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

This StrengthCast is a telephone interview with Dave DePew, a personal trainer from San Diego. Despite the interview happening over the telephone, it is quite easy to listen to and understand (the sound quality is good). Dave Depew’s plan has a Money Back Guarantee, which is interesting, but this interview doesn’t provide the details of it.

• StrengthCast – Dave DePew Interview

This StrengthCast seems to be more for personal trainers than for people trying to take care of their own health. He gives a lot of advice about tailoring the workout plan to the client. Most of us ARE the client, so listening to this interview might not be as inspiring as it could be.

After July’s issue, which had me inwardly screaming in anger at the diet pill article, this month’s O Magazine is much, much better. There is a brilliant article about eating “real” food instead of “fake” food. Dr. Phil has an interesting entry about losing weight and there is this article about those last 10 pounds.

• The Last 10 Pounds

I was pleased to notice that for most of the women, Bob Greene recommended that they didn’t need to lose those last 10 pounds. He suggested that they continue exercising to tone up and be healthy, but losing the weight was not a goal they should pursue. It’s a rare health guru that will tell his followers that they are beautiful the way they are and that they shouldn’t lose any more weight.

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.

Newsday talks about Lance Armstrong’s lessons on fitness.

• Newsday.com: A tour of Lance’s lessons in endurance

Here is a condensed list of what he said:

• Planning is important.
• Think strong. Get Strong.
• Mix up your intensity.
• Take your fitness seriously.
• Know your strengths and weaknesses.
• It’s not about your bike.

I guess it doesn’t matter whether I ride the Cruiser or the Mountain Bike to work. It’s all about me, baby!

Via: Really Useful Fitness Blog – Fitness Tips from Lance Armstrong

DDR4Health has reviewed In The Groove. It’s another dancing game for PlayStation 2 that is a little more complicated than DDR. If you like DDR, you’ll love the challenge of ITG. Read Sinistar’s review:

• DDR4Health: Review / In The Groove

I don’t have a Playstation 2, so this game is strictly off limits to me right now. I guess I’ll just have to give myself permission to play DDR. I haven’t played for months. Man, I miss it. How cool is that? Exercise so fun that I miss it!

Here is a quick list of things to do to burn some calories. All it takes is a little extra exercise every day.

• About.com – Get Yourself Moving

Next time you’re brushing your teeth, remember that every little action you do burns calories. Think of other small activities that you can add to your routine to keep you healthy.

Margaret Cho has taken up belly dancing and it is so liberating to hear her talk about it.

I was dancing when I was eight, I was dancing when I was eight. Is it strange to dance so late?

I think I might have stopped dancing when I was eight because my father told me I was fat. After that, you just have a hard time getting yourself off the ground. It was like I put on lead shoes and didn’t take them off for nearly thirty years.

Exercise for me always meant suffering. Punishing my body for not being thin, or eating too much, or not eating at all, or not exercising the day before, or not exercising hard enough or whatever whatever whatever. There was never a lack of reasons to hate myself, to hate my body. I decided to give it all up entirely, all physical activity. Nothing.

She has spoken so frankly about her war with her body, both in her stand up routine and on her blog. I just feel so happy to see this picture of her dancing. It makes me want to take lessons.

At first, I was training for a race, so I didn’t have time to play DDR. Then the race was over, but I got a new job that was only 5.6 miles from home, so I’ve been riding my bike to work, so I don’t have the time to play DDR. I’m getting my exercise in during my daily commute and it actually ends up saving me time in the end. I haven’t fired up the Xbox and danced my butt off for months.

The truth of the matter is that I miss playing DDR. I also miss going to the gym. I have so many options for exercise, that I am missing things when I don’t allow myself to do them. I never, in a million years, thought I would feel like this. I miss walking into the gym and having my choice of all the toys to play with. I miss dancing against other DDR players on Xbox Live, even though they kicked my butt almost every time.

I wish I knew what I did to get to this level. I wish I could bottle it up or list it out and hand it to you in a neat little package. (more…)

Email from radman:

My question relates to different types of exercise. I have never been able to keep up exercise… but I have been using DDR and have been able to keep it up for a year.

I currently do DDR 3X a week at heavy level. It seems like it is a good workout for my lower body but, even though I get out of breath during each song, there is about 20 seconds between songs and the overall intensity just isn’t there. It says I have done 10 miles…but I am not near as fatigued/winded as if I jogged 10 miles… or even did 20 min on a treadmill(which I can’t stand doing). I love the DDR and am spending lots of time at it at a high level, but I haven’t really lost any weight and wonder if it is having an effect aside from lower body muscle toning… I have been going to the gym 2-3x a week and doing strength exercises for upper body and have enjoyed that. I was thinking of using the Yourself fitness to get more consistent aerobic exercise to lose some pounds (which I haven’t done with DDR). What are your thoughts on this? How would you integrate these different things (or would you?)

Radman,

You’re right. You’ve realized the limitations of DDR. In the end, it’s just a game. It’s an easy and fun way to get a little exercise in your day while having fun. If you are really serious about exercise, there are more efficient routines that work more of your muscles more intensely than DDR.

You’re also right about the exercise estimates. The calorie counters and the exercise comparisons are optimistic at best and misleading at worst. I wouldn’t believe either when evaluating how much exercise you’ve gotten from your session.

Yourself! Fitness is another exercise routine, but it’s more like a workout video than a game. It only took me a few weeks to earn all the perks of the game and I found some of the moves repetitive. There are as many different useful exercises as there are people in the world. You are at an exciting time right now. You get to explore them! The cool thing is that a lot of them (like running and walking and playing in the park) are free. Check out About.com’s Workout Center for some ideas. Find something you love and stick to it.

Now, about your weight loss. If you haven’t lost any weight from the exercise, you have run into one of the unalterable physics of the human body. Exercise alone won’t bring you significant weight loss. You need to exercise AND monitor your eating. I wouldn’t recommend cutting your calories drastically, however.

Start with slow, healthy changes to your diet. Add fruits and vegetables to your diet until you are easily (and comfortably) eating five servings a day. Make sure you have low-fat protein in your diet, whether it comes from meat, beans, or dairy. Drink at least five glasses of water a day. Make sure that you don’t allow yourself to get too hungry (I eat every three to four hours) to prevent binges.

These are the diet changes that have really helped me. If you want more ideas, check out Prevention.com’s Eat More, Lose More eating plan. If you want a more formal diet regime or you have serious problems with bingeing (eating until you feel too full more than twice a week), then I would recommend Weight Watchers.

Remember, I’m not a doctor, so make sure that everything you do is cleared through your general practitioner.

Good Luck!
Laura Moncur

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.