute

How does cooking produce acrylamide?

Asparagine is an amino acid (a building block of proteins) that is found in many vegetables, with higher concentrations in some varieties of potatoes. When heated to high temperatures in the presence of certain sugars, asparagine can form acrylamide. High-temperature cooking methods, such as frying, baking, or broiling, have been found to produce acrylamide, while boiling and microwaving appear less likely to do so. Longer cooking times can also increase acrylamide production when the cooking temperature is above 120 degrees Celsius.

I still have my doubts that a raw food vegan diet is the best for humans, but maybe frying food isn’t the best way to cook. We already knew that, but it’s nice to know that we’re closer to the reason WHY.

For more information about the raw food diet:

• Starling Fitness » Raw Food Vegans Thin But Healthy
• Starling Fitness » Living Cuisine Raw Food Bar
• Starling Fitness » Diet Book Review: The Raw Truth
• Starling Fitness » Diet Book Review: The Raw Food Detox Diet
• Starling Fitness » Raw Food Enzymes and Quackwatch

This photo from I Can Has Cheezburger? made me smile the other day.

When I look at this, I realize how silly it is to look at models in fashion magazines and feel bad about my body.

That cat is adorable and I want to pick him up and nuzzle my face on his belly. Whether he’s that size or the size of the cat in the book, he’s still adorable.

That’s how we are as humans. No matter what size you are, you are adorable. There is someone out there who wants to pick you up and nuzzle their face into your belly, whether it’s flat as stone or soft and round.

You deserve to be loved no matter what size you are.

This week we look at fitness gadgets that are so new that they aren’t available to purchase yet. They were featured at the IHRSA (International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association) 2009 Conference in San Francisco.

Of all the gadgets featured at IHRSA, the only one I could find purchase information for was the TRX Suspension Trainer. It just looks like a piece of nylon with handles, but there are apparently lots of exercises that you do with it.

Here’s a video showing a group class working out with the TRX Suspension Trainer:

After watching the video, almost all of those exercises could be done without the TRX Suspension Trainer. In fact, the people doing the lunges look to me like an accident waiting to happen. Sure, it’s a portable gym for “only” $149, but when you could do ninety percent of the exercises in a hotel room without the gadget, it kind of makes it less worthwhile in my mind.

Via: Diet Blog: 2009 Fitness Trends

This week we look at fitness gadgets that are so new that they aren’t available to purchase yet. They were featured at the IHRSA (International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association) 2009 Conference in San Francisco.

If you have ever played DDR and wished you could play it against a whole room full of people, that is just one of the many options available to you at an Xrkade (pronounced e-xer-cade). When I first heard about Xrkade, they were just an idea, but now they are in over twenty states.

• xrkade.com

Xrkade is no more a gym or an arcade than Disneyland is a roller coaster park. It’s a cutting edge environment and experience complete with the most advanced gaming and entertainment systems where people become a “human joystick.”

Here is a promotional video showing people playing and working out:

Here is a virtual tour of an Xrkade:

Unfortunately, there isn’t one in Utah, so I can’t really go and try one out. I do love the idea, though. I can’t wait until ALL gyms look like Xrkade!

Via: Diet Blog: 2009 Fitness Trends

This week we look at fitness gadgets that are so new that they aren’t available to purchase yet. They were featured at the IHRSA (International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association) 2009 Conference in San Francisco.

As if stair steppers and stair machines weren’t enough, they’ve added Jacob’s Ladder to the mix of exercise machines.

• Jacobs Ladder – Ultimate Fitness Experience

Jacob’s Ladder was designed to give a workout without putting stress on the back. This video shows it in action:

The only benefit I can see for using this machine instead of a stair stepper is the fact that you use your arms as well. This workout machine is PERFECT for training firefighters, but for the rest of us mortals, a stair machine is 90% of the way there. If I ever see one of these in a gym, I’ll be pleasantly surprised and INSIST on trying it out, but I doubt that will ever be an experience I’ll have.

Via: Diet Blog: 2009 Fitness Trends

This week we look at fitness gadgets that are so new that they aren’t available to purchase yet. They were featured at the IHRSA (International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association) 2009 Conference in San Francisco.

When I first saw the Alter G-Trainer, I thought it was silly. Why would someone want to run on a treadmill with LESS gravity? Isn’t that LESS of a workout? Why, yes. Yes it is…

• Alter G-Trainer

G-Trainers enable people to improve mobility and health, recover from injury and surgery more effectively, overcome medical challenges that limit movement, and enhance physical performance.

If you have a sports injury, the G-Trainer can reduce the impact on your injured foot (leg, ankle, etc.) to make running easier while you heal. The same can be true for someone trying to learn to walk again after a severe injury.

The video promoting it, however, only brags about how quickly the runners can finish mileage. What’s the point of beating the 1 mile record if you can only do it in the Alter G-Trainer?

I doubt you’ll ever see something like this at your local gym. You might see it at a physical therapist’s office, but even then, it seems like such a specialty product that this might be the only way you’ll ever see it in action.

Via: Diet Blog: 2009 Fitness Trends

This week we look at fitness gadgets that are so new that they aren’t available to purchase yet. They were featured at the IHRSA (International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association) 2009 Conference in San Francisco.

If you like mountain climbing, then the Treadwall is a machine that I bet you’re hoping your gym buys next. It’s like a vertical treadmill that you climb up. It’s better than a climbing wall because you are never more than six feet off the floor, you can set it vertically, an easy incline, or even an overhang incline.

Here is a promotional video about it:

They have a Treadwall at the gym in Camp Buehring, Kuwait. Here is a quick video that gives you a good idea of how they work without the marketing hype.

All the climbing bits are interchangeable, so a gym owner could change them out and make the Treadwall be completely different every week. Since it’s so big, it would be impractical for a normal person. This really seems like a product that is marketed to gym owners. Those mountain-climbing obsessed people might be able to find a spot in their home for a Treadwall, but for the rest of us, we can only hope that one shows up at our local gym.

Via: Diet Blog: 2009 Fitness Trends