One of the most basic ways to get in shape is using your own bodyweight. Uou have undoubtedly done this already in the past using pushup, situps, chinups and there are lots more.

I ran across an article on CNN about some people trying to popularize working out only using your own bodyweight lathough some of the equipment may be a bit hard to come by.

The Bartendaz of New York want to serve as many young people as possible — and that’s a good thing.
One of the Bartendaz, Metaphysics, performs the flag move during a demonstration at an Atlanta-area school.

These fitness gurus aren’t promoting underage drinking. Named for the creative moves they perform on the pull-up bar, the Bartendaz are empowering youths through calisthenics. 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: Atlanta, Bartendaz, Bartendaz founder, CNN, founder, Hassan Yasin, Ludacris, New York, rapper, Rashad Evans, YouTube

The Center for Disease Control is reporting that Measles Cases are at the highest rate in over 10 years. Most of the reason for the really high rate of Measles outbreaks is because of the fear of Autism from kids getting the

More measles cases have been reported in the United States since Jan. 1, 2008 than during the same period in any year since 1996, according to a report released today in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Measles Results for 2008

Between January 1 and July 31, 2008, 131 cases were reported to CDC′s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). At least fifteen patients, including four children younger than 15 months of age, were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Academy of Pediatrics, Anne Schuchat, Arizona, Arkansas, Austria, Autism, Belgium, California, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, China, D.C., director, encephalitis, Europe, Georgia, Germany, hawaii, Illinois, immunization, India, Israel, Italy, Louisiana, measles, Michigan, Missouri, mmr vaccine, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Mumps, National Center for Immunization, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, New Mexico, New York, Pakistan, Pennsylvania, preventing infections, Respiratory Diseases, rubella, Russian Federation, Switzerland, the Philippines, United Kingdom, United States, vaccination, vaccination program, vaccination status, vaccines, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin

Obesity is bad enough, but teenage obesity is worse. If kids and teenagers start getting overweight, it only goes on to show how bad our lifestyle habits have become and how little concern we have for our health. Today, almost fifteen per cent of teenagers are obese, that too just in America (I am not even counting the world figure, which would obviously be higher), and if we don’t take the right measures to curb it, it would only get worse with time.

Now why should we be so concerned about obesity? Obesity is a cause of concern because it not only makes a person look fat and ugly but also inflicts him with several killer diseases such as diabetes, sleep apnea, heart problems, kidney troubles, high blood pressure, etc.. Just imagine your teen as a diabetic. Obesity in itself is fatal as well; recent studies point out that people who suffer from teenage obesity are more likely to die prematurely than others.

Don’t believe me? Actually many people used to think that the concept of ‘obesity related death’ is a joke or rumor, that is, until in 1989 the National Institute for Health decided to sponsor a study designed to monitor the health of about one million women over an extended period of time.

During the study, the lifestyle habits of these women, including diet, level of activity, etc. were monitored. The study continued over a period of 12 years, and most of the women who volunteered to participate in it were nurses employed in state-run hospitals located in various parts in USA, including New York, Kentucky, Michigan, Texas, etc. All of them were aged between 22-44 years.

The participants were asked to answer a series of questions pertaining to their health, including the lifestyle habits they followed during their adolescence, their entire medical history, etc. Midway during the study, as many as 710 participants died.

The researchers conducting the study found out that the reason behind their premature deaths was that almost all of them were obese in their teens. It is then that these researchers concluded that people, in this case women, who suffer from teenage obesity are three times more likely to die prematurely than those who are of normal weight.

As you can see, teenage obesity influences the future of your kid in a big way. If you don’t want your children to die prematurely like those nurses, it is time that you start monitoring the lifestyle habits of your teenage daughters and sons. There are too many fad diets and diet pills out there, all claiming to help you with weight loss but I would rather recommend healthy eating and an active lifestyle for your teenage kids. Keep in mind that if you wish your kids to live a long life, preventing teenage obesity is the only way to ensure that.

Tags: America, diabetes, high blood pressure, Kentucky, Michigan, National Institute for Health, New York, obesity, sleep apnea, Texas, United States

Interesting news from Pfizer today. It seems that some testing that was done shows that the cholesterol reducing medication Lipitor was very affective at increasing the blood and oxygen to the hearts of people with Chronic Angina.

Pfizer said Tuesday that a new study of its cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, 80 mg, showed unexpectedly significant reduction in myocardial ischemia in patients with chronic stable angina.

Myocardial ischemia is a condition defined by insufficient blood supply and oxygen to the heart. Angina is chest pain or discomfort that occurs when an area of the heart muscle doesn’t get enough oxygen-rich blood.

The New York-based pharmaceutical giant said Lipitor reduced the average number of ischemic events by nearly 70% and total duration of events by more than 60% from baseline to week 18 of the study, and sustained the effects until the end of the trial at week 26.

In 60% patients treated with Lipitor, all ischemic events were completely eliminated by the end of the study, the company said.

The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.

This is big news for a great many people in the population that have issues with Angina

Tags: american college of cardiology, angina, chest pain, cholesterol, chronic stable angina, insufficient blood supply, lipitor, myocardial ischemia, New York, pfizer, pharmaceutical giant, the American College

The second episode for the Biggest Loser this season was a two hour episode just like the first episode was. We get a bit of a recap and then watched as the two main teams worked out and the Black Team headed by Jillian Michaels had their first weight in. These guys are all working out really hard and in fine Biggest Loser form we are getting to see punishment.

One of the great things about the Biggest Loser is the little short tips that you run into during the show. One of the guys was eating next to nothing and got beat up for it. If you do not eat your body goes into a starvation mode and you will not be able to raise your metabolism to lose weight. Kim Lyons also brought up the idea of eating ground turkey instead of ground beef. Turkey is high in protein and very low in fat so it is a great alternative whether ground up or just cooked instead of steak or chicken.

I want to skip the other stuff for now from the show because I think the real highlight in the two hours was the read and blue teams finally seeing the cast-offs, the black team coached by Jillian Micheals.

“strong like a tidal wave” I have no idea who used this line as it came so fast but one of Jillian Michaels people used this term to discribe one of his team mates. This was the day that the red and blue teams got to meet the black team. As happened last season the read and blue teams did not feel that the black team deserved to be there but just because they did not see them does not mean that the black team was not working hard. The problem last season was that all of the bonding that went on meant the the people working out from home were looked at as infiltrators and were never really accepted…we will see how this season goes as there are now three pretty evenly matched teams.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Barbie, Biggest Loser, biggest_loser, biggest_loser_season_4, Bill, bob harper, bob_harper, Good, jillian michaels, jillian micheals, jillian_michaels, Jim, Ken, kim lyons, kim_lyons, Lezlye, New York, starvation, the Biggest Loser, Turkey

I almost missed it but today is the first day of the US Open Tennis Championships in New York. I have been a tennis player and tennis fan since I was 8 years old and the US Open is easily my favorite tournament of the year. There may be the European flavor of the French, the pomp of Wimbledon, The laid back kickoff of the year at the Australian Open but I believe that the US Open tops them all. Not only do the best players never miss the US Open but the night matches are full of drama and go late into the night with catcalls and lots of cheering from the crowds that are really close to the court surface at Flushing Meadows.

There have been some great moments over the years in watching the US Open. My favorite moments were Jimmy Connors and his run at 39 to the semis in 1991. Many John McEnroe arguments, Pete Sampras throwing up on center court during the fifth set of the semis and eventually winning the tournament and of course the last few years of Roger Federer domination.

The US Open Tennis Championships will be going on for two weeks. This week is a good warmup to watch some great tennis moving into the great matches next week and of course Super Saturday next weekend

Tags: Australian Open, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, New York, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Tennis, Tennis Championships, tennis player, US Open, Wimbledon

Well this, my least favorite season of the Biggest Loser is over and I just wanted to add a few comments of my own on how entertaining the last two hour episode was. First of all I am glad that I taped the show and then watched it after for a bit more clarity and less interruptions from the kids. The show was broken into three parts. First was the people not chosen and worked out at home, second were the people kicked off during the show and finally they had the final four and their weight in. Why did the people at home winner get so much less than the final winner when the percentage weight losses were the same?

First the show recognized the non-picked that had to work out at home. This at home group were the rest of the 50 that did not get picked by Kim Lyons or Bob Harper to stay at the ranch and the winner of this was Poppi from New Jersey who lost just over half of her weight. What a massive loss going from 232 pounds to 115 pounds. Poppi looked really small and in fact was fantastic looking. As usual when losing a lot of weight she was barely recognizable from her old self.

Second, the people kicked off of the show. It was very close and Jaron from Arizona narrowly lost to Brian from California. Brian lost more than half his weight as well and looked very lean. The highlight to us at home and I bet most people was how huge Marty from Missouri was. Marty lost almost all of his fat and gained a ton of muscle. We knew he had no chance to win the biggest weight loss because he was so muscular.

In the final of the finale we were surprised to see Heather from Utah was pregnant. Now if you are up for a $250,000 prize why would you go and get pregnant instead of waiting until after the show is over? The show gave Heather a new nursery which was a nice consolation prize. The other surprise was Kai from Alaska, I am not to sure what was going on but it really seemed to have taken something to increase her attitude and energy before the show taped. I sure hope for her sake that they did not have random drug testing for the Biggest Loser finale. As anyone that has read my past posts knows I did not like either of the girls that were in the final four anyway. I was not really disappointed that they did not win.

Wylie from Florida looked like he never had a chance in this competition to win the title of Biggest Loser but in the end he came in third and looked fantastic and DID lose a lot of weight, more importantly to watch though was that Wylie seemed to gain a lot of muscle over the last few weeks of his training as I guess his bodyfat level got low enough to really notice.

Erik from New York ended up as the biggest loser. He lost more than half of his weight and seemed really healthy. Some of the people on the show always looked like they have lost too much weight but I did not think that Erik looked that way. Erik was lean and muscular and seemed to have a bit of bodyfat on him but just barely. I would not be surprised if he gained 10 pounds or so but some of the people look like they would probably have to gain 20 pounds or so to look like a more normal weight.

Well there it is another season of Biggest Loser over and hopefully the producers of the show take some of my earlier suggestions to heart and make some changes to the show. I liked this season the least but it was nice to watch the finale and see all of the success stories. I am really looking forward to the next season

Tags: Alaska, Arizona, bob harper, California, energy, Florida, kim lyons, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, USD, Utah

I wrote a bit a couple of weeks ago about Trans fats and the fact that New York city was going to be perhaps banning trans fats in restaurants. Well it has happened. I just saw the news break and that means that today there will be stories in the news all about What trans fats are, how they are bad for us, and how much we should consume. I hope that you remember that past article as it seems that there is not healthy amount of trans fats to consume so any amount is to much. It will be interesting to see what happens now as I once heard that there are 20 or so Macdonalds restaurants in Manhattan itself let alone the other outlying boroughs.

As you probably remember trans fats are create by making hydrogenated vegetable oil, that is pumping hydrogen through Vegetable oil to give it a longer shelf life and

The Board of Health has voted to make New York the first city in the nation to ban artificial trans fats in restaurant food. The board is expected to give restaurants a slight break by relaxing what had been considered a tight deadline for compliance.

The board also ordered restaurants to standardize how they display the number of calories in dishes on their menus in an effort to combat obesity. This means that perhaps we will start to get better information on fat and calorie contents of foods everywhere so that we can make better decisions than just picking the “healthy Choice menu item at the local restaurant.

Here is a graph from the Associated Press showing some trans fat facts:

Tags: Associated Press, Board of Health, health, hydrogenated vegetable oil, New York, New York City, obesity, oil, restaurant food

I am a bit of a fan of Wendy’s restaurants, and yes I am aware of how fatty and devoid of nutrients a Wendys hamburger and fries are. I just saw a story last week with Consumer Reports doing a fallow up of Wendys claim that they would be eliminating trans fats from their deep frying process by switching oils. It seems that all of the stores have not switched to the new kids of oil as there still seems to be a bit of trans fats in the system.

Be very aware that there is no safe amount of trans fats that you should consume. All of the research that I have done into trans fats over the last couple of years have convinced my that this type of fat is poison and just stays in your body.

Consumer reports said the following:

Despite Wendy’s claim that a large serving of fries contains a half a gram of trans fat, our analysis revealed that a large serving contains two and a half grams of trans fats.

Wendy’s announced it was switching to a new kind of cooking oil that would virtually eliminate trans fat by August. But Consumer Reports testing found Wendy’s still serves two and a half grams of trans fat, far more than the half gram it claims. However, it is less than McDonald’s and Burger King fries, which contain more than six grams in their large size fries. Wendy’s, meantime, says it has thoroughly tested and checked the fat content of its fries, and disagrees with Consumer Reports.

Another story that is moving around is that in New York city the city council is going to be voting in December on a bill that would ban trans fats from being used in the citys restaurants. I have never heard of a city wide ban of trans fats but this can only be a good move and I hope the idea catches as much as I know we will hear a lot of moaning from the restaurant industry.

Also you may remember the story from a couple of weeks ago where I mentioned that Kentucky Fried Chicken is going to be dropping trans fats from their cooking process

So again, how do we avoid trans fats? I have looked around and found the following recommendations:
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Burger King, Consumer Reports, corn oil, dairy products, food, food manufacturers, Healthy fast food, heart disease, mcdonalds, New York, oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, vegetable oil

I have watched Lance Armstrong for years in his wins at the Tour de France and was interested in the story that he was going to be running the New York marathon with almost no running training. To be sure Lance is in fantastic shape now although I am sure his 180 pounds now is a little fatter and in slightly worse condition then his prime 165 pound cycling weight. Amazing to me is that he was able to run the New York marathon in just under 3 hours.

As a professional cyclist, perhaps the best that ever lived Lance Armstrong was a true competitor that played to his strengths. Lance is good at riding in the mountains although maybe not the best but coupled with his strength in sprints, also not the best in the world and his strategic vision, which is definitely the best in cycling. Running though is a very different sport than cycling and while running Lance Armstrong had a lot of trouble after about and hour and a half or so because his body is finely tuned for a longer endurance at a lower level of effort, I am sure that the energy Lance Armstrong would put out in a regular day at the Tour de France is likely the same as the top marathon runners on Sunday but he would do this in five hours not two hours.

Still, Lance again accomplished an amazing feat. Most vetran runners would not be able to do the New York marathon in under three hours and I beleive that the two things that made the difference between what he did and just giving up after and hour or tow was his cockiness in knowing that he is one of the great athletes of our time and the mental attitude that allowed him to continue well after his body was willing to give up.

Here is some of what was said in a New York Times article about Lance Armstrong and the race:

After his news conference at the New York Athletic Club, he limped out of the room.

Earlier, Armstrong had said that he could possibly have run a sub-2:30 if he had trained, but now he was quite sure that another marathon was out of the question. Nothing in cycling ever came close to three hours of activity at this level, he said.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said that I’ve never felt this bad, ever,” he said. “My legs are killing me. My back doesn’t feel that great, either. I’m really suffering.”

This goes to show that no matter what kind of an athlete that you are there is always something that is going to be difficult. The next crazy thing I would like to see is a marathoner riding the Tour de France and seeing how that would go. Two different disciplines but there are a lot of parallels to training and how to get your head into the sport.

Tags: athlete, cycling, energy, France, Lance Armstrong, New York, New York Athletic Club, New York Times, professional cyclist, Tour De France