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

Reuters has an article about a study that found a correlation between lack of sleep and high BMI. It has some really sound advice about taking care of your body.

• Reuters – Stay Thin by Sleeping More?

Losing weight, increasing your exercise level and adjusting your food intake can make you tired. You have a couple of choices when you’re tired. You can eat food to wake yourself up. You can consume caffeine or another stimulant to wake yourself up. You could sleep more. Whenever you have a choice like this, please choose the most healthy option.

Schedule more sleep time into your week. You will be more efficient at work. Your workouts will feel better. You will eat less food or consume less caffeine to “wake yourself up” because you’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I promise that you won’t regret the television show that you missed the night before.

MSNBC has a story about the differences between uphill and downhill hiking. According to a study in the Alps, hiking uphill helps remove fat from the bloodstream, whereas hiking downhill helps remove sugars.

• MSNBC – Associated Press – Walking downhill may lower sugar levels

Unless you have hypoglycemia or diabetes, I wonder how useful this information is. As far as weight loss is concerned, you benefit either way. If you get the fats, you’ll lose weight and if you get the sugars, you’ll lose weight. It’s almost like this study is trying to tell us, “Hey, exercising is good for you.”

Surprise, surprise…

Men’s Fitness Magazine has the rankings for the fittest and fattest cities in the United States.

• Men’s Fitness – America’s Fittest and Fattest Cities

I see these sorts of rankings several times a year and I have just swallowed them whole in the past. “Maybe if I lived in Seattle, then I’d be thin,” I think to myself. Only now am I questioning the data…

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It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.
– Sir Winston Churchill, British politician (1874 – 1965)

The sad truth is that you cannot buy yourself fit or thin, but the beauty of all of this is that the converse is also true. You don’t need extra money to lose weight and be strong. Just like when I walked into the door of Weight Watcher’s, I was willing to do whatever they told me. All you need to do is be willing to do what is required.

You can get fit for free. Walk around the block. Run around the block. Play with your dog. Play with your kids. Play with yourself. Run up and down the stairs at work. Do some jumping jacks and crunches. Carry your groceries. Carry your neighbor’s groceries. Volunteer to help your friend move. Lift cans of soup. Lift sacks of flour.

You can even get paid to get fit. Get a part-time job in a warehouse or for UPS or even at a department store. All of these jobs are very active and provide you with light to moderate exercise while you get paid. Instead of going home and watching television, getting a temporary job that is very physical might be a good option for you.

What is required: Thirty to forty minutes of intense exercise every day. You should be breathing heavy, sweating, and your heart rate should be at the cardio level.

You can lose weight and cut your grocery bills. Healthy and fresh food is actually cheaper than junk food. Fruit and vegetables are economical compared to chips and cookies. Frozen dinners are more expensive than the ingredients to cook it yourself. If money is your concern, you may have to sacrifice convenience, but it is possible to become thin without spending one extra dime.

What is required: Lower your caloric intake. Follow the Dietary Guidelines for Americans or the Eat More, Lose More plan from Prevention Magazine.

As long as you are willing to do what is required, there is nothing that can get in your way. As long as you are unwilling, there is nothing that you can buy that will help you get to your goal.

Sad as it may seem, you can’t buy yourself fit. You can’t buy yourself thin. No matter how much money you spend on yoga mats and fitness balls, you will stay at the same level of fitness if you don’t use them. No matter how much money you spend on health food, you will stay at the same weight if you eat too much.

Sadder still, you can’t learn yourself fit and you can’t learn yourself thin. No matter how many gyms you join or personal trainers you hire, you will stay at the same level of fitness if you don’t exercise every day. No matter how many diet books or magazines you buy, you will stay at the same weight if you don’t alter your eating habits. No matter how many nutrition classes you take… I think you get the point.

The only way to get fit is to exercise. The only way to get thin is to monitor your eating. There is just no other way around the physics of physiology. No matter how much money you have, you are still bound by the laws of physics.

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The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 has just been released. They have helpful recommendations for physical activity, food groups, fats, carbohydrates, sodium, alcoholic beverages, and even food safety.

• The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005

With this much down to earth information available, you’ll never need to buy another diet book again.

CNN noticed the large “Exergaming” section of CES this year. They highlighted the Kilowatt, LaunchPad and DDR (of course). I wish I could have been there and played with a Kilowatt myself. Seeing it online is nothing to being able to play with it in person.

• CNN – Gadgets get couch potatoes moving

I can’t wait for next year’s CES. I’m going this time and by then, all of these things will be perfected and I’ll be able to play with the second generation of exergaming technology.

Here is an interesting collection of tips from a fitness instructor’s blog.

• Resolutions 2005

This isn’t your ordinary “pump you up” pep talk. He talks about the reality of life teaching exercise classes. Check out the first few sentences:

“The gym was full today. There were several new faces in my spin class. At the beginning of the new year, I make my classes a little easier so that those trying to stick with their New Year’s resolution don’t get too discouraged. But, by the end of the month most of those new faces will be gone.”

The headlines scare me:

New Scientist – High-fat diet could harm the brain by Helen Phillips

BioEd Online – High-fat diet is bad for the brain by Jim Giles

Prevention – Are These Foods Really Healthy? by Dayna Winter, RD

Negative press is not new for trans-fats or hydrogenated oils. They have been implicated in heart disease for years now. Why do these headlines scare me when the others didn’t?

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I had no idea that little phrase would bring up so many advertisements on a Google search. I had no idea it would bring up so many books at Amazon. In fact, I have been so obsessed with nutrition and so isolated from the world of diets, that this phrase was completely new to me. I saw it in an advertisement and wondered about it.

I had no idea how little it was substantiated. After searching through pages and pages of advertisements pushing one diet or another with promise of fat burning foods or negative calorie foods, I finally found a voice of reason. I finally found an article that asks for the thing that we all should ask regarding every diet: Where’s the proof?

Diet Power – The Negative-Calorie Diet by Elena Serocki

If you think that celery contains fewer calories than it takes to digest it, then you need to read her article. There are a lot of companies out there trying to sell you their diet with their magic combinations of fat burning foods. Don’t fall prey to them.