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

The entire North American continent is dealing with a heat wave, so exercising outside has become miserable for a lot of people. If you are considering buying a treadmill, check out Wendy’s tips on getting a bargain.

• About.com – Treadmill Tightwad: Finding Treadmill Bargains or Creative Alternatives by Wendy Bumgardner

One thing I would add to this comprehensive article is garage sales. New Years resolution end with garage sales. It’s really easy to cruise the garage sales looking for a treadmill because you can see from the street whether they have what you want.

Additionally, if you are really serious about getting a treadmill for cheap, you can ask at every garage sale, “Hey, I’m looking for a treadmill. I know they’re kind of heavy to move. You wouldn’t happen to have one to sell, do you?” The treadmill that is gathering dust in their basement but is too much of a long shot to go to the bother of carrying up for the garage sale might just find a home with you.

Finally, the most important thing to remember is to be willing to ask. Asking for what you want takes very little time, but many times it rewards you far more than you ever thought it could. You might just end up with a treadmill for free!

For some reason, I am enthralled with the idea of making my own raisins. I can buy a box of them at the store for cheaper than the fresh grapes, yet I have the compelling urge to try this on my own. You can find the directions here:

• How to make raisins at home – Slashfood – by Nicole Weston

Nicole says that it took a week of blistering heat to go from fresh grapes to raisins. The true benefit is that you know there is nothing in your home-dried raisins. No one added sugar on the outside to make them sweeter. They’re just plump and juicy raisins straight from the sun to you.

My grandma used to make fruit leather during the summer heat waves of my youth. I found a site that gives you detailed instructions on how to make your own:

• MAKING FRUIT LEATHER

Remember, dried fruit and raisins are concentrated fruit. One serving is a quarter cup (instead of a half cup). If you eat large quantities of either, it’s the same as eating candy. Make sure you watch your portions and enjoy fruit in this unique way.

Slashfood has a great health gadget entry here where they give you a list of many of the different ways to keep track of your eating using your cell-phone or Palm.

• The wireless foodie – Slashfood

For more detailed reviews of some of the products mentioned, see my entries here:

• The Sprint MyFoodPhone: Starling Fitness – A Good Idea with Costly Execution

• Palm Diet Programs: Starling Fitness – New Year’s Resolutions with Palm

There are so many options to keep track of your eating. From a pad of paper to a software program in your phone, these are tools. If you don’t use them, they don’t work. You don’t need an expensive plan or feature on your cellphone to keep yourself eating healthy.

Archimage is trying to teach young adults and teens the importance of eating healthy and getting exercise by incorporating those ideas into their new video game: NanoSwarm. Here is a preview trailer for the video game.

I couldn’t help noticing that they gave me the perfect evaluation in the dialogue of the game:

“It’s bad. It’s bad as I’ve ever seen it.”
“How bad?”
“End of the world bad.”

I like to say that this video game will help kids eat healthier and choose exercise, but with writing like this, I wonder if they’ll be able to stomach the game enough to learn anything. Kids are incredibly good at spotting baloney. This videogame might set off that baloney-detector and sit unplayed in the cabinet under the television set.

Via: Video games for healthy eating – Slashfood

CNN has an article from sport nutritionists that talk about how to eat when you’re working out. Whether you workout in the morning, at lunch or in the evening, they have recommendations for you.

• CNN.com – Get the right fuel for your workout – Jul 25, 2006

I workout in the morning. Sometimes I can just wake up and go for a run with no problems. Other times, I end up shaky and needing to eat when I get home. If I eat beforehand, I’ve had trouble with nausea during the run.

The most important thing is to listen to your body.

I haven’t seen that recommended enough anywhere. CNN has given you guidelines on how to eat healthy, but they aren’t set in stone. Be aware of how your body feels and fuel it accordingly. That’s the best advice you can follow.

This article from Treatment Online talks about how Americans are eating so much. Not the why, but the how.

• Treatment Online – Studying the Rules of Consumption

It talks about unit food. We eat one banana instead of eating enough of a banana to feel satisfied. Since the units of our food are bigger (supersizing) we have been eating more.

It also talks about the differences of our culture from places where food is scarce and teaching immigrants how to eat healthy in a world of abundance.

For me, I know exactly how I eat too much. It doesn’t happen every day. It happens when I binge. It’s not food companies making my units too large. It’s me eating too much to compensate for feeling my emotions.

When I can conquer that, I will finally be healthy.

The Accidental Hedonist brings to mind the thoughts that have been plaguing me for years: why do people think French Food is so good?

• Accidental Hedonist – Is French Food All it’s cracked up to be?

Escargo? Tastes like gritty butter. Lobster bisque? Tastes like fishy cream. Smelly cheese? Well, it tastes like smelly cheese.

It has been even worse for me since the release of French Women Don’t Get Fat. Not only was French Food touted as the height of culinary cuisine, it was supposed to be more healthy for you too.

Maybe my palate is too undiscerning for French Food. I like mac n’ cheese. I like ramen noodles. Neither are very healthy for me, but if I’m going to splurge, I think I spend the evening with Kraft instead of Pierre.

Just in case you missed it, I finished filming a new walking video. I talked about it here:

• Starling Fitness » Sugarhouse Walk: Another Walking Video

This video is almost three minutes long and shows some of the highlights of the DVD:

You can see the route I walked here:

Total Mileage: 2.18 miles
Average Speed: 2.8 mph
Time: 47:00 Minutes

In this video, I’m walking through the historical Sugarhouse shopping district. There are so many little details to notice in this video that I’m still finding new stuff even though I’ve worked out with it four times and I filmed the thing. You get to peek into shop windows, walk past the very busy Sugarhouse Coffee shop, avoid the sprinklers in the park, chase the ducks into the pond and dodge the early morning commuters.

I imagine this video is perfect on those days when you would like to take a run outside, but it’s too hot to breathe out there. It might also be good when it’s the middle of winter and you just want to remember what green grass looks like.

Buy the Sugarhouse Walk video for only $5.00 plus shipping:

Order Starling Fitness Walking Videos Here

Wendy Bumgardner at walking.about.com has a nice selection of walking journals and spreadsheets that you can use to track your walks. You can see them here:

• Track Your Walks with Walking Logs, Walking Journals and Calendars

I really liked the 2006 calendar where you can see all your mileage for the entire month on one page. I imagined having a yearly calendar on the wall with all my mileage on it and it felt really inspiring to me.

If you have been letting the heat get in the way of your workouts, try these motivating journals and spreadsheets that are free to download. They might give you the boost that you need.

I see billboards for weight loss surgery all the time. They make it look so easy to lose weight, but I worry about the mortality rate and complications from the surgery. I just found a medical abstract that researched the complication rates from these surgeries:

• Entrez PubMed – Healthcare Utilization and Outcomes After Bariatric Surgery

Here are the facts. In this study, 21.9% of the patients experience complications during the surgery. Over a fifth of the patients had negative reprecussions DURING the surgery. That number jumps up to 81% after a 180 days.

81% of patients have complications within 180 days of the surgery!

Why would anyone willing have bariatric surgery if they knew these were their odds for health complications? The problem is, people don’t know. No one is telling them that they have an 81% chance that they will be SICK from the this surgery. No wonder health insurance companies don’t want to pay for this procedure.

Bariatric surgery is not good for you.

Via: Consumer Health Digest, July 25, 2006

See also: Expert Blogs Eat Right, Stay Fit – Weight-loss Surgery: Not a Magic Bullet on Yahoo! Health