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

It seems like scientific studies about weight loss—especially the ones that make it into mainstream news—are mostly just a complicated way of confirming what most people already know. Here’s the latest:

• Fruit and fiber the key to weight management (AP)

The study found, not surprisingly, that normal-weight people eat significantly more fruit and fiber than overweight people, and that the overweight consume more fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol.

While all of this is obvious to anyone who’s tried a diet plan or two, it suggests that even non-dieters like me could benefit by adding fruit and fiber to their diets. Low-carb dieters take note: the study also found that normal-weight people consumed 43% more complex carbohydrates (starches and grains) than their overweight counterparts.

We’ve written quite a bit here about how games like Dance Dance Revolution are good for exercise. Now one California school district is testing a pilot program that adds “exertainment” to their PE curriculum with Playstation games like DDR.

• Wired News: Now That’s Exertainment!

I’m not sure I would have appreciated being forced to “dance” in public in elementary school, but if things like this were done right they’d be a great way of making exercise fun for kids. I hope this idea catches on in other schools.

In this Ask MetaFilter thread, someone wants to know why the food at their favorite restaurant makes them feel full despite the small quantities. He even goes so far as to wonder whether they’re adding some mysterious “fullness powder” to the food.

Imagine the demand for such a powder if it existed! I’m not sure why restaurants would use it—they want you to eat more food, after all—but you could make a killing selling it to dieters.

Sadly, the consensus seems to be that a less mysterious substance is causing the feeling of fullness: butter—lots of butter, and other fats. Someone posted this great quote from Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain:

“Butter. I don’t care what they tell you they’re putting or not putting in your food at your favorite restaurant; chances are, you’re eating a ton of butter. In a professional kitchen, it’s almost always the first and last thing in the pan. We saute in a mixture of butter and oil for that nice, brown carmelized color, and we finish nearly every sauce with it (we call this monter au buerre); that’s why my sauce tastes richer and creamier and mellower than yours, why it’s got that nice, thick, opaque consistency. Believe me, there’s a big crock of softened butter on almost every cook’s station.”

While this might be a good reason to avoid eating out too often, I think there’s another message here: the low-fat (or no fat) diet foods aren’t always good for making you feel full, so you might want to try a bit of butter to add bulk to a meal. Just don’t use as much as your favorite restaurant uses…

While Apple’s new iPod nano is unlikely to make it onto anyone’s list of essential equipment for walking, running, or jogging, listening to music does make exercise more bearable, and a flash memory based music player doesn’t skip like a CD player or an old-fashioned iPod.

One more reason to consider this particular music player: If you don’t have a watch handy, the nano doubles as a stopwatch. Even if you do have a watch handy, it probably doesn’t have all of the features of this stopwatch—it tracks lap time and total time, and each stopwatch session is saved in a list. You can select an entry in the list to view the date, time, time for each lap, and other statistics.

Don’t let the lack of a $200 music player stop you from running, of course—but kudos to Apple for making this one a bit more than an entertainment device. See the Ars Technica review for a description and screenshot of the stopwatch feature.

The World’s Healthiest Foods is a site that promotes healthy foods. They’ve chosen a list of healthiest foods based on their criteria. While the usual suspects are there—whole grains, vegetables, fresh fruits, and beans—there are also some odd choices like Calf’s Liver and Maple Syrup.

Whether you agree with their criteria or not, one useful part of the site is their collection of recipes. You can select recipes based on which of the healthy foods they contain, or just browse the list. There are bound to be a few good healthy recipes in there, and I appreciate the ability to exclude those that contain Calf’s Liver.

If you’re planning a walk or bike ride around your neighborhood, you might find this useful. Gmaps Pedometer uses Google Maps to measure a route you enter on the map.

It defaults to Hoboken, New Jersey, so you’ll need to start with the “if you don’t live in Hoboken” link, or just start here. Use the zoom control and drag and drop to find your location—for example, here’s Salt Lake City. Click Start Recording and double-click several points along the route, and the total mileage of the entire route is displayed.

With a bit of practice you can get a pretty complicated route onto the map. Use the Permalink feature to save your route to your favorites or email it to someone. There is other software out there for this purpose, but this one’s free, and you can’t beat the accuracy of Google Maps.

Laura wrote about the Reebok Cyber Rider last week. If you’re looking for an alternative and have an unlimited budget, you might want to try one of TACX’s VR Trainers instead. These use a combination of software (for the PC) and a steering frame—you add the bicycle—to simulate cycling. Their new Fortius model will include a motor and brake that rotate or stop your rear tire to simulate uphill and downhill rides.

You’ll need over $1000 and a compatible bike to set this up, so it’s a serious expense—I suppose this is intended to target professional bicyclists rather than ordinary “exergaming” consumers, but it looks like a very professional product. The TACX website, by contrast, is nearly worthless, so you’ll probably find out more from this PDF catalog.

Via Engadget, which also mentions that the Fortius sends the power generated by your exercise back into the grid so it can power your other appliances—I don’t think the power you generate will be significant unless you’re a very obsessive biker, but if lowering the electric bill motivates you to exercise, more power to you.

Dr. James Levine and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic are testing workstations that allow you to stand at a computer and walk on the attached treadmill while you work. If the speed is set to something like 1.0 MPH, he’s found that you can burn an extra 100 calories per hour without losing your balance or being too distracted from work.

• USA Today – Researcher sees future where people walk at work

Other fit-at-work innovations they’re experimenting with include a carpeted track around the workspace to encourage walking and “a hockey net on the wall” so colleagues can play with something while talking to Levine. I get the impression that the Mayo Clinic is a fun place to work.

Of course, there’s no commercial product like these treadmill workstations available yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see one in a few years. It’s also not too hard to rig something like this yourself if your employer doesn’t object—I’d suggest leaving the hockey net out of your proposal, though.

[via Engadget]

Motivational writer Steve Pavlina is writing a series of articles on self-discipline this week, beginning with this great introduction to the topic:

Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state.

In this article, he applies the lessons of progressive weight training to building self-discipline, and suggests pushing your limits rather than setting goals that are far beyond your current performance. Whether you’re trying to stick to your diet or improve your performance at work, this is worth a read. Here’s another good quote:

Don’t compare yourself to other people. It won’t help. You’ll only find what you expect to find. If you think you’re weak, everyone else will seem stronger. If you think you’re strong, everyone else will seem weaker. There’s no point in doing this. Simply look at where you are now, and aim to get better as you go forward.

Steve’s weblog might be worth keeping an eye on beyond this series of posts, as he occasionally writes about diet and fitness topics. An example from last week: How to Give Up Coffee.

Do you think of food as a comfort, a reward, or the main event of a celebration or vacation? You’re not alone, if this thread at Ask Metafilter is any indication:

• How to stop notions of comfort food

The responses to the question include the obvious diet fads that always have their proponents (don’t drink soda! Low carb! Count calories! Whole fruits!) but there are also some good suggestions for different ways to reward yourself. A couple of the suggestions I liked best:

1. Use a small quantities of really good or really expensive food as a reward.
2. Put the cost of each food you manage to avoid eating in a savings account (or a box) and spend it on non-food rewards.

The whole thread is worth a read, if only to realize that so many people have dealt with the same problem.