Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | (0) Comments
In pure dollar amounts, a new study has determined that diabetes costs the US over 200 billion a year in direct and indirect costs. That is a staggering amount of money and it will only increase as our obese population ages. It really frightens me to think about health care costs and insurance as the baby boomer generation starts to really age. After that we have another generation of overweight and obese people who will further strain the economy with health care costs. One estimate I read predicts that within the next 10 years the average American family will spend 25% of their income on health care and insurance. I genuinely hope that the new President will make health education and lifestyle a major part of any health care reforms he proposes. I we don’t do something to change America’s unhealthy lifestyles soon, the costs to society will overwhelm us.
The study, conducted by the Lewin Group consultants, estimates costs to society for people known to have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes at $174.4 billion combined, a total previously reported by Novo Nordisk, the world’s top producer of insulin and the maker of diabetes pills such as NovoNorm and Prandin. That study was done with the American Diabetes Association.
The new study adds estimates for people who haven’t been diagnosed yet ($18 billion), women who develop diabetes temporarily during pregnancy ($636 million) and those on track to develop diabetes, an increasingly common condition called pre-diabetes ($25 billion).
“Diabetes has not seen a decline or even a plateauing, and the death rate from diabetes continues to rise,” said Dana Haza, senior director of the National Changing Diabetes Program, an effort Novo Nordisk began in 2005 to improve diabetes care and prevention in the U.S.
“The numbers just keep going higher and higher, and what we want to say is, ‘It’s time for government and businesses to focus on it,’” said Haza, who believes diabetes will be the country’s biggest health problem in the future, worsened by the obesity epidemic.
Overmedicating and Drug Interactions
Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | (0) Comments
This is really more in the health/medicine category than fitness, but I suspect that we all have a family member in the same situation as the lady in the article who is taking multiple prescription drugs and not really knowing what they are doing and if they are really hurting instead of helping. My mom fits in this category and I’m going to encourage here to press her doctors to see if some of the drugs she is taking can be eliminated.
In the big picture, the goal of a healthy lifestyle including exercise, diet, and quitting smoking is to keep from having to take drugs as we age. From MSNBC Health-
Polypharmacy is most common among people over age 65, about one-fifth of whom take at least 10 medications a week. Because the body absorbs, metabolizes, and rids itself of drugs more slowly with age, a dose considered safe for a middle-age woman can be toxic to her parent. In fact, the Institute of Medicine estimates that at least 1.5 million adverse drug events occur in the United States every year, thousands of them fatal. Studies indicate that about one-third of these drug reactions among senior citizens — and 42 percent of serious, life-threatening, or fatal events — are preventable. Doctors often mistake the ensuing physical response — memory lapse, fatigue, abdominal pain, swelling, or other ailments — as a sign of worsening disease. This can lead to a “prescribing cascade,” says Jeffrey Delafuente, FCCP, a professor of pharmacy at Virginia Commonwealth University. “The solution is to reduce the number of drugs. Adding more just exacerbates the problem.”
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Spiritual/Emotional, Sports, Supplements, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | (0) Comments
I saw this over at Cosgrove’s blog and had to post it. Times really have changed. The scary part is that the change is not always for the better. Watching this commercial today is almost comical. It seems like something off of a Saturday Night Live skit. We think we are so much smarter and more sophisticated than people were 20, 30 or 50 years ago. We are to some extent. But if you look at western culture today and compare it to the 50’s or 60’s, you would have to be amazed that we are in general much less healthy, exercise less and as a whole extremely fat. So much for progress. The big question here is “What am I doing in my life that is really stupid?”
Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | (0) Comments
Eat this, Not that has a list of 7 high calorie, high trans fat foods that you really need to stay away from. Trans fats are the stuff that most fried foods and many baked pastries have that lower your good cholesterol and raise you bad cholesterol. Add to that the fact that they are really high in useless calories (i.e. they make you fat) and you should run from products that have them. In the grocery store, you should always look at the label to see if the product contains trans fats and avoid them. But when you are out at the mall and want to get something to eat, it is a little harder. So check out this list and remember that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Here is one that you probably would never guess. Holy crap look at the calories. That’s over 1/3 of an average person’s daily calorie needs in one bun.
…
Cinnabon Classic Roll (221g)
5 g trans fat
813 calories
32 g fat
Eat these too often and you might have to be rolled out of the store. Not only do they serve a whopping 813 calories, but they’ll also set you back with a few days worth of trans fats.
Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | (0) Comments
Suppose you are on the road with no place to work out but you really want to do legs since it is LEG DAY! Well, since most hotels have some sort of workout facilities, you could go down and get on a stationary bike and burn off a few calories or you could do some of these single legged squats and really get a good workout. Josh Hillis has a good video over at his blog showing exactly how to do “pistols” or single legged squats. If you have ever tried them, you know how hard they are. If you haven’t, well, you should.
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, General Fitness, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | (0) Comments
Actually, both. There are some good reasons to stretch and there are some misconceptions about what it can help. I advocate stretching every day for flexibility and to relieve muscle tightness in adjacent areas. For example, tight hamstrings can cause back pain- especially for people with existing back problems. So stretch for the right reasons and keep these concepts from Dr. Mirkin in mind.
Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia reviewed the world’s literature and concluded that stretching does not prevent muscle soreness that follows vigorous exercise (1). Athletes train by taking a hard workout, feeling sore the next day, and then taking easy workouts for as many days as it takes for the soreness to go away. Since stretching does not reduce muscle soreness, it will not help you to recover faster from hard exercise. The best way to recover from exhausting competition is to move with little pressure on muscles, such as cycling on a stationary bicycle (2).
Stretching does not prevent injuries (3). Muscles and tendons tear when the force applied to them is greater than their inherent strength. Anything that makes a muscle stronger helps to prevent injuries, but stretching does not make muscles stronger or faster.
Even though most high school and college coaches have their athletes stretch before games or races (4), you should not stretch before competition because it decreases muscle strength (5) and impairs your ability to run fast (6).
However, stretching can make you a better athlete. Muscles attach to bones by long fibrous bands called tendons. Stretching lengthens tendons, and the longer the tendon, the greater the force a muscle can exert on a joint (7). So stretching a tendon to make it longer allows an athlete to exert more force around a joint to help him jump higher, run faster, lift heavier or throw further (8).
Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | (0) Comments
Here are a few weight loss tips for lunch and dinner. First, if you are prone to eating too fast and too much (like most everyone), always start off dinner with a cup of light, broth type soup and a small salad. If you also have a glass of water with the salad, you will find that you are not “starved” when the main course is served. This has the dual effect of slowing down the meal so you don’t eat too much of the higher calorie main course foods, and also fills your stomach so you are not as hungry. Both of those are important in yor quest to eat less and lose weight. Since we know that it takes about 10 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain it is full, anything you do to slow down is good because you can eat a tremendous amount of food in 10 minutes. So the key point here is SLOW DOWN when you eat.
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, General Fitness, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Seniors/fit, Sports, Youth/fit | (0) Comments
There is a good article over at MSNBC that discusses the pros and cons of running a marathon. Since we see several people die each year at various marathons, the question you have to ask is “how many didn’t die, but did damage to their heart or body just short of death?” Now, I’m not advocating that people stop running or chasing their dream of running in the big race someday, but I am advocating realism and proper training. This is important in all sports. Even in weight training and bodybuilding you can do permanent damage if you do the wrong things the wrong way. So train properly and get help from a good trainer before you set out to be the next Boston Marathon winner or Mr or MS Whoever!
…
Researchers have identified a number of physical effects of running a marathon, including changes in immune system and kidney function. But Dr. Siege says the brunt of the damage falls exactly where you’d expect: on your muscles. As the miles pass, skeletal muscles stiffen and leak injury-signaling enzymes into the blood.
Now, a certain inability to (ahem) walk down steps the next day notwithstanding, this may not seem like such a big deal, particularly given that the damage is self-inflicted. But your body’s internal balance is deeply affected. As Dr. Siege puts it, “Your body doesn’t know whether you’ve run a marathon… or been hit by a truck.” This is why, as you go deeper into the race, your body reacts to injury by mounting an emergency-repair response. Your adrenal glands and brain produce the stress hormones cortisol and vasopressin; your damaged muscles churn out proteins called cytokines, which trigger your liver to start producing C-reactive protein.
The result is what Dr. Siege calls “an inflammatory storm” throughout your body, one that sets the stage for some potentially adverse consequences. Early on, marathon researchers weren’t sure if the heart was among the muscles being stressed, but in recent years they’ve confirmed that it most definitely is. In a 2001 study published in the American Journal of Cardiology, Dr. Siege and his colleagues analyzed the blood of marathoners less than 24 hours after a race and found high levels of inflammatory and coagulation markers that are also associated with heart attacks.
Then came the 2006 Circulation study, led by Dr. Wood, which upped the ante. Using ultrasounds and blood tests of 60 marathon finishers, the researchers found that after the race, some runners’ hearts experienced difficulty refilling chambers. The researchers also noticed abnormalities in how blood was pumped from the right side of the heart to the lungs.
Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | (0) Comments
It is estimated that up to 75% of Americans have a magnesium deficiency and don’t know it. This is mainly caused by poor diet since most vitamins and minerals get stripped out of processed and fast foods- the main staple of Americans. There are several conditions that show themselves in magnesium deficient people including muscle twitches, headaches and high blood pressure. While magnesium can’t take care of severe blood pressure problems, it can definitely help. Since many people have high blood pressure and don’t even know it, getting more magnesium is simple, cheap insurance-although definitely not a replacement for proper screening and treatment. Still, with most people not getting even close to enough magnesium, it is safe to recommend that everyone take a supplement with at least 50% of the US RDA. Since it is cheap and easy to find even in the grocery store, pick some up and add it to your other supplements.
I Just Want to Get Toned- Not Big
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | (0) Comments
This is something you hear from women all the time- and sometimes from men. The problem is that most people are already big (as in fat) and they need an exercise and diet plan to lose fat and gain muscle. For the most part, you are not going to get “big” by accident. It just doesn’t happen. Women don’t have the right hormones to gain lots of muscle mass easily and even men need to work very hard to gain the kind of muscle mass that would qualify them for a cover shot on Muscle and Fitness. So don’t worry about getting big by accident; worry about not making any progress because you won’t train hard enough to make a difference.
There is a good post over at Women’s diet and fitness that helps explain this.You really do need to push yourself or you will not make much progress and become disillusioned very quickly.
First off, getting “toned” really just means increasing muscle and decreasing fat to allow that muscle to show a bit more. And sure… lifting light weights for high reps is a decent workout program… but not for getting toned. It is best for increasing your endurance and burning calories.
Let’s dispute the first part of the post: women just don’t have the body or the hormones required to get all jacked up like a man. Those women you see on magazines or bodybuilding shows are not natural and the chances of you getting that big is very very slim.
Ok, so you want to get “toned” and you want to get slim… now what? Lift weight! Real weight, don’t be afraid to move up on the barbell rack and really push yourself. Instead of lifting light weights for 15-20 reps, aim for 6-10 reps but lift heavy enough so you can’t get past the 10th.
