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

Going to the gym is supposed to be good for your health, but if you don’t take the proper precautions, it may have the opposite effect. Newsweek has an article about germs and gyms that gives some great tips. Germs can lurk on any surface, from exercise equipment to the spigot on the water fountain, and locker rooms are ideal places for bacteria and fungi to thrive. But you can lower your risk of catching other gymgoers’ germs—and with them the risk of catching a cold, athlete’s foot, or even the potentially deadly staph infection methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (or MRSA). Portland, Ore., sports medicine internist Dr. Carol Otis offers these tips:

Cover any breaks in the skin. Normal, unbroken skin can’t be invaded. But when a skin break—even one as minor as a small scratch or the raw skin characteristic of psoriasis— comes in contact with an infected surface, MRSA and other bacteria can worm their way in. The earliest danger signs: pimplelike red bumps or boils. To protect yourself, put a band-aid on any cuts, abrasions or blisters. And don’t shave immediately before a workout to avoid being in the locker room with cuts and scratches. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: athlete, athlete's foot, blister, blisters, Carol Otis, Clean exercise equipment, cuts, exercise equipment, Newsweek, Oregon, Portland, psoriasis, Sports Medicine, sports medicine internist, staph infection

Biggest Loser Special Edition started last night, apparently, we knew nothing about it until it was on even. The new format of the special edition version of the Biggest Loser is tow hours where the first hour is the two teams working with our old favorites of Jillian and Bob as trainers and going through the regular paces of great quality eating and diet coupled with huge amounts of exercise. The second hour of the show is the two teams back at home where they try to continue losing weight until the final bit of the show where the competition between the two teams is based on percentage of weight lost over five months with the winning team taking home 50,000 dollars.

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Looking for last nights finale of Season 4 and my review of it? Then go to the Season 4 Biggest Loser Finale Page

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This week, the first week the two teams were the Muha family from Florida and the Samuels family from Atlanta. The two teams had one fitness competition where the family of three had to carry a giant ice cream sundae a long distance in the shortest amount of time, was not really exciting but anyway the Muha family won.
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Tags: Allentown, Bronx, Edwin, Italy, NBC, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Portland, Rasha, Sarah, Steve, the Biggest Loser, USD

A couple years ago my wife was considering weight loss surgery as her years off dieting and exercise and the yoyo weight loss/gain nightmare had mad her tired of the whole weight loss industry. Using Weight Watchers and getting the exercise to a more moderate lvel have helped Michelle lose three pounds or so per week and she is quickly dropping the weight that was so stubborn just a couple of years back. Yesterday Michelle got a call for the gastric bypass surgery consultation which here in Alberta Canada takes 19 months, I am happy to say that she turned it down because a healthy lifestyle has maed the difference for her. As you probably know there are a lot of instances where this surgery is really helpful for people but only in cases where there is a risk of imminent death by now doing something as drastic as this surgery is.

I have found an article from Bloomberg that I think really shows the importance of this surgery and the possible implications. Below are some exerpts from that article.
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Tags: American Medical Association, arthritis, associate professor, back surgery, bariatric surgeries, bariatric surgery, Bloomberg, Bruce M. Wolfe, California, David R. Flum, David S. Zingmond, diabetes, food, Gastric bypass, gastric bypass surgery, GBP, health care services, heart surgery, high blood pressure, hip replacement, insurance, John M. Morton, Journal of the American Medical Association, knee surgery, lead researcher, Los Angeles, Medicare, Michelle Fay Cortez, Minneapolis, obesity, obesity surgery, Oregon Health Science University in Portland, plastic surgery, Portland, professor of medicine, professor of surgery, reporter, Seattle, Stanford University in California, surgeries, surgery, UCLA's School of Medicine, United States, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Washington in Seattle, weight loss surgery