American Samoan shot-putter competes in world 100M dash championships.Goes to show--if you're a world-class athlete, you can do a lot of things.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Run Proud, Shot-Putter, Run Proud!
American Samoan shot-putter competes in world 100M dash championships.Goes to show--if you're a world-class athlete, you can do a lot of things.
Friday, August 7, 2009
In Case of Bond-Chase
So how cool is this?
I've always liked making my runs more interesting by jumping over low walls or spin-kicking trees (only the violent trees who deserve it), but this is a lot more hard-core, and thus, a lot more whoa-worthy. Which led to a question: how on earth does some one like me get into something like this?
There's always two routes into a new sport. One is to find mentors/teachers/participants and ask them to help you gradually train according to your abilities until you safely develop your capacities. The other is to stupidly jump in by yourself. Guess which option I chose?
So I went here:
By myself. In the evening.
What I did could not really be called "free running" because, of course, I did not run too much. It was more like "ninja training," because I slunk around more than anything, pulling myself up walls, climbing along the railings, and jumping around the garbage bins. It really was a tough workout, especially for my upper-body. I tried to be smart about things and not get myself into dangerous positions. One of the most useful and hardest things I tried was actually jumping over a sidewalk to a low, half-foot curb. It required explosive energy and balance, but if I missed it, there wasn't much risk of my dying.
Speaking of risk, I'm not sure the campus police are going to be thrilled with my playing here, so I'm going to wait a few days to make sure that they can't identify me from the security cameras before I go back.
In the meantime, though, freerunning really does seem like a natural extension of what I do on boring runs and it was a huge motivation for me to lose more weight (if I can pull up even one pound less over a wall, it'll be a lot easier).
I've always liked making my runs more interesting by jumping over low walls or spin-kicking trees (only the violent trees who deserve it), but this is a lot more hard-core, and thus, a lot more whoa-worthy. Which led to a question: how on earth does some one like me get into something like this?
There's always two routes into a new sport. One is to find mentors/teachers/participants and ask them to help you gradually train according to your abilities until you safely develop your capacities. The other is to stupidly jump in by yourself. Guess which option I chose?
So I went here:
By myself. In the evening.
What I did could not really be called "free running" because, of course, I did not run too much. It was more like "ninja training," because I slunk around more than anything, pulling myself up walls, climbing along the railings, and jumping around the garbage bins. It really was a tough workout, especially for my upper-body. I tried to be smart about things and not get myself into dangerous positions. One of the most useful and hardest things I tried was actually jumping over a sidewalk to a low, half-foot curb. It required explosive energy and balance, but if I missed it, there wasn't much risk of my dying.
Speaking of risk, I'm not sure the campus police are going to be thrilled with my playing here, so I'm going to wait a few days to make sure that they can't identify me from the security cameras before I go back.
In the meantime, though, freerunning really does seem like a natural extension of what I do on boring runs and it was a huge motivation for me to lose more weight (if I can pull up even one pound less over a wall, it'll be a lot easier).
Friday, July 17, 2009
The 80s Made Us Fat
I just read the neatest article in the New Yorker where Elizabeth Kolbert reviews several new books with new theories about why we, as a nation, have gotten to be such porkers.
Kolbert points out that while there had been a gradual weight gain of the average american since the 1960s, the biggest jump took place since the 1980s. In the 1994 Journal of the AMA, Flegal et. al found that whereas 25.4% of Americans had been overweight in the 70s, by the early nineties that percentage was now 33%. Whoa, Nelly!
Among some of the familiar explanations (evolutionary "fat genes," dangerous urban centers), it seems like the 80s took their toll in a number of ways:
1. In Eric Finkelstein's "The Fattening of America," the eighties marked a time of cheap fats and sugars. Economically speaking, the real price (adjusting for things like inflation) of fats and oils decreased by 16% between 1983 and 2005. Soda pop alone got 20% cheaper. Since food expenses are income normal (meaning the more money you have, the more money you spend on food), the poorest people are eating the cheapest/least healthy foods. This is one reason why cities with more low-income residents (like Detroit and Philadelphia) have the highest obesity rates while cities with higher-income residents on average (like Denver and Portland, OR), have the lowest rates. ((Not that it's necessarily related, but I'd like to point out that Provo-Orem UT is in the lowest 5 cities for obesity! WOO!)) The eighties revolution in cheap fats and oils made it frugal to get fat.
2. David Kessler's book "The End of Overeating" is evidently far more sinister; he claims that big business goes into make food equal fun, and adding additive combinations of fats and oils becomes sort of a holy grail among junk food companies. Kolbert shares a quote from a products-developer who says that they try to "cram as much hedonics as you can in one dish." And when did these eatertainment companies start to fight each other to create the most novel junk? The eighties. (Remember Pop Rocks? And Push Pops? and all those new flavors of chips)
3.Marion Nestle and Lisa Young of NYU discovered that the amount of food that's "one serving" has jumped in supermarket packages and also in old cookbooks (like Betty Crocker or "the Joy of Cooking")--what used to be sixteen servings is now twelve, or ten, or eight. And when did the number of slices per cake go up? You guessed it--the eighties.
So, thank you, Elizabeth Kolbert for explaining to us how the eighties not only gave us electro-pop and crimped hair, but also expanding waistlines. It might take more than Olivia Newton John's "Let get Physical" to get our nation back on track.
Read the full article at
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/20/090720crbo_books_kolbert?yrail
Kolbert points out that while there had been a gradual weight gain of the average american since the 1960s, the biggest jump took place since the 1980s. In the 1994 Journal of the AMA, Flegal et. al found that whereas 25.4% of Americans had been overweight in the 70s, by the early nineties that percentage was now 33%. Whoa, Nelly!
Among some of the familiar explanations (evolutionary "fat genes," dangerous urban centers), it seems like the 80s took their toll in a number of ways:
1. In Eric Finkelstein's "The Fattening of America," the eighties marked a time of cheap fats and sugars. Economically speaking, the real price (adjusting for things like inflation) of fats and oils decreased by 16% between 1983 and 2005. Soda pop alone got 20% cheaper. Since food expenses are income normal (meaning the more money you have, the more money you spend on food), the poorest people are eating the cheapest/least healthy foods. This is one reason why cities with more low-income residents (like Detroit and Philadelphia) have the highest obesity rates while cities with higher-income residents on average (like Denver and Portland, OR), have the lowest rates. ((Not that it's necessarily related, but I'd like to point out that Provo-Orem UT is in the lowest 5 cities for obesity! WOO!)) The eighties revolution in cheap fats and oils made it frugal to get fat.
2. David Kessler's book "The End of Overeating" is evidently far more sinister; he claims that big business goes into make food equal fun, and adding additive combinations of fats and oils becomes sort of a holy grail among junk food companies. Kolbert shares a quote from a products-developer who says that they try to "cram as much hedonics as you can in one dish." And when did these eatertainment companies start to fight each other to create the most novel junk? The eighties. (Remember Pop Rocks? And Push Pops? and all those new flavors of chips)
3.Marion Nestle and Lisa Young of NYU discovered that the amount of food that's "one serving" has jumped in supermarket packages and also in old cookbooks (like Betty Crocker or "the Joy of Cooking")--what used to be sixteen servings is now twelve, or ten, or eight. And when did the number of slices per cake go up? You guessed it--the eighties.
So, thank you, Elizabeth Kolbert for explaining to us how the eighties not only gave us electro-pop and crimped hair, but also expanding waistlines. It might take more than Olivia Newton John's "Let get Physical" to get our nation back on track.
Read the full article at
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/20/090720crbo_books_kolbert?yrail
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Summer Eatin'
So my Fearless Leader challenged us all to eat three colors of fruits and vegetables every day this week. I love a challenge--bring it on. It's made me think outside the apples-and-carrots box. Here's a selection of what I've been eating since Saturday:
Spinach
Apricots
Black plums
Red chard
Swiss chard
Cantaloupe
Avocado
Red, yellow, and orange mini peppers
Rainier cherries
Red cherries
Fresh tomatoes
Cucumber
Zucchini
Summer squash
Raspberries
Beets
Sugar snap peas
It's been an adventure in produce, I tell you what! I used to use my f&v GHGs on fruits all the time, and the same fruits every time. Now, I'm shaking things up again and I don't even want junk food. Whoa! I'd totally recommend this goal for anyone who feels like they're in a healthy-eating rut!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Please Don't Stop the Music
It seems pretty obvious to me that music helps me work out. I'm super-tired, I want to die with foot-pounding tedium, I'm planning on walking the next block and then..."Get up, get up, put the body in motion!" and, shoulders shimmying, I'm good for another 5:52. I feel like music helps me get farther, faster, better. But is that what the studies support?
In the Journal of Exercise Physiology, Larry Birnbaum reported that when he made three groups of subjects (fast music, slow music, and no music) run at 5.5 mph for fifteen minutes, the fast music group showed a marked difference: their oxygen consumption (VO2s), cardiac output, number of breaths and other indicators were much higher than those in in slow and no music groups. That means that fast music actual may make you /less/ efficient than slow or no music. On one hand, being less efficient is bad, because then your body can't handle longer or harder workouts, but on the other hand, being less efficient is precisely why we do things like switch up our exercise ruitenes every couple of weeks--we don't want our bodies to be too comfortable with what we're making them do.
Speaking of shaking things up, the International Journal of Sports Medicine recently published a study called "Effects of Differentiated Music on Cycling Time Trial." This study, conducted mostly by H. B. D. Lim, also looked at three groups (but this time of 10-K cyclists): a no-music control group, a group that listened to music during the /last/ half of the 10-K workout, and a group that got to listen to music for the /first/ half of the workout. The scientists didn't find any huge differences between the groups in general, but they did notice that the group that had music introduced at the halfway mark started to bike faster, even 1 km/sec faster at the introduction of the music. Lim et al point out that this, "illustrates the behavioural influences that music can engender during self-paced exercise." In other words, a song can make me kick it up at the beginning.
Finally, the Journal of Sports Behavior challenged college students to ride a stationary bike for 45 minutes or to exhaustion (which ever comes first, right?). This test had four groups: one control group who got nothing, one group that was rewarded with listening to their favorite music, one group was reward with $0.15 for every forty pedal rotations, and one group of lucky dogs who got both music and money. Wanna guess what they found? Turns out money is all that mattered. The two groups that got money worked harder and longer than those who didn't, and the group that got money and music didn't do any better than the group that only got the money. In the immortal words of Puff Daddy, "It's all about the benjamins, baby."
Would I run faster, then, if instead of sweat tunes, I gave myself a quarter for every quarter mile I ran? Maybe, but if I get a dollar a mile, what if I spend that dollar a mile on a new iTunes song? Sounds good to me.
In the Journal of Exercise Physiology, Larry Birnbaum reported that when he made three groups of subjects (fast music, slow music, and no music) run at 5.5 mph for fifteen minutes, the fast music group showed a marked difference: their oxygen consumption (VO2s), cardiac output, number of breaths and other indicators were much higher than those in in slow and no music groups. That means that fast music actual may make you /less/ efficient than slow or no music. On one hand, being less efficient is bad, because then your body can't handle longer or harder workouts, but on the other hand, being less efficient is precisely why we do things like switch up our exercise ruitenes every couple of weeks--we don't want our bodies to be too comfortable with what we're making them do.
Speaking of shaking things up, the International Journal of Sports Medicine recently published a study called "Effects of Differentiated Music on Cycling Time Trial." This study, conducted mostly by H. B. D. Lim, also looked at three groups (but this time of 10-K cyclists): a no-music control group, a group that listened to music during the /last/ half of the 10-K workout, and a group that got to listen to music for the /first/ half of the workout. The scientists didn't find any huge differences between the groups in general, but they did notice that the group that had music introduced at the halfway mark started to bike faster, even 1 km/sec faster at the introduction of the music. Lim et al point out that this, "illustrates the behavioural influences that music can engender during self-paced exercise." In other words, a song can make me kick it up at the beginning.
Finally, the Journal of Sports Behavior challenged college students to ride a stationary bike for 45 minutes or to exhaustion (which ever comes first, right?). This test had four groups: one control group who got nothing, one group that was rewarded with listening to their favorite music, one group was reward with $0.15 for every forty pedal rotations, and one group of lucky dogs who got both music and money. Wanna guess what they found? Turns out money is all that mattered. The two groups that got money worked harder and longer than those who didn't, and the group that got money and music didn't do any better than the group that only got the money. In the immortal words of Puff Daddy, "It's all about the benjamins, baby."
Would I run faster, then, if instead of sweat tunes, I gave myself a quarter for every quarter mile I ran? Maybe, but if I get a dollar a mile, what if I spend that dollar a mile on a new iTunes song? Sounds good to me.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Spice is the Variety of Life
So it’s dinner and you’re trying to lose weight, and there’s a chunk of wiggly chicken in front of you and suddenly you slide down the the floor weeping and banging your head against the counter, screaming: “NOT GRILLED CHICKEN AGAIN!”
This is a dramatic way of saying that I know a lot of us get a little sick of grilled chicken every night, so it was kind of fun to find this recipe in Fitness magazine for a nice and spicy meat rub:
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Mix it up and rub it over around 4 chicken breasts that have been brushed with a little canola oil (to make it stick). Grill or bake. Mmm....
Myself, actually, I rubbed this on a little super-lean, fat-rimmed pork that I already had defrosted before I read the magazine and it was fantastic! It does have a bit of a kick, but when I made it for my parents, who normally shy away from spicy, they only called it flavorful and delicious. I’ve only tried this rub on meat, but I wonder if it couldn’t also me used on grilled zucchini slices or other BBQ vegetables as well.
The rub is point-free (the sugar is spread pretty thin) and it gives you a chance to use some good oil. Some people make dubious claims about the fat-burning magic of red pepper; I don’t buy it, but if this rub can make a lean meat really kick that’s good enough for me.
This is a dramatic way of saying that I know a lot of us get a little sick of grilled chicken every night, so it was kind of fun to find this recipe in Fitness magazine for a nice and spicy meat rub:
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Mix it up and rub it over around 4 chicken breasts that have been brushed with a little canola oil (to make it stick). Grill or bake. Mmm....
Myself, actually, I rubbed this on a little super-lean, fat-rimmed pork that I already had defrosted before I read the magazine and it was fantastic! It does have a bit of a kick, but when I made it for my parents, who normally shy away from spicy, they only called it flavorful and delicious. I’ve only tried this rub on meat, but I wonder if it couldn’t also me used on grilled zucchini slices or other BBQ vegetables as well.
The rub is point-free (the sugar is spread pretty thin) and it gives you a chance to use some good oil. Some people make dubious claims about the fat-burning magic of red pepper; I don’t buy it, but if this rub can make a lean meat really kick that’s good enough for me.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Good Life Vacation in DC!
So I've been on a long vacation and I'm still committed to "the Good Life." Actually, it hasn't been too tough--I walk a lot (down the Mall, up the Mall, down the Mall again) and I do activities that are more active.
In fact, I don't know what else I'd rather be doing. I went on a bike ride down to Roosevelt Island and yesterday I went kayaking around the same. Two hours of paddling a flat river really builds your arms! And I got to see beautiful herons--even a Great Blue Heron! Nature is cool. We also got a panoramic view of the Lincoln Memorial from the river. Nice.
A Manifesto of the Good Life
Why am I starting this blog and should you be bothered to read it?
I'll tell you why: it's because I'm going to write the kind of health
blog that I would like to read. I'm going to write about enjoying life,
loving your body, and expecting more of yourself. I'm going to write it
because I started thinking about how Weight Watchers is about "lifestyle"
and what, really, am I losing when I give up an unhealthy lifestyle and
what can I get from living a better lifestyle?
I'll tell you what: the good life. Living longer, better. Being able to walk
for longer without resting. Being able to tire out kindergartners rather
than the other way around. Having more energy to do more activities
and more activities to each day, to each life. Go more places, see more,
do more.
Part of this, of course, is to remind me of all that I want to be, why I'm
doing this, and who I plan to be on the other side, when I become a "lifer."
But if you want to read along, come along, the more the more merrier;
we're going to do fantastic things.
I've got this blog by the horns.
It's going to be great.
It's going to be great.
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