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

I am just about sick of chocolate bar companies bragging about the antioxidant power of chocolate. I got a promotional email from Hershey’s and The Best Life. Bob Greene has teamed up with Hershey’s to promote their Extra Dark Chocolate bars as approved foods.

• BOB GREENE’S BEST LIFE APPROVED FOOD LIST: Partner Page

They are promoting the chocolate as some great food for health:

Chocolate lovers rejoice! Hershey®’s Extra Dark Chocolate has become the first chocolate bar to earn the respected Best Life Treat Seal of Approval. Designed by renowned health and fitness expert Bob Greene, the Best Life Treat Seal is awarded to products that have a nutrition edge over products in their class and are available in portion sizes of 150 calories or fewer. The Treat Seal appears on select grocery products and is intended to help consumers make healthier food and lifestyle decisions.

The criterion for the Best Life Treat Seal is that it should be available in portion sizes of 150 calories or fewer. Let’s look at the nutrition facts for the candy bar, shall we?

For three squares of the candy bar (most bars have several servings), it’s 210 calories, so the Hershey bar fails the bare minimum requirement for The Best Life.

But what about those magical antioxidant properties of chocolate?

The most important antioxidants are beta carotene (provitamin A), vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, and proanthocyanidin (or procyanidin). Of these, chocolate has only procyanidin, or Vitamin P as it is starting to be called. If you look at the nutrition facts, Hershey’s has no Vitamin A or C. The other three antioxidants aren’t listed on the nutrition facts label.

Chocolate is known to have procyanidin, but it is by no means the highest in that antioxidant. That award goes to black chokecherries, but they are a little difficult to find at your local grocery store. A granny smith apple, however, is VERY easy to find. How does it compete against Hershey’s?

A medium apple is only 80 calories, has 2% of the Vitamin A and 20% of the vitamin C you need for the day. It also doesn’t show how much procyanidin it has, but considering that there is zero fat and five grams of fiber, the apple beats Hershey’s hands down.

To me, The Best Life Food Partners just seems like a marketing ploy to sell you processed food. Here is the fine print from their website:

Best Life Partners benefit from use of the “Best Life approved” seal, as well as integrated book content and web site mentions, banner advertising, tour sponsorships and some of the most coveted national and local broadcast media coverage around. We are always looking for great food, fitness, apparel and wellness companies to partner with.

It all makes me a little angry, actually. Now I feel like I can’t trust Bob Greene…

For more information about antioxidants and procyanidin:

• Antioxidant – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Proanthocyanidin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I’ve been reading up on The Gabriel Method and trying out his ideas to see if they work.

I’m still not finished reviewing his plan, but I have found ONE very important idea in everything he says. It is possible to trick your body into getting thin by giving it positive stress.

One of those positive stresses is exercise. We need to convince our bodies that they need to be thin so we can outrun the predators or fight them off if we’re cornered. In his book, Jon Gabriel talks about a time when he was riding his bike. A vicious dog started chasing him, nipping at his heels. It took over a minute to shake off the dog and after he had pedaled himself away, he felt more vitality than he had felt all day.

The idea is to envision that we are in danger during an interval workout. Whether we are running, walking or riding a bike, it can be difficult to imagine that a pack of dogs are at our heels when the treadmill is steadily keeping its pace. Even if I boot the speed up for a minute, it’s kind of hard to materialize blood thirsty animals at my heels.

Then I remembered that I live with one…

My dog, Sid, has never been vicious with me, but every day, he turns into an panicked lunatic. It happens Monday through Saturday between 9:30 am and 11:00 am. He starts barking and beating himself against the front door each morning the mail carrier delivers our mail.

So I set my audio recorder right next to the door and recorded his barking. After a couple of days’ worth of screeching at our postal worker, I was able to compile the recordings into an MP3 that is a little over a minute long. I’ve set this MP3, called Primal Reaction, as my Power Song on my Nike+. Every few minutes, I set the treadmill to the highest speed I can maintain for one minute, hold down the middle button for three seconds and the sound of five dogs barking at my heels gets my heart rate up faster than running on the treadmill could possibly do. It really sets off my flight response.

You can download it here:

• Primal Reaction – by Laura and Sid Moncur Right click the link and choose Save As…

I’ve also been exercising with Wii Boxing. Despite the cartoony feel of my opponents, I have found that if I truly pretend that the guy wants to hit me, I get that adrenaline surge from the workout. Wii Boxing was the only section of Wii Sports that got my heart rate into the cardio zone, but I can keep boxing opponents for a twenty minute workout and by the time I’m done I’m sweating, breathing heavily and all wound up. It truly sets off my fight response.

When it comes to fight or flight, we humans have been at the top of the food chain for so long that it’s only natural that our bodies have been convinced that it’s safer to be fat than thin. Especially since we go on diets and impose a famine on them every January, our bodies are trying to hold onto the fat so that we don’t starve to death. A few primal workouts every week just might be enough to convince our bodies that it’s more important to be fast and strong. Maybe we can trick our bodies into making us thin so we can run away or fight ourselves out of sticky situations. That’s the whole goal of a primal workout.

This postcard from PostSecret reminds me of how different our bodies are.

It reads:

I’m terrified that my thighs will touch together one day.

As thin as I’ve ever gotten, my thighs have ALWAYS touched together. I have never been able to stand up without my thighs touching. That makes running VERY difficult and chafing is a problem unless I wear the correct clothing. When my mom was at her tiniest, I was talking about my problem with chafing on my inner thighs when I run. She nodded and said that she had the same trouble on her evening walks.

I was shocked. She couldn’t have weighed more than 120 pounds at the time.

As similar as we are, there is so much variation in the make up of our bodies. The girl in the PostSecret card would have to gain hundreds of pounds in order for her thighs to touch, whereas I may never be free from it no matter how thin I get. Honestly, whether my thighs rub against each other when I’m doing my daily run isn’t the issue. The issue is whether I do the run every day.

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PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

This new Wii game called Sports Active looks pretty interesting. It’s compatible with the Wii Balance Board, but it also uses a cool leg band thing with the Wiimote nunchucks. In addition, there is a flex band included to increase the difficulty of some of the exercises. It doesn’t come out until May, so it will be a while before I can try it out.

Here is a video about it:

Mike and I were eating at a buffet in Las Vegas back in January. I was trying to forget about eating healthy and just “enjoy” myself on the trip. Mike was looking past me at the wall.

“Cute penguin.”

I turned around to see what he was looking at. I didn’t see a cute penguin. I saw a corpulent glutton eating an ice cream cone the size of his head.

It stopped me in my tracks and I ate very healthy that night.

I’m continually surprised at what makes me eat healthy. When I look at this photo now, he looks like a cute little penguin, but that night, he looked FAT. He reminded me of why I want to eat healthy. He reminded me that taking care of myself isn’t about “letting go” and eating too much. If I think hard about it, I can almost see the blubbery penguin that I saw that night, but it’s difficult.

If somehow I could bottle that feeling, I would never have trouble eating healthy again.

This postcard from PostSecret reminded me of the reason that most people don’t lose weight.

It reads:

I am so afraid of failing that I don’t even want to try.

I see so many people at Weight Watchers who stay the same weight, me included. Whenever I really attack the reasons why I’m not following program, it always comes down to being afraid. Sometimes I’m afraid of failing. Sometimes I’m even afraid of succeeding.

If I fail, then everyone knows that I keep trying to lose weight and I’m still STUCK where I am.

If I succeed, then I have to live in an unfamiliar world of being thin. Will that make me different somehow? Will I be conceited? Will I be constantly hungry? Will I be promiscuous?

It’s no wonder that I feel stuck sometimes.

It has been said that fear is energy. It’s the energy that we need to do something scary. They always say feel the fear and do it anyway, but I want you to USE that fear to move you past your sticking point. Every time you feel scared, go exercise, clean out the bad food in the house or call a friend and talk it out. Don’t let fear trap you in a life that is less than you deserve.

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PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

Shape Magazine and Nike have teamed up to offer a FREE 40-minute workout featuring Serena Williams. You can download it here:

• Nike and Shape Magazine 40 Minute Audio Workout featuring Serena Williams: Right click the link and choose “Save As…” The MP3 will work on any MP3 player.

This workout has you walking or running and then gives you several strength training exercises to do between the bouts of running. There are lunges, squats, and the idiotic triceps dip, which is an impossible move for a beginner made more difficult by adding a leg extension. Many of the strength training exercises are just too complicated to be described with words. For some people (like me), even photographs wouldn’t help. Ideally, Nike and Shape would have put videos on their websites showing beginners HOW to do these exercises, but they didn’t.

I used this workout on a treadmill with my Nike+. I was worried that the Nike+ might pause the workout because I was standing still for some of the exercises, but they never lasted long enough to trigger the Nike+ pause feature. The seamless integration with Nike+ is a true positive to this workout.

Another great feature of the workout is its versatility. Just because the audio track is 40 minutes, doesn’t mean you have to dedicate that long to exercising. If you are a beginner or only have a short amount of time, you can choose to bow out at the 20 or 30 minute marks. Serena gives you instructions to end your workout early if you are too winded or short on time.

The music is pretty heavy on the Rap side of the music spectrum, but it was never irritating enough to make me want to end the workout. My two favorite artists in the mix were Time Machine and Jacques Renault. I found them on this mix on Amazon:

• Ron Herman After Dark at Amazon.com

If you have been feeling bored on the treadmill or running outside, this is a FANTASTIC workout to try and you can’t beat the price! Thanks Nike, Shape and Serena Williams for making this available to us!

Via: Serena Williams: Free 40-Minute Workout

The workouts from iPump cost two bucks a piece and they are worth every penny. I worked out with iPump Fat Burn.

• iPump Fat Burn: iTunes Link

They have a FREE workout that you can download to your iPhone to see what they are like:

• iPump Free Workout: iTunes Link

They have many other workouts to choose from. You can see them all here:

• iPump on iTunes

Each exercise has a video showing how to perform the exercise correctly. To play the video, press the green circle with the letter P in it. I didn’t notice this the first time I used iPump and wrote a VERY different review of this application. After a few emails with Craig Schlossberg, the founder of PumpOne, he pointed out where the play button was. That dedication to customer service is what separates a good company from an excellent company.

The videos showing how the exercises work are only accessible when you have Internet access, but you don’t need the videos to complete the workout. After you’ve done each workout several times, you can probably do the whole thing just by looking at the exercise photos. I tried accessing iPump Fat Burn while my iPhone was in Airplane Mode and it allowed me to go through the whole workout just showing me the photos and instructions. When I tried to play a video, it just popped up a dialog box saying, “This movie could not be played,” and let me continue.

As with MANY exercise programs, their idea of a beginner workout is sorely mistaken. Take, for example this exercise: the push up.

Asking a 200 pound beginner to do a push up is like asking them to do a bench press with nearly 200 pound weights on the bar. What trainer in their right mind would have a beginner bench press almost 200 pounds? That is essentially what you’re asking a beginner to do when you have them do a push up. Sure, you don’t need “special equipment” to do this exercise, but a first-timer should be doing a modified push up or push ups against a wall in the beginning. Asking beginners to do push ups or bench dips is just an exercise in frustration or a recipe for injury. As a beginner, if you find any of the exercises to be too advanced for you, do your best, modify the exercises or skip them altogether until you are strong enough to master them.

Despite their miscalculations about what beginners can actually do, iPump Fat Burn is a great workout tool. You could take it with you to the gym, use it while traveling or just workout at home. You don’t need any exercise equipment to do the workout aside from a bench or stool that can support your full weight. More importantly, PumpOne is a company that is dedicated to customer service. If you are looking for something to change up your workout, then try one of the iPhone applications from iPump.

It had been a long time since I had picked up an Avon catalog, but while I waited for my yearly doctor’s exam, I perused the catalog. I wasn’t surprised that Curves and Avon had joined forces. What surprised me were the products that they were offering.

This advertisement reads:

Curves Trimming Waist Support
Thermal-action shaper belt retains warmth and may help you shed excess water as you exercise. Supports lower back.

I’m sure it gives some support to the lower back, but are they really going to suggest that this belt will help you lose weight? Maybe my grandma would have believed that back in 1963, but does anyone believe it now? A quick search on Yahoo! Answers gives us the truth.

• Neoprene weight loss shorts? – Yahoo! Answers

Fat is not melted away by warm clothing…it is only lost when consumed by the body as a source of fuel. Do cardio for over 20 minutes and you’ll start to burn fat. The sweat under your shorts is just water trying to keep you cool…not fat.

This advertisement reads:

Curves Trimming Shorts
Sauna action neoprene may help you shed excess water weight from your lower torso to your thighs.

Again with the sauna shorts. They might make you sweat, but they aren’t going to deal with the REAL reason your hips are big: fat.

This advertisement reads:

Curves for Women Toning Flip Flops
Stylish sandals cushion feet while helping to stimulate circulation. Improve balance and posture. Natural shock absorbers challenge your muscles to strengthen.

The name of the sandals uses the word “toning,” but there is no proof that the kind of shoes you wear can tone your legs. I’ve talked about this here:

• Starling Fitness » The Fit Flop: How About Just Flop?

• Starling Fitness » Can Walking In Special Sandals Make You Thin?

There is no doubt in my mind that Curves and Avon have done a world of good for women all over the U.S., but seeing them resort to selling these sorts of products makes me wary of everything else they do.

I’ve been attending the Interactive portion of the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. I attended a Core Conversation session called: Reduce MySpace Between Waist & Thighs So Wiki Live Longer. It was about using technology to be active. It got off to a rocky start, but ended strong. Here are my notes:

David Eckoff President, Revolutionary Ventures
Biray Alsac Health/Fitness Educator, FITTmaxx Institute

David Eckoff:

So many of us are plugged in all the time. Unfortunately, that comes at the expense of fitness and health. We’re not going to talk about theory.

Twitter: Follow DavidEckoff

Biray Alsac:

Biray is pronounced BEEReye.

She has worked on exergaming. It’s not just to do exercise, but the motivation is important as well.

How inactive are we as a country? She’s trying to scare us with all the CDC findings about obesity. HELLO! We came to this session for a REASON! I think we ALL agree that being fat is BAD!

Exercise 30 minutes a day. We all know this, yet 51% of the US does not move.

We tend to blame technology on that. Why aren’t we doing it?

David Eckoff: How can we use technology to its advantages?

Biray Alsac:

Stop calling it exercise. She brings up the OLD cliche of taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

Theory of Change: Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance

Most technology focuses on precontemplation, contemplation and preparation stages.

She just stole the Weight Watchers speech from two weeks ago.

If you’re not an exerciser, you’re not around people who like to exercise.

Technologies that are good for exercising:

Gyminee.com You can track your workouts online. There are TONS of these kinds of websites and each one is different. Some are very social. Some are focused on athletic events like triathlons. With Gyminee: every time you complete a workout, it will cross link to Twitter. Then people can look at your workouts and see what you did. It spreads your conversation about exercise. It’s important to get people to start talking about being active.

MapMyRun will map your routes.

Fitizens Fitness professionals can hook up with the enthusiasts.

Exercise Friends Find a workout buddy

EC-Fit You put your workout schedule and it will call you or text you to remind you to workout. Or after your workout asking if you completed your workout. (Sorry, couldn’t find the link to this one and she didn’t have any visuals to give me a clue.)

Stickk.com You put out a contract on yourself and you put money down if you don’t do the goal. Not just for fitness.

WalkerTracker.com Works with your pedometer and posts a widget on your blog that counts your steps.

These all send a message that say “I’m doing something about being active.”

Twitter: Follow Befitt

Food Tracking:

Daily Plate

Utterli.com phone podcasting

Posting pictures of all your food and knowing everyone is going to see it, then you’re make different decisions about what you’re going to eat.

David Eckoff: If the tools make it convenient, then I’m more likely to do it.

Biray Alsac:

Fitness Podcasts: Nutrition Diva Podcast, Cardio Coach, Gymp3, Pod Fitness

Gadgets: Nike Plus, Heart Rate Monitor, Body Bugg

Twitter Apps: TWYE: Tweet What You Eat, Food Feed Twitter: @having a banana, Twit To Fit, Twittercise

David Eckoff: It’s good to be plugged in to people who are into this. It will be motivating. Surround yourself with people who are active and fit. Raise the standard of your peer group. You’ll become like your peer group.

Biray Alsac: Second Life There is a huge fitness community in Second Life. The have virtual classes where you can spin on your exercise bike on Second Life with their VOIP.

David Eckoff: We are in the first generation of exergaming. By the time the second and third gen of exergaming comes out, it will be so awesome.

Biray Alsac:

Wii Fit is a gateway game. It’s a stepping stone to REAL fitness.

100 Fabulous iPhone apps for health and fitness

David Eckoff:

Non Tech Things That I Do

Get Leverage: Associate pleasure with working out. Associate massive pain without working out. Ghost of the future. Imagine yourself at age 75 without muscle mass. Pleasure with working out. Put yourself through a mental exercise. Focus on what I’m grateful for. Flood yourself with good feelings while you’re working out. Trick your body to feeling good with the workout. It’s not intellectual. You need to actually FEEL it.

Schedule it: I schedule it in the morning because if I don’t do it in the morning, I won’t do it. Schedule it like a meeting. Protect that time.

Hydrostatic Body Composition Analysis: Body composition measurement. It cost about $40. I do it every six months.

Biray Alsac: Go to your local university and see if they have grad students who are willing to do this to you.

David Eckoff:

Self Identity: How do you see yourself? Think of yourself as an athlete. The most powerful force within the human body is to remain consistent with how we see ourselves.

Static Contraction Training: Who has enough time for anything? Least amount of time, most amount of results. Tony Robbins strength training.

Biray Alsac: We’re not doing enough. We’re going to pay for it in our health care. We’ll have to pay for it in the end. Think about the process of being active.

Eventually, she’ll post a complete list of online tools here:

• Be Fit With Biray | Tools

One of the founders of a new website called Nutritter, was at the session. He gave me two invites to the Alpha release. If you would like to try it out, contact me.