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

Yet another gadget in a long line of silly exercise machines, the Hawaii Chair is supposed to work your abs with no effort while you go about your day. Ellen was able to get her hands on a couple of them and tried them out.

Commercials can make anything look good, but when you actually see the products in real life, the veneer is gone and you can see how silly they are.

Next time you’re tempted to buy an exercise gadget that promises you the body you’ve always wanted, remember the difference between the commercial for the Hawaii Chair and the reality of Ellen trying to sit on one. It will save you money, but it will also save you false hope.

Eating wisely and exercising moderately will get you further than any exercise gadget on the planet.

Via: Hilarious Clip: Ellen DeGeneres Tries Hawaii Chair (Video) | TV Crunch

This is the original trailer from Nintendo for the Wii Fit. I watched this and the game looked like fun.

It looked like fun until I watched this parody of it…

I don’t know if the Wii will be any good for exergaming, but I’m willing to try it out. Sometimes something simple is better than the most complicated games.

The Bowflex is an exercise machine that uses flexible rods for resistance. It’s a small machine that folds up nicely and is relatively light weight when compared to weight machines that use weights for resistance. When I was looking for a weight training solution, I looked at Bowflex machines in the sporting goods stores. I decided against them because they were too tall for my basement and because it looked like a royal pain in the butt to switch between exercises.

Plus, it was EXPENSIVE. The cheapest Bowflex machine I could find was almost $600. I just wasn’t willing to spend that kind of money on flexible plastic rods. It looks like that initial price tag wasn’t the only thing to worry about with Bowflex. According to some of the people who have bought them, there’s a lot more to worry about. That financing offered by Bowflex is a little more complicated than it appears:

2/16/2007 – Silena writes:

I am a physically handicapped woman confined to a wheelchair. I was encouraged by my physical therapist to consider purchasing a bowflex after being told that my insurance could no longer pay for my therapy and the small monthly payments of $28.00 a mo. would make it affordable to maintain my physical strength. My problems began when they started doubling my pmts. without telling me. By the time my pmts. exceeded $120.00 a mo. I was left with no choice but to stop making pmts. What really upsets me is the fact they knew what my income was when I ordered this item. They knew I could not pay more per month and they still approved me knowing they were going to raise the pmts. My account was turned over to collection and my credit is ruined, and I will never be able to pay it off because it is still collecting interest.

You can read all the complaints here:

• INFOMERCIAL SCAMS.COM – BOWFLEX COMPLAINTS

In the end, I bought an Apex weight bench, but it’s no longer available. Apex does make this Deluxe Standard Bench that is very similar, but it’s about $50 more than what I paid last year. I’m still using my weight bench off and on and the cost of the bench and the weights was less than half of what I would have paid for a Bowflex and even takes up less space.

Should you buy a Bowflex? When there are so many other options out there that are just as effective and less expensive, I think it’s best to steer clear of them.

A study that was funded by Nintendo determined what I had already learned on my own: the Wii is fun, but it’s not a good workout.

• Medical News: Even Active Video Games Not Good Enough For Kids’ Fitness – in Primary Care, Exercise & Fitness from MedPage Today

They have measured passive gaming (finger twiddling) with active gaming (like Wii Sports) and this is what they found:

In a typical week … active gaming rather than passive gaming would increase total energy expenditure by less than 2%.

I found that out myself back when the Wii first came out. I tested various games with my heart rate monitor.

• Starling Fitness » Wii Would Like To Play

On the whole, the Wii Workout isn’t that great. It’s not quite intense enough to get your heart rate up for an extended period of time and it isn’t too much of a muscle workout. Is it exergaming? Not really… Is it better than any other gaming console for getting you out of the couch? Heck yeah!

I don’t consider the Wii to be a workout, but it’s a fun game to play and gets the family playing together more than any other video game I’ve seen. I really had big hopes for the Wii and exergaming, but this year has been more of a disappointment in that realm.

The best exergaming I found over the last few years has been the Nike+ and a free membership to Runner+. Running on the treadmill every day to beat strangers online has gotten my heart racing FAR more than the funnest of video games.

Via: Techdirt: Nintendo’s Own Study Show Wii Not So Great As Exercise

I love my iPhone, but I have to be honest, I had to give up some cool features when I switched from my Treo. On my Treo, I had a program that would let me track my WW points and calculate the points of an item if I had the calories, fat and fiber of the food. I’ve been doing Weight Watchers for so long, I hardly used that calculator, but every once and a while, I miss it, mostly when I’m grocery shopping.

Thanks to Alternative Sunshine, I can once again have a WW Points Calculator in my pocket. This little website works with the iPhone and it easily loads even on EDGE’s slow network:

• Weight Watchers Points Calculator

Of course, this website works on your computer just fine as well, so if you’re at work and need to calculate points quickly, you have an option.

I’m so grateful for little applications like this to help me when I’m in a pinch. I kind of miss my Treo, but here is one less reason to miss it. If only I could use my iPhone as a USB modem like I used to with my Treo, then I would be set!

I bought my Nike+ shoes in August. They were looking pretty hashed, so I thought it was time to replace them. Thanks to the RUNNER+ Shoe Manager, however, I was able to see that I had only run 192 miles in these shoes. That’s the risk with bright white shoes. They look horrible before they are ready to be replaced.

So, I took a toothbrush and liquid soap and cleaned them up. I replaced the gray shoe laces with these bright red ones and they look almost new again. They’re ready for their next 200 miles and THEN I will replace them.

Running shoes are usually good for 400 miles or 240 days. If I hadn’t used Runner+’s shoe manager when I bought these shoes, I would have been shelling out another 80 bucks on shoes before they were really ready to be retired. I’m so grateful that I took the time to put them into the shoe manager and I’m even more grateful that Runner+ tracks how many miles I’ve run on a single pair. I can hardly believe I’ve run 192 miles since August!

I washed my shoes and bought new shoe laces. What do you do to make your running shoes last longer?

When I first got the Nike+, I used it with my Ryka shoes and a Shoe Wallet. Now, I have Nike+ shoes, so you would think I wouldn’t need the Shoe Wallet anymore, but every once and a while, I do.

Right now, I’m traveling. The hotel doesn’t have a gym, but I can just run around the area with my Nike+ measuring my mileage. The Shoe Wallet has been great to hold my hotel room key. Lucky thing it was crammed into my travel bag. I really needed it today.

For more information:

• Starling Fitness » How to Use Nike+ on ANY Type of Shoe

Since I’ve found Runner+, I hadn’t logged onto the Nike+ website for a while. I thought I’d check out the Nike+ website to see how they’re doing and to see if they released that cool Nike+ watch that I had read rumors of months ago. Their site is still a clunky Flash site that is difficult to use. Instead of the Nike+ watch, they were advertising the Nike Amp+, which is useless to me. Worse still, I found a link to buy a replacement sensor.

Cool, I thought! I needed a replacement sensor and I ended up buying a whole new Nike+ kit for twenty dollars at the Apple store. I could use the replacement sensor on my old kit and give it to Mike or my sister. I clicked to add the sensor to my shopping cart and this is what I found:

$19?! Are you kidding me?! You expect me to pay one dollar less than an entirely new kit?! Really?!

Every time I start to like Nike (I was loving my Air Zoom shoes), they do something like this and make me HATE them all over again.

Kiss my a$$, Nike, I’m buying a Garmin Forerunner 50!

Update 02-22-09: It has been a year and a half since I wrote this entry and I can’t believe how WRONG I was. Firstly, the sensor all by itself is TEN dollars less than a whole kit. I kind of got a little confused there.

More importantly, I LOVE my Nike+. Not only did I NOT buy the Garmin Forerunner 50 (doesn’t work with a Mac), I’ve bought TWO Nike+ sensors. They each have lasted about a year. I keep the sensor in my running shoes all the time, so it gets a lot of work. Twenty dollars a year is totally worth it.

Two weeks ago, the indicator on my Nano said that my sensor battery was low. I didn’t even flinch. I immediately got myself to the Apple store and bought a new sensor without grousing at all. I love my Nike+ that much. Garmin just haven’t figured out the social aspect of Nike+ and I’m beginning to think they never will. Nike UNDERSTANDS that I want to race against other people every week.

Whenever I run, it’s ALWAYS with my Nike+ and Nike+ running shoes. I have been hard on Nike in the past, but honestly I LOVE my Nike+.

These shoes would be perfect for running outside at night. There’s no way you would be the invisible pedestrian with these shoes. They are sold as fashion shoes to wear at raves and are currently out of stock, unfortunately.

• Soul Fusion Glow Shoes at HouseOfRave.com

Here they are in action:

The shoes are “powered” by glow sticks. You open the channel at the back of the shoe, insert the glow stick (after activating it) and close it back up. Glow sticks are easy to buy in bulk and you only need to “turn your shoes on” when you are running at night. Brilliant!

This would be good if you’re riding your bike as well:

When will the running shoe companies realize that THIS is the number one safety feature we need when running outside? Reflective surfaces are nice, but glowing on our own gives the drivers MUCH more time to notice us.

Via: Shiny Shiny: Wearing Soul Fusion shoes makes you an unlikely wallflower

I usually don’t talk about treadmill recalls, but the Cybex treadmills have been recalled TWICE now.

• Cybex International Inc. Recalls Treadmills Previously Repaired Due to Fire Hazard

Here is the list of treadmills that have been recalled:

This recall involves the treadmills “Cybex 400T,” “Cybex 410T,” “Trotter 510,” “Trotter 525”, “Trotter 535”, and “CXT+” that were recalled (link) on October 8, 2003 and later repaired. The treadmills are black with gray coloring, have rectangular uprights, and measure 69 inches long and 30 inches wide. The brands and models are written on the display panel. The “CXT+” model does not bear the brand Cybex or Trotter.

There have been five fires associated with these treadmills, so get this problem fixed before your house goes up in smoke.

Via: Treadmill recall stuck in endless, fiery loop – Engadget