What do you do for exercise? Do you bike or walk? Why not do that on the way or at least part of the way to work.

Walking or biking to work, even part way, is linked with fitness, but very few Americans do it, according to a study of more than 2,000 middle-aged city dwellers.

In what may be the first large U.S. study of health and commuting, the researchers found only about 17 percent of workers walked or bicycled any portion of their commute.

The new study is based on tests and questionnaires from 2,364 workers who were part of a larger federally funded study on heart disease risk. The participants lived in Chicago, Minneapolis, Birmingham, Ala., and Oakland, Calif. They were asked in 2005-2006 about their commuting habits in the past 12 months. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: Alabama, Archives of Internal Medicine, Birmingham, California, Chapel Hill, Chicago, heart disease, James Sallis, Minneapolis, North Carolina, Oakland, obesity, Oregon, Penny Gordon-Larsen, Portland, San Diego State University, United States, University of North Carolina

Being more physically fit appears to slow down damage to the brain’s memory centers in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Kansas Medical Center and presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Chicago.

“This is the first study to get an inside look into specifically where these changes occur in the brain,” lead researcher Robyn Honea said. “We’re able to locate the changes associated with fitness to the actual memory region, the hippocampus, which is a key area for Alzheimer’s-related atrophy.”

Researchers conducted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans on 60 adults over the age of 60 who were in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, along with 56 who did not have any form of dementia. All participants also took part in tests of oxygen consumption during a treadmill exercise, as a measure of overall cardiovascular fitness. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's disease, Association's Medical and Scientific Advisory Council, Chairman, Chicago, dementia, lead researcher, magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, Robyn Honea, Sam Gandy, University of Kansas Medical Center, www.reuters.com

Anyone that has watched the Survivor TV show knows that starvation will help you lose weight. Anyone that has seen a season finale of the Survivor TV show knows that after you starve off the weight you will put is back on again, and fast.

Well the people that make and market Survivor have decided that they can branch out into foods and diet products. We will have to see where this leads.

CBS Consumer Products has signed at least two new licensing agreements for the Survivor brand that will move the long-running reality show into the realm of health and fitness — with the potential for “many more” product opportunities, Daily Variety reported Wednesday.

Survivor Supercharged Sunflower Seeds are scheduled to hit the shelves in March and the Survivor Fitness Program will launch later this spring in Chicago, according to Variety.

Survivor is part of the lexicon now here in the United States,” CBS Consumer Products executive Liz Kalodner told Variety. “We can translate it into any product or experience that is about challenging one’s self, or the ultimate outdoor experience. Both of these new launches play into that.”

Full Charge Energy Foods concocted the vitamin-infused sunflower seeds, which will be supercharged with 100% of the daily recommended portion of vitamins B and C, according to Variety. The Survivor Fitness Program was created by Fitness Team One and will reportedly utilize “Survivor-style game elements and physical challenges” to help participants live a healthier lifestyle.

Kalodner told Variety she’s also finalizing deals that will create Survivor-themed outdoor adventure programs and corporate team-building/leadership development plans.

In addition, Survivor camping gear, active-wear clothing and more energy-based food products could be on the horizon, Variety reported.

“We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire,” Kalodner told Variety. “You’ll see a lot more along the way.”

Tags: camping gear, CBS Consumer Products, Chicago, diet products, energy-based food products, executive, Liz Kalodner, physical challenges, starvation, Supercharged Sunflower Seeds, survivor, survivor tv show, United States

Dole nutrition has done extensive research on exercise and here is an article that summarizes how they thing you should exercise. Try working out harder for a shorter period of time and see how your body reacts to it.

Ladies, are you lollygagging when you ought to be lifting, puttering when you ought to be pumping, trifling when you ought to be training? According to a recent Gallup Poll, nearly half of adult women under 50 say they never engage in vigorous physical exercise — worse, the boys are beating the girls hands down: only 28% of men in that same age group wimp out when they work out.

While moderate exercise can help you improve fitness, taking it easy at the gym won’t take off the pounds. Plus, too many workouts at the same low intensity won’t provide the kind of stress needed to fight bone and muscle loss as your body ages.

Namby-pamby exercising won’t do much to reduce your mortality risk either, according to a recent study by the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Following fitness levels of a group of generally healthy women ages 35-93 over the course of a decade, researchers divided them into three categories: most fit, moderately fit and least fit.

While it may be no surprise that women who were least fit were three times more likely to die during the course of the course of the study than the most fit group — women in the middle fitness range were also two times more likely to die than those who were in the best shape.

Another report presented at this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research zeroed in on the exercise-longevity link with regard to breast cancer. Physical fitness has already been found to lower women’s chances of developing breast cancer — but now it seems exercise can slash the risk of dying from breast cancer even after it has been diagnosed.

Using data from the large-scale, long-term Nurses’ Health Study, researchers focused on the fitness levels of women after they were diagnosed with breast cancer and found that women who walked just 1 to 3 hours a week cut their risk of dying from the disease by 25%. Those who walked 3 to 8 hours cut their risk in half!

So yes, while it may be true that a little exercise is better than none at all, when it comes to protecting your health and reducing your mortality risks, less is definitely NOT more!

Tags: American Association for Cancer Research, breast cancer, Cancer Research, Chicago, Dole, Rush University Medical Center

I think most people reading this weblog know that I am a pretty big fan of meditation and because of this I tend to find and post articles about meditation more than I should. I found this article at Psychology today and thought I would post it in its entirety.

In the highlands of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, people look at life differently. Upon entering the local Buddhist monastery, there is a spectacular sculpture the size of a large oak. The intricate carving of clouds and patterns are painted in powerful colors. But as soon as winter gives way, this magnificent work will melt to nothing. The sculpture, in fact, is made of butter, and it is one of the highland people’s symbols of the transient nature of life.

And life here is not easy. Villagers bicycle to work before dawn and return home long after sunset. Many live with nothing more than dirt floors and rickety outhouses. Upon entering these modest mud-brick homes, you’ll find no tables or chairs — just a long platform bed, which sleeps a family of eight. However, when the people invite you in for tea, their smiles are wide and welcoming. How do they possess such inner calm in conditions we would call less than ideal?

When villagers cook, sew or plow the fields, they do so in a tranquil state. As an approach to life, weaving meditation seamlessly into almost every action throughout the day seems unfamiliar to Western cultures. Is there something we can glean from this way of life that will improve our own? The romantic notion of quitting everything and joining Tibetan monks on a mountaintop is not the only way to meditate. You don’t need to quit your job, give up your possessions and spend 30 years chanting. Recent research indicates that meditating brings about dramatic effects in as little as a 10-minute session. Several studies have demonstrated that subjects who meditated for a short time showed increased alpha waves (the relaxed brain waves) and decreased anxiety and depression.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: alpha waves, atherosclerosis, brain meditation, California, cancer, cardiovascular disease, Chicago, clinical psychologist, depression, Diana Adile Kirschner, energy, Fairfield, fight disease, Harvard Medical School, heart attack, heart disease, Herbert Benson, infertility, Iowa, Irvine, Mark Epstein, meditation, Monterey Park, MRI technology, New York City, pain, Philadelphia, psychiatrist, psychologist, Psychotherapy, Qinghai, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Rob Nairn, Roger Thomson, School of Management, Steven Hendlin, the American Journal of Psychotherapy, tibetan monks, welcome tool

Here is an article from The Salt Lake City Daily Herald. I am including it as it does show the way that METs which are a calculation of workout based on oxygen consumption.

Disheartened by a failed marriage and years of weight gain, Ellen Bowden decided to turn to a personal trainer to help reshape her body and lifestyle.

Since January, the 47-year-old Salt Lake City court mediator has lost 11 percent body fat, shed about 25 pounds, improved her diet, quit smoking and toned up under the guidance of Michael Streeter at the 24 Hour Fitness center in Sugar House.

Streeter designed an exercise program for Bowden using the Karvonen formula, which calculates a person’s target heart rate by a person’s age and pulse. Three or four days a week, Bowden hits her rate of 144 on the elliptical machine.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: aerobics instructor and personal trainer, Ashley Jensen, Cardiologist, Carey Hamilton, Chicago, Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, diabetes, Ellen Bowden, fitness, Fitness Institute, Fitness Institute at LDS Hospital, Frank Yanowitz, high blood pressure, LDS Hospital, manager of Ladies Workout Express, Marci King, Martha Gulati, mediator, medical director, Melissa Walred, Michael Streeter, Mike Young, personal trainer, personal training director, reporter, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City court, sports science, Stephanie Christian, The New England Journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Salt Lake City Daily Herald, the Salt Lake Tribune, University of Utah, Utah, XCel Spa

Sleep, rest and relaxation are a very important part of your daily ritual. I know that in the past I have gotten reved up with many projects and before long something has to be let go and it is usually the sleep that I need for a while. Don’t do it! As your sleep and rest start dropping you lose focus and can be lured into bad habits, sugar, coffee, and bad food. The worst thing about a lack of rest is that your body will not have a chance to heal from your earlier workouts, this can be very bad as you not only will feel sore longer but it will also suck your optimism for your new lifestyle.

How Much Sleep to Get

How much rest is enough? You probably already know this. I myself do not wake up with an alarm clock or clock radio anymore. I am fortunate to have a flexible start time and know that I will not sleep in past 8:00 in the morning. Try going to be earlier in the evening for a few nights and see when you wake up. In the fall and winter I always tape the TV shows that I watch so that I can get a chance to watch them when it is convenient to me not when it is convenient for the TV networks.

Another thing that pro bodybuilders do is have a nap in the afternoon, a nap can be great in cleansing your mind and letting you learn to relax better but you will probably find as I do that it si almost impossible to do except maybe on the weekends.

You can probably see from the tone of this information that I am delivering here that you must stop treating sleep and rest as something that takes away from something and instead learn to treat it as your own personal time, something a little more sacred than just something unavoidable that has to be done.

The Effects of Sleep

According to leading sleep researchers, there are techniques to combat common sleep problems:

• Keep a regular sleep/wake schedule
• Don’t drink or eat caffeine four to six hours before bed and minimize daytime use
• Don’t smoke, especially near bedtime or if you awake in the night
• Avoid alcohol and heavy meals before sleep
• Get regular exercise
• Minimize noise, light and excessive hot and cold temperatures where you sleep
• Develop a regular bed time and go to bed at the same time each night
• Try and wake up without an alarm clock
• Attempt to go to bed earlier every night for certain period; this will ensure that you’re getting enough sleep

According to sleep researchers, a night’s sleep is divided into five continually shifting stages, defined by types of brain waves that reflect either lighter or deeper sleep. Toward morning, there is an increase in rapid eye movement, or REM sleep, when the muscles are relaxed and dreaming occurs, and recent memories may be consolidated in the brain.

No Hitting the Snooze Button

The experts say that hitting a snooze alarm over and over again to wake up is not the best way to feel rested. “The restorative value of rest is diminished, especially when the increments are short,” said psychologist Edward Stepanski, PhD who has studied sleep fragmentation at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. This on and off again effect of dozing and waking causes shifts in the brain-wave patterns. Sleep-deprived snooze-button addicts are likely to shorten their quota of REM sleep, impairing their mental functioning during the day. (New York Times, October 12, 2004)

Certain therapies, like cognitive behavioral therapy teach people how to recognize and change patterns of thought and behavior to solve their problems. Recently this type of therapy has been shown to be very effective in getting people to fall asleep and conquer insomnia.

According to a study published in the October 2004 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, cognitive behavior therapy is more effec

Tags: Chicago, cognitive behavioral therapy, Edward Stepanski, insomnia, New York Times, psychologist, Rush University Medical Center, sleep fragmentation, The Archives of Internal Medicine