Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | Add Comment
Here is a great interview that 60 minutes did with Michael Phelps. There is a good segment about his diet and the amount he eats. He says that 12,000 calories/day rumor is ridiculous- it is only about 10,000 and that he is now at his heaviest weight ever, about 205lbs. Listen to his coach describe some of the training routines and you will see why he needs 10,000 calories/day.
I’m a Ramblin Wreck- Georgia Tech 45, Georgia 42
Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | Add Comment
Mike Zarrilli / Getty Images
Wow, what a game this afternoon between my Alma Mater, Georgia Tech and our arch rival Georgia. It has been 7 long years since we beat them, so this was sweet. Even the commentators on CBS were talking about what a classic game it was and how Tech came out after halftime and schooled Georgia on what the triple option offense was capable of. From MSNBC Sports-
ATLANTA – The Georgia Tech players gathered in front of their small contingent of fans in a corner of Sanford Stadium. They sang the “Ramblin’ Wreck” fight song. They bounced up and down. Then pinched off pieces of the famous hedge that surrounds the field.
This was a celebration eight years in the making.
The Yellow Jackets unleashed their triple-option offense on Georgia with devastating results Saturday. Roddy Jones rushed for a career-best 214 yards and a couple of touchdowns. Jonathan Dwyer ran for 144 and two scores of his own. When it was done, No. 18 Georgia Tech had overcome a 16-point halftime deficit to stun the 13th-ranked Bulldogs 45-42, its first win in the series since 2000.
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment
Well, Thanksgiving is upon us and a lot of people are going to eat way too much and then later regret it. I used to have that problem- eat until I was so stuffed I felt bad, but now I use a couple of simple rules to limit my food and really enjoy it. First, don’t feel like you need to try everything that is on the table or buffet. Get a plate and put the foods you know you really like on it. Don’t pile the plate to the top… put 3 items on it and then go eat with your family and friends. Spend time talking and enjoy the food. If you do this you will eat more slowly and less. Ironically, you will enjoy the meal more than if you simply stuff as much food into your mouth as possible. Second, only eat 1 dessert at a time. Put one piece of pie or cake on your plate and then go eat it. If you do this instead of putting 3 types of dessert on your plate, you will probably eat a lot less since the other desserts will not be staring you in the face. If you do these 2 simple things, you really will enjoy Thanksgiving more and eat less!
Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | Add Comment
We all know we need sleep to function effectively and most of use realize that we just don’t get enough of it. Part of the problem is our crazy schedules, but there are a lot of other factors involved. MSNBC has a good article on sleep that includes reasons we don’t sleep well and also tips for waking up and feeling good. Here are a couple of important things to remember-
- Snack yourself to sleep. Eating a small carbohydrate-heavy snack with a bit of protein one to two hours before bed will trigger your brain to produce the calming neurotransmitter serotonin, says New York City nutritionist Joy Bauer, author of “Joy Bauer’s Food Cures” (Rodale). Her favorite sleep inducers: a scoop of light ice cream with berries, or a rice cake with a slice of turkey or a teaspoon of peanut butter.
- Chill out (for real). Keeping your body cool at night signals it to fall into a deeper, more restful sleep, says psychiatrist Sara Mednick, author of “Take a Nap! Change Your Life” (Workman Publishing). Turn down the thermostat in your room to 68 degrees, she says.
I do both of these- I never go to bed hungry (although I never eat more than a small smack) and I keep the thermostat set at 67 in the winter. I have found that I always sleep better in the winter when the temps are cooler than in the summer when the AC is set at 78.
My favorite snack before bed is an oatmeal cookie with some peanut butter on it and a small glass of skim milk. Just enough to keep from being hungry and kick in the serotonin.
Commitment, Goals and Progress
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Spiritual/Emotional, Sports, Youth/fit | Add Comment
One of the primary rules in life is simply that the results and outcome of your life will be a reflection of the things you are committed to. This is true for family, job, friends and spiritual matters. This is especially true for your health. If you are committed to eating right and exercise, you will be healthier than people who are not. Now I know that there are those freaks of nature that do everything wrong and still live until they are 90. And I know that there are those who do everything right and die of cancer or a heart attack when they are 30. But, for the 99% of the rest of us, what we commit to makes all the difference to our health, quality of life and longevity. So, making commitments in areas of diet and exercise is not a minor thing. It is critical to every area of life. I have found that the self-discipline I developed through weight training and bodybuilding has carried over into most other parts of my life as well. Since most advances in life are the result of commitment and not “luck”, we really should stop and examine the things we are committed to and ask if those things are worth the time and effort we put into them. I suspect, that there are a lot of people who could use a realigning of their commitments and a lot more self discipline.
I’m leaving a lot out, of course, but one primary theme worth highlighting here is that cycling gives Dave’s life structure. Maybe he’ll ride the Tour de France someday, but the movie isn’t so shallow as to make us think that’s what’s important. Dave has learned a degree of commitment and discipline from riding, a certain willingness to set goals and follow through, and at the end of the movie, we’re pretty sure he’s going to make it.
I became interested in fitness outside of a sports context: I felt small and weak and wanted to be big and strong. But, similar to Dave, lifting weights came to have a bigger meaning for me. Schlepping down to the basement at 5:30 in the morning every day, I took away some lessons about commitment, about making small, incremental progress towards a clear goal, and I would say that those lessons have stuck with me at least as much as the ones I was getting in class.
Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | Add Comment
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: 50's/fit, General Fitness, Health, Seniors/fit | Add Comment
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 | Add Comment
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 | Add Comment
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 | Add Comment
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.
