Healthful Bites

    16 Jul 2010

    Magazine Bites

    Since I have an unusual affinity for health magazines, I subscribe to nearly all of them. So here are the latest fitness, beauty and nutrition findings that especially caught my eye in July issues of my favorite publications!

    • Cardio intervals not only jack up your calorie burn during the workout, but after, say FITNESS magazine experts noted in the July/August issue. So while you’re hitting the showers and traveling back home or to the office, your body will be incinerating an additional 65 calories post-interval session, compared to a steady paced workout.
    • The average woman weighs herself 6,000 times in her lifetime, according to a onepoll.com survey mentioned in Shape magazine’s July issue. Your clothes can be a good monitor too and won’t make you crazy like tenths of a pound can do with daily weigh-ins.

     (Image from Sole Collector)

    • Speed up to outstep strokes, Harvard researchers say. Women who walked at a 20-minute mile pace are 37 percent less likely to suffer a stroke than non-walkers. Pushing your heart keeps blood pressure and inflammation in check and just 20 minutes each day can do the trick! (Shape, July 2010)
    • Swap shaving cream for baby oil when shaving! The baby oil slicks down legs for a simple shave and won’t wash away as easily—keeping moisture locked in after exiting the shower. (SELF, July 2010)
    • Pass it on…when a pal tells you her good news, celebrate with her and pass along major kudos.  Reveling in another’s happy news can make the good vibes spread like wildfire! (FITNESS, July/August 2010)
    • Losing weight may actually be simpler than maintaining it, many dieters have found. But experts say that setting new goals over time can keep your motivation moving. Whether it’s a race or trying a new food every week, the novelty will keep things fun and set your eyes on (maintaining) the prize. Then keep with all those lifestyle changes you implemented during your diet regimen and watch the scale stay steady! (FITNESS, July/August 2010)
    • Fascinating strength training fact: you will burn 33 percent more calories after supersets versus weight sets with rest in between. The back-to-back nature rotating between two exercises that defines supersets keeps your body moving and muscles challenged. (Women’s Health, July 2010)

     (Image from Inspired Fitness)

    • The National Restaurant Association has noted a trend: 73 percent of adults say they are seeking to dine more nutritiously at restaurants compared to just two years ago. Mind you, this is what restaurant patrons say, not do, but thinking about good choices gives you a leg up over those who aren’t considering it (see: stages of change).  A few quick tips from Women’s Health to shrink your eating out calorie counts:

    Beware of Arby’s Tangy Southwest Sauce. Two ounces of the goo has 230 calories. You could get an entire fast food grilled chicken salad for that amount!

    Order “naked” at Qdoba. No, not sans-clothes, but sans-tortilla! Your burrito will come in a bowl—which is generally less messy because you side step filling avalanche disasters.

    This naked thing must be a trend! Get your chicken at Popeye’s “naked” for grilled rather than fried poultry in sandwiches and salads.

    Have you eaten anything at restaurants before checking the nutrition information beforehand, then regretted doing so after performing a little research later on?

    10 Jun 2010

    Why It’s Healthy NOT to Make the Bed!

    Skip the Hospital Corners

    Slipping back the covers and sliding your toes under the securely-tucked and properly-made bed sheets is an inviting thought—way more so than a sloppy pile of blankets! But researchers at Kingston University in the U.K. have proven that tiny dust mites find made beds more appealing as well. Apparently, having neatly stacked and tucked sheets makes the bed environment cooler and damper for the bugs, which they prefer over the warmer and dryer unmade environment.

    Dust mites are very common in the boudoir (in fact you may be sleeping with as many as 1.5 million!), but aren’t too hazardous to a healthy human’s well-being. Basically, they like to chow on dead skin cells that your body sheds. But they also emit allergens that may bother some people, such as those with allergies and asthma, while slumbering. 

    Scientists say that dust mites need to absorb moisture from outside of their bodies to survive, so leaving the bed open to dry air can cause them to die off. Air purifiers and keeping your home tidy with a vacuum and some Pledge can also help your home stay a little less mite-y ;)

    Fun fact: a 150 lb. person burns about 35 calories making their bed for 15 minutes! Do you make your bed everyday? 

     (Image from Nichols Clan)

    It may be smart to save some time and leave that bed sloppy!


    Shopping Slim

    Without taking a peek in your cart or your body, an outsider may be able to tell quite a bit about your health by knowing the place that you grocery shop. People who want affordable food go to one store, while those who seek eats for their nutritional value frequent another. These findings highlight the economic disparity that may be at the root of obesity and other health issues, according to University of Washington researchers who discovered these results.

    Obese individuals are about 10 times more likely to hit up the lower-cost grocery store than the healthier one. In this study done in Seattle, 40 percent of shoppers at Albertsons were obese, while only four percent were at Whole Foods. All the stores offered nutritionally-sound noshes. However, another study found that an average low-calorie diet costs about $36 per day, compared to about $3.50 for a high-calorie diet. So, in other words, your limited dollars would buy a lot more red licorice than red bell peppers.

    Do you feel that obesity is mainly an economic issue? Or is something else a larger factor in promoting weight gain?

     (Image from Dan Brokamp)

    Picking produce is a wise choice at any market.


    Water cooler conversation starter: Some songs are more likely to get stuck on replay in your head, and certain activities are more likely to bring these “earworms” on than others. Can you believe people research this stuff?

    Not surprisingly, tunes with repetitive phrases and fillers such as “la la” or “do-run-run” as the kids of the ’60s might say, commonly become stuck in listener’s brains. The good news: these jams on repeat generally occur when people are feeling good and doing something that doesn’t take too much brain power. One easy fix: try working on something that will use your mind so it won’t “Gaga-ahhh-Gaga-ooh-lala-rara-ahhh-watch out bad romance” on you.

    For a list of the songs that were most often stuck in the heads of the French individuals studied during this serious scientific research, click here. Then share the tunes that get stuck in your head in the comments! If you couldn’t tell already, mine is “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga (and I’m not complaining ;) )

    4 Feb 2010

    Size Matters

    Weighing Perfect Performance

    Many consider it a big fitness performance boon to be as light as possible—less drag on bikes, less weight to carry while running or less opponent to go up against in wrestling. But a new book is confirming what some athletes have been privy to for years: skinniest is not always best.

    When you weigh less, you do reduce gravitational pull. In fact, researchers at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut found that each one percent drop in weight corresponds to a one percent improvement in athletic performance. However, dropping the pounds seems to only improve your exercise output up to a certain point. After you lose too many el-bees your body starts almost “eating” your muscle tissue for energy. This makes recovery much more difficult, plus the muscles are not nearly as efficient because they cannot take in as much oxygen as they can at their optimal performance level.

    Interestingly, this acme is different for everyone. A certain percentage of body fat or weight to height ratio cannot predict at which weight each person will be most athletically capable. Even professional athletes must withstand trial and error, the book “Racing Weight: How to Get Lean for Peak Performance,” reports.

    For the average person seeking health, it probably matters little at which weight you perform your absolute best. Anyways, feeling positive about your body’s abilities (even if you’re not Usain Bolt or Lance Armstrong) is more important than setting world records, right?

    Balance Scale Clip Art (Image from Clker.com)


    Plastic Surgery Surprise

    Before reading on, take a second and guess which elective surgery showed the highest rate of growth in the past year…Perhaps nose jobs? Breast implants? The combo platter?

    It turns out that male breast reduction surgery is tops when it comes to the fastest growing plastic surgery procedures. Why are men worried so much about the “moobs” as some call them? Scientists from the British Association of Plastic Surgery, who have been researching this surgical phenomenon, believe men’s magazines and media images may be to blame.

    While the large majority (about 90 percent) of plastic surgeries performed by members of the Association were for women, the amount of male breast reduction surgeries surged by 80 percent compared to the previous year. It seems that these procedures seem to be recession-proof.

    I understand that this could be an embarrassing situation that some men struggle with, but I would much rather consistently knock out push ups than deal with the recovery pain—not to mention the hospital bill!

    What do you think is the cause for the surge in male breast reduction surgeries? How much pain would you be willing to endure to feel comfortable in your own skin?

    Not just for the ladies…

    (Image from The Los Angeles Times)


    Water cooler conversation starter: A nine-year-old girl (yes NINE, so young Associated Press style says I need to spell it out!) gave birth to a healthy baby boy in China late last month. This baby gave birth to a baby on the same day as abstinence-only sex education programs came under fire due to an increase in teen pregnancies. But another report, released days later, found that abstinence-only programs do successfully decrease sexual activity.

    Your thoughts on this touchy subject?