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

I have been running for years. The BEST jogging bra I have been able to find has been the Champion Action Shape Sports Bra. I have tried every kind of jogging bra out there and this is the absolute best. Here are the reasons:

Keeps everything in place

The most important reason to wear a sports bra is to keep from bouncing. With the Action Shape bra, I never have to clutch my arms around my chest during the fastest part of my run in an effort to prevent pain. EVERYTHING stays in place.

No Uni-boob

I know it sounds vain, but I don’t like the Uni-boob effect that I get with some other jogging bras. I don’t like the rubbing between my breasts (not to mention the sweat) and I think it just looks ugly. The Action Shape separates enough to make me comfortable.

No chaffing

Chaffing is the other reason to have a sports bra. My most sensitive areas are my nipples, where the straps hit my shoulders, and the bottom elastic on my ribcage. I have never had chaffing with the Action Shape, no matter how long my run. I can’t say the same for any other jogging bra I’ve tried.

They last FOREVER

THIS is the BEST feature of the Action Shape bra. They easily last a year or two. I usually buy three bras, wearing them each for two workouts a week. I wash them in the washer and dryer without taking any unusual precautions and they last forever.

Here are the disadvantages:

You can’t wear it without a shirt

For all you nearly-nudists at the gym, this sports bra LOOKS like a bra. Despite the discreet bra hook coverup, it really DOES look like a bra, so you can’t bear your midriff with this sports bra without looking like you’re just shirtless.

The velcro shoulder strap adjustments can go awry and scratch your back shoulder

This is VERY rare, but the velcro that holds the bra straps at your desired length can get damaged and curled after MANY washings (I’m talking a year’s worth). No matter what you do, it will always turn wrong and scratch up your back shoulder. This is nature’s way of telling you to buy a new bra.

In the end, the Champion Action Shape bra is the best bra for running out there. I live in CONSTANT fear that Champion will discontinue them. I bought my first Action Shape bras at Lady Footlocker, but they stopped carrying those particular bras. Now, I buy them from Amazon.com here:

• Champion Women’s Action Shape Sports Bra at Amazon.com

Nora at Complete Running wrote a review of the Nike+ Sportsband. You can see it here:

• Nike+ Sportband Review : Complete Running Network

Positive Aspects:

• It can be used without having to be plugged in to music
• It’s sleek and not heavy.
• It tells displays time, distance, and pace.
• At $59, it’s cheaper than a Garmin.

Negative Aspects:

• The connectivity is not always great
• Difficulty installing the software to work with the sportsband
• If you don’t wear Nike shoes, you have to get creative.

I didn’t know that the Nike+ Sportsband didn’t use iTunes to sync with Nike+. THAT is the deal breaker on a gadget like this. When will Nike learn that they should leave the computer programming to Apple? They obviously didn’t learn it when they built their website and they are making the SAME mistake with the Nike+ Sportsband. If you are looking for something to log your runs, you’ll do better with an iPod Nano and the Nike+ kit instead.

When I saw this billboard in my town, I was kind of ticked off. The Utah Department of Transportation had kind of a good idea. The billboard read:

Burn Fat,
Save Gas
Get Started
801-FAT-BIKE

Suggesting that you can lose weight and save gas money is exactly what will happen if you ride your bike to work. Unfortunately, billboards don’t solve the problem of “Why don’t more people ride their bikes to work?”

Honestly, it’s because of the way YOU have designed the roads, UDOT. Your so-called bike lanes are merely gutters with style. There is NOTHING preventing cars from swerving into our lane, using it as a turn lane or swishing past us with such speed that the wind could knock us down. What we need are WIDE sidewalks that can accommodate bikes AND pedestrians. Or maybe even completely separate bike lanes with dividers that give us a little space and protection from the cars. Billboards aren’t the answer.

Ironically, on Wednesday when I called the number on the billboard, the phone just sat there ringing. No one answered and the voice mail that came on was a generic plea to leave a message.

Hello, people of Utah. It is possible to ride your bike to work safely and efficiently. Here is a list of tips that will help you get to work without getting in an accident or stinking to high heaven.

• Starling Fitness » How To Ride Your Bike To Work

Since the UDOT website is completely useless, hopefully one person will see this and have some hope that it is possible for them.

If you have been wondering how to incorporate your weight training with your home decor (and maybe even storage), here is an idea:

• DAILY DANNY: Old CDs into Dumbells

Danny made 10 pound dumbbells out CDs, a bolt and nuts:

150 CDs, about 75 on each side, on a threaded rod from the hardware store and then (8) bolts to hold it all together. No tools needed. Just thread it all and bolt it tight.

They weight about 10 pounds each and I actually love the shiny look of them. I made two of them and they are sitting in my living room. Very handsome looking items I must say!

If you were worried about where you would store your old CDs after you ripped them and where you would put your workout gear, there are two birds offed with one stone with these bad boys!

Via: Craftzine.com blog: HOW TO – Turn Old CDs into Dumbbells

I found this postcard from PostSecret this week to be ironic since I was just writing about biking to work.

When I rode my bike to work, I did it strictly because of my physical fitness. I never considered the savings in gas money until I realized that I didn’t need to fill the tank as often. If you would like to bike to work to lose weight, here are some pointers:

• Starling Fitness » How To Ride Your Bike To Work

Should you be ashamed that you want to bike to work to lose weight instead of saving the planet? HELL NO! That saving the planet business is just icing on the cake. Here’s a little video about all the good reasons to bike to work that have NOTHING to do with the environment.

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.

I haven’t written about it for a long time, but I am still hosting challenges on the NIKE+ Website. The reason I don’t post much about it here is because I can’t link to the actual challenges and you have to sign up to even see how people are progressing. Additionally you have to have a Nike+ iPod or Nike+ SportsBand to even log your runs. If you have a Garmin or just run the old fashioned way, you can’t participate.

With all of those limitations, mentioning the challenges here every week might be kind of irritating to all of those people who haven’t sold their soul to Apple and Nike. For the rest of us, however, I just thought I’d drop a quick note letting you know that I’m still hosting the challenges on Nike+.

What about Runner+?

I used to host challenges on Runner+. With Runner+, EVERYONE can run. You don’t need a Nike+ to log your runs. If you have one, it’s great, but if you don’t, you can enter your run data by hand. Unfortunately, there was the constant problem of people signing up for challenges that were below their level just to win. I didn’t have the ability to kick people out of my own challenges, so it was a fight every week. In the end, it was actually better to go back to the Nike+ website.

I’ll keep watching the Runner+ website to see if any additions are made to the usability, but until then, the challenges are available on Nike+.

Get Started with NIKE+

Yesterday, I posted a detailed list on how to ride your bike to work. Today, I found this excellent video about just that subject:

Each and every day 550,000 thousand Copenhageners ride their bike to work or school. Here are some of them.

This video is brought to us by this weblog:

• Copenhagen Cycle Chic – Streetstyle and Bike Advocacy in High Heels

Go there to look for more inspiration about riding your bike instead of driving. You’ll be healthier and you’ll save money.

Back in 2005, I happened to work at a place that was close enough to my home that I could ride my bike to work. I learned a lot from that experience and I thought I had shared it here, but it looks like I never wrote that entry. Now that gasoline is SO expensive, I am sharing what I learned so that you can save money AND get fit.

• Get A Cruiser Bike: Racing bikes might prevent wind resistance, but they are a poor excuse for riding in the city. You need to be upright so you can see what is around you. A mountain bike with less bumpy tires might be a good alternative, but I was happiest with my crusier bike.

• Shower Before You Ride To Work: Since most employers won’t have a place for you to shower after your bike ride, you will have to shower at home beforehand. Even though you’ll get sweaty on the ride, you will feel better if you shower first. If your company DOES have a shower at work, then EVERYTHING is easier.

• Don’t Wear Your Work Clothes: After your shower, you’ll have to sweat it out on the ride and try to freshen up before your work day. Pack your work clothes in your backpack including an extra set of underwear. After my ride to work, I was sweaty, so I brought athletic body wipes to freshen up along with deodorant/antiperspirant and perfume. I saved my sweaty workout clothes for the ride home as well.

• Give Yourself PLENTY Of Time: When you’re driving to work and encounter a detour, it will add maybe a couple of minutes to your commute. When you’re riding your bike, however, a minor detour can add FAR more time. On my route to work, I had to cross a train track, which was usually abandoned, but one day, there was a train PARKED on the tracks, blocking my access. I had to detour, which took me an extra 20 minutes. There was hardly enough time for me to change that day. After that, I ALWAYS gave myself an extra 15 minutes to bike to work.

• Lock It Up: Just because you are at work doesn’t mean that your bike is safe in the stairwell without a lock. It is best to lock up your bike at an approved bike rack, but if none is available, make sure you find a secure place and lock it up, running the cable through your wheels AND the frame. I used this Bell Cable Bike Lock, which is not the best lock, but it packs up small and is enough to keep someone from walking off with your ride home.

• Ride Safely: There were so many times when I was cut off by cars who didn’t see me. I was never injured because I was so aware of all the ways a car could accidentally hit me. Here is a link to the website that helped me be more aware: Bicycle Safety: How NOT to get hit by cars.

• Prepare for Weather: Sometimes a beautiful morning ends with a wet and soggy ride home. I found that camping supplies really helped me prepare with this emergency poncho. It was cheap and packed up SMALL in my bike bag, but would cover me and my backpack on the ride home.

• Have A Backup Plan: If the weather becomes completely impassable or if there is a personal emergency, you need someone you can call to get you and your bike home safely. Whether it’s a spouse, family member or close friend, you should set up a plan so you can call them and get home quickly if you need to. I had this set up with Mike, my husband. I only had to use it twice that year that I rode my bike to work, but knowing that he could come get me if I needed eased my mind quite a bit.

Riding my bike to work that summer was the best thing for me. I lost an additional ten pounds that summer and I saved enough money in gas to pay for the bike (and that was before the gas prices exploded). If you have been considering taking an alternative method of transportation to work in an effort to save money or burn calories, biking to work is a wonderful choice. With just a little planning you can bike to work with ease and joy.

I saw these slippers on Amazon.com called Slipper Genie. You’re supposed to use them to mop the floor. They are said to make mopping easy. They actually look kind of cool.

This video describes them and lets you see them in detail:

The question that I have is: if they are supposed to make mopping easier, does that mean that I’ll burn less calories by using them instead of a mop? Wouldn’t it be better for me to bend over the mop using my legs, back and arms to wash the floor than to just skate around the floor with some funny looking slippers? Do I really want to make my housework easier when it is one of the few things left in my routine that burns calories (besides official exercise, of course)?

What do you think? Is Slipper Genie better for me or should I stick with a traditional mop?

Via: Slipper Genie: Mop Floors While Burning Calories

This photo from The Library of Congress attracted me. Here are a group of girls from Chicago, competing in Sokol Sports in Austria.

Chicago girls at Sokol Sports, Prague, Austria by The Library of Congress from Flickr

What are these Sokol sports? This website lent me a little information about them:

• Czech Sokol Organization

The idea of physical education as well as the promotion of moral values was formulated by Miroslav Tyrs, a professor of the Charles University, and by Jindrich Fugner. The philosophy, evolved from the ancient Greek ideals of “kalokagathia” and now propagated by Miroslav Tyrs and his followers, became the basis of the movement, which is connected with the origin and destiny of the Czech (Czechoslovak) Republic. Four times Sokol was banned or its activities were restricted by wars or totalitarian regimes. It was still alive, though- in other countries, in communities of Czech immigrants on all continents of the world.

Although these girls seem to have tennis rackets in their hands, Sokol is said to be gymnastic training. According to The Sokol in the Czech Lands to 1914: Training for the Nation by Claire E. Nolte:

The history of the Sokol, the Czech nationalist gymnastic organization, from its founding in 1862 until the outbreak of World War I emphasizes its role in articulating national values and facilitating mass mobilization in the political context of the multinational Habsburg state. By including background on the German Turnverein, this study goes beyond the Czech context to explore the intersection of gymnastics and mass nationalism in Central Europe.

All of this makes me wonder why those girls from Chicago were there in Prague, so long ago. Does anyone have any knowledge of this?

On another note, the idea of staying physically active and strong as a service to our nation has been talked about a lot in our news. It’s not addressed on a nationalism level, but the idea that America has become weak because of our obesity epidemic is an underlying theme. Is it our patriotic duty to stay fit?