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

This week’s StrengthCast is short and to the point. Jason answers a few questions from his forum and keeps it brief. He said he was losing his voice, but he sounds good. Give it a listen.

• StrengthCast – Motivation in Brief

My favorite quotes from this week’s StrengthCast:

“The shortcut to physical fitness is: cardiovascular activity, weight training activity and a diet that supports those activities (green vegetables, lean protein and complex carbohydrates). Eat when you’re hungry.”

“If you embark on an exercise program and it’s difficult, as it should be, you will stress your muscles. They will need to repair and rebuild. They repair by being adequately rested, have enough water in your body and you’re eating to support the activities you’re choosing.”

“I think that’s why people overtrain. It’s very easy to say, ‘Ok, I’m training now.’ And every day you train. It’s easier to train every day than it is to stay focused on your overall goal and train every other day, or maybe every three days in the beginning.”

“Managing your recovery is of crucial importance.”

This podcast is a really inspirational thing to listen to while you’re exercising or if you’re feeling like it’s all not worth it. I listened to it while I was walking on my lunch hour and I wished I had a paper with me to write down all the great stuff he was giving me.

After writing the entry: neXfit Bike – Does it Exist? I received the following email:

It’s a shame when our potential customers can’t reach us directly when they have questions regarding our product or services. We take pride in our new Interactive Fitness Bike and would want to make sure that everyone who required information about our products could reach us Directly. As Vice President of Sales and Marketing I would like to think that we do a great job in servicing our clients and gettings back to those potential customers with any addittional information that is required. My direct number is 416 391 3391 x222 for any of your readers who require any information about our products or services. – Geoffrey White

So, I called him. Geoffrey answered his phone and was willing to answer my questions:

“Is it okay if I post your email and phone number as an update to my entry?”

“Yes, please. We want people to get their questions answered.”

“I had a question about your bike. The website doesn’t say anything about it being compatible with Xbox or PlayStation, but a lot of the other sites were reporting that it was.”

“We sent out a press release about our new bike. It isn’t on the website yet. It is definitely compatible with Xbox and PlayStation 2.”

“Now, what about the new console systems that are coming out like Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3?”

“We’re taking one step at a time.”

“That’s good. I couldn’t see the controls for the bike on the website, what are they like?”

“We don’t have pictures ready of the new bike, but they are on each handle.”

Geoffrey was polite and willing to answer all my questions. It seems like they are doing their best to keep their website running after being “boing boinged” and “slashdotted.” If you have any further questions or want to purchase one, here’s the name and phone number of the man who can get you one.

Steve Pavlina has a new entry on How To Find the Best Diet for You. He recommends experimenting with new diets for 30 days, following his 30 Days to Success plan. He also talks about what has worked for him.

• Steve Pavlina – How to Find the Best Diet for You

I can tell you that I tried every diet in the book. Jumping into the cold water of a new diet never worked for me. Ok, that’s a lie. They would always work the first three weeks until I started feeling deprived and then I would binge. Trying out various diets and giving them 30 days wouldn’t have worked for me.

The way that I was able to succeed came much much slower than 30 days. When I first started Weight Watchers, all I worried about was my Points. I kept my Points within the range that they needed to be. Then, I slowly started trying to follow the eight Good Health Guidelines. I would set a goal for the week, like eating all my fruits and vegetables or drinking all my water. It probably took me three or four months until I was following all eight guidelines every day.

Even after that, it took me a long time to slowly eat even healthier. I would ask for brown rice instead of white rice. I would cook whole grain pasta more often. I cut caffeine out of my diet. All those things came slowly and over a longer time than just 30 days.

My recommendation would be to do ONE thing. Instead of jumping into a new diet for 30 days, how about doing one good thing this week for your health. You know what your body needs. When I said one thing, it popped right into your head. Do that one thing for your health this week and keep it up. Add a new thing next week and try doing both. Soon you will have a healthier life.

According to The Scotsman, a company is researching the abilities of the plant, Lathyrus Linifolius, to aid in weight loss. It is said that monks used the roots of this plant to fight hunger.

• The Scotsman – Forgotten plant with power to quell hunger pangs

The only problem with this is the plant is poisonous. There is a company that is trying to find a way to create a weight loss medication with a poisonous plant. Here is the full information on the plant from Dave’s Garden.

• PlantFiles – Detailed information on Bitter Vetch (Lathyrus linifolius)

Hunger isn’t entirely physiological. It has a psychological element to it. Every time I have run into a problem with “hunger pangs” it has always turned out to be an emotional hunger rather than a physical one. Don’t look to poisonous plants and companies that are trying to bilk you out of your money. Get real with yourself and work through the issues that spawn your eating.

Via: Slashfood – Archaeologists discover herbal diet pill

This article from Steve Pavlina has been sitting in my “write an entry about this” bin for awhile. He talks about your greatest strengths and your greatest weaknesses.

• Steve Pavlina – Your Superpower and Your Kryptonite

What is your greatest strength in weight management? My greatest strength is my drive and ambition. I am incredibly motivated to get thin. I always have been. I have been desperately motivated to get thin since I was nine years old. That motivation can hold me through things that most people cringe to think about.

My motivation to be thin held me through those summers in Billings when my grandparents starved me. I was able to survive those summers and emerge from them with baton, tennis and swimming skils. I can starve myself for three months on end. That is my strength.

It’s also my weakness and it’s why I was fat for years. I knew that I was capable of starvation for months on end. I would starve myself and then bounce back with bingeing. Eventually, I was able to stop starving myself, but that didn’t stop the bingeing. I continued bingeing whenever I felt insecure or unprotected.

I wasn’t able to conquer my Kryptonite until I was willing to give up my Superpower. The year that I said, “Enough!” and stopped dieting forever was the year the I started to head on the road to health. I refused to diet. I decided to be fat forever. I gave up my incredible motivation and willpower. I gave up my ability to live on starvation rations for months. I gave it all up and decided that I was good enough. I was pretty just the way I was and I wasn’t ever going to worry about losing weight again.

Ironically, when I gave all that up, I started eating healthier. I started following the USDA Food Pyramid, adding more veggies and fruits into my diet. I started replacing Diet Coke with water. I found Weight Watchers and decided that I needed to learn how to eat healthy instead of activating my Superpower.

And now, I am truly invincible.

What is your weight management Superpower? Is it also your Kryptonite? What are your strengths and how can you use them to your advantage? What are your weaknesses? How can you avoid them? Take an hour for yourself today and write out these questions and your answers.

This product makes a lot of promises. Just by smelling yummy smells, you can lose weight. You get your choice of banana, green apple or peppermint. Here are links to the home page and their research study.

• SLIMist Home Page

• Research Study

Their website includes a diet plan (simplistic, but workable) and an exercise program (a good starting point). If you follow the diet and exercise plan, then you will lose weight. You don’t need the smelly stuff. The reason why people have lost weight is because of the eating restrictions and exercise regimen, not the smelly stuff.

Plus, if you want to smell bananas, green apples or peppermint, go ahead and smell them. If they really make you lose weight, the real thing should work much better than the fake stuff they sell.

Via: Diet Blog – SLIMist: Lose Weight By Inhaling a Spray

This product says that it can predict your calorie expenditure with 92% accuracy. It uses sensors that measure motion, skin temperature, skin resistivity and ambient temperature. It communicates with software on your PC to calculate your calorie expenditure.

• apex introduces bodybuggâ„¢ – the world’s most intelligent calorie monitoring system

I have two problems with this gadget. The first is the price. The unit is $500 and it requires an ongoing subscription to the Bodybugg web service. I don’t know if it’s worth that much money to get 92% accuracy when I can get pretty close just by keeping track of my physical activity. Their own abstracts state the following:

[Physical activity records] can provide a great deal of detail on the types of physical activities engaged in along with the individual’s pattern of participation (Leenders, 2001, Weston 1997).

Their only problem with this method of calculating calorie expenditure is the time it takes to collect the data:

While these measurement tools are quite inexpensive, there is a significant cost disadvantage in that many are manpower intensive requiring personnel to gather and analyze the data generated. In the case of computer logs, participants must have a computer and be computer literate.

This Bodybugg sensor only works with a computer (a very expensive web-based computer system that requires an ongoing fee), so the Bodybugg doesn’t solve that problem.

The second problem that I have with this system is that all the abstracts and studies that were done on this program were with an armband system that worked in conjunction with a heart rate monitor. The Bodybugg doesn’t have any heart rate monitoring capabilities, so it doesn’t really have a proven accuracy rate of 92%. The mechanism that they tested is different than the one that they are selling.

In the end, a piece of paper where you write down what exercise you did all day is almost as good and over $500 cheaper.

Via: Hautegear – Wearable weight manager

Update 09-26-07: The television show, The Biggest Loser, features this product. All of the contestants are wearing them on their arms. Still seems more expensive than a heart rate monitor and a pad of paper.

Wednesday night, Mike and I had a dinner that we used to eat all the time, but we haven’t had recently. It tasted good and it was only 6 Points. I thought that I would share the recipe with you.

Tuna Mac & Cheese with Broccoli

• Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (you can use whatever brand you wish, but the calculated calories are based on Kraft)
• 4 Tablespoons of butter
• 1/4 Cup of Skim Milk
• 1/2 Bag of frozen broccoli
• 1 Can of tuna packed in water

Directions:

• Bring 6 cups of water to a boil. Add the macaroni and the broccoli to the boiling water.
• Cook until tender, drain water (do not rinse) and return the macaroni and broccoli to the pot.
• Add the butter and stir until melted.
• Add the milk, tuna fish and the cheese packet and stir.
• Divide into five servings and place the extra servings in the freezer.

Serves 5: 6 WW Points per serving: Calories 258; Fat 11.3; Fiber 0.6

Macaroni and Cheese is a highly processed food (that is NOT cheese), so this meal is a rarity for us, but it is very easy to make. You can substitute whatever vegetable you prefer for the broccoli. I suggest separating the servings and freezing the extra right away to prevent over eating. This meal is high in fat, so it’s easy to overdo it. I take the extra servings to work for lunches.

I don’t know what to think about the Freshman Fifteen. I’m seeing lots of articles about how to avoid them, but I’m wondering how helpful they are.

When I started college, I had already been trained to obsess about my weight. Not only had I been starved every summer by my grandparents, I was the friend of a cheerleader. I learned about worshipping the porcelain goddess and no matter how many times Seventeen magazine told me it wasn’t healthy, I wished that I could have an eating disorder that would make me thin.

I dieted throughout my Freshman year. I started running programs; running programs with too much running and not enough walking. I ate only salads at the cafeteria; salads with lots of ranch dressing and those yummy rolls that came with them, sopping up every drop of dressing. I still have the food journals from that time period. Once I went four days without eating anything but water with lemon juice and Diet Coke. On the fifth day, I ate an entire box of Twinkies. They weren’t even fresh Twinkies. They were the stale ones that you buy at the day-old bread store.

Did I gain weight Freshman year? Yes. Did I gain fifteen pounds? No. Did I learn any healthy habits during that year? Not a chance. What would I tell a Freshman about the Freshman Fifteen? I don’t have a clue. If I could go back in time and give myself some advice, what would it be? That’s a question I can answer:

(more…)

Everyone (see the reviews below) is excited about these exercise bikes. According to the specs, they connect to Xbox, Playstation 2 or your computer, allowing you to play your video games using the exercise bike. They supposedly even have the vibration (shock) feedback that happens with some controllers when there is a collision or explosion.

• NeXfit – Get In The Game

That sounds good and is really exciting. The bike pictured here is actually pretty enough to reside in my living room with the Xbox. The only thing that bothers me is that I can’t buy it. I tried to click on the International store button and that didn’t work. The Canadian store button prices the bike at $2,300, but I’m not from Canada, so I can’t have it shipped to me.

I even tried looking at the forum to see if they have some questions answered there. Unfortunately, there was little there except people complaining that they are unable to purchase the bikes. This quote says it all to me:

I would never buy one because I feel this board and the workings of the website tell you alot about their customer service. I was going to buy one after seeing it in several articles. I cannot justify $3,000, if the customer service is not there when the product has issues.

Shucks… This looked so cool and it looked like it would be fun and not be so much of an eyesore in my small living space. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Nexfit is ready for Prime Time.

Via: neXfit’s new exergaming bike – Engadget – www.engadget.com

Via: Shiny Shiny: NeXfit Video-Game Exercise Bike

Via: MedGadget – Fun Way to Fight Fat

Via: God Bless CES on Maxim Online

UPDATE: neXfit Bike – Update