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Take the President's Fitness Challenge
Tweet Share on Facebook February 28, 2008 Comment (1)When I was in junior high, the annual Presidential Physical Fitness Award test chilled my little adolescent heart. The thought of struggling to perform even a single pull-up in front of that week's crush was enough to make me develop my own case of the blue (gym shorts) flu. So hearing that the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports is about to offer to all Americans the National President's Challenge—the very same program that spawned the awful test—didn't exactly thrill me.
Luckily, the expanded program, which will begin enrolling participants March 1 (though I was able to sign up today) and starts March 20, involves no actual test. Its goal is to promote general physical wellness by encouraging all Americans to be active for 30 minutes a day, five days a week (the generally accepted activity level for good cardiac health; weight loss will probably take more exercise). All you've got to do is go to PresidentsChallenge.org and sign up.
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A Vote Against Aerobic Exercise?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 25, 2008 Comment (11)My inbox has been filling up with PR pitches on the ineffectiveness and/or evils of steady aerobic exercise, which most academic fitness experts have preached as the best way to control weight and improve heart health. (I've written about one specific no-cardio plan before.)
I'm tempted to dismiss most of these pitches as gimmicks to sell more books, DVDs, vats of protein powder, or whatever, but there are enough studies cited as supporting evidence to make it a topic worth looking into. Some of the arguments offered up against lots of steady aerobic exercise: Working out for a long time can cause impact injuries and possibly promote harmful bodywide inflammation; people tend to overeat after cardio workouts because they overestimate how many calories they've burned; weightlifting may boost your metabolism more than aerobic exercise in the period after you've finished working out; and—the one that makes intuitively the most sense to me—it's more efficient to do interval training (alternating shorter periods of intense exertion followed by recovery), because you burn more calories in less time.
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Probiotics Aren't for Everyone
Tweet Share on Facebook February 21, 2008 Comment (2)If you think that your digestive system—and its regularity or lack thereof—have lately been the focus of an awful lot of TV commercials, you're right. Probiotics, live microbes that may bring health benefits, are clearly a hot topic in nutrition (U.S. News has written about them here and here). Predictable food industry marketing hype aside (the New York Times had a great take on this last year), the bulk of the evidence does suggest that for some conditions, especially digestive ailments, they can be helpful when taken in the proper amounts.
But two recent studies illustrate the point that very few things—OK, except maybe rainbows and puppies—are absolutely good for absolutely everyone. A study out of the Netherlands, published online by the Lancet last week, set out to find whether probiotics might prevent infections in a very sick group of people: those with acute pancreatitis. The hypothesis was that the probiotics, delivered via a feeding tube, might fend off some of the infectious complications that can make acute pancreatitis deadly. The result was surprising: The group of patients who took probiotics had more infections than those who received a placebo. And 16 percent of the patients in the probiotics group died, compared with 6 percent of the placebo group.
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Diet Soda, Metabolic Syndrome, and Weight Loss
Tweet Share on Facebook February 12, 2008 Comment (17)As I write this, I am nursing a glass of Diet Pepsi, one of the embarrassing number that I put away on a typical day (starting about five minutes after I wake up, to my boyfriend's abject horror). I've resolved to cut back on my consumption in the past, mostly because I'm cheap enough to resent paying for something with absolutely no nutritional value, but have always been defeated by the calorie factor. Besides, doesn't everyone deserve a vice? But because of my love-hate relationship with the stuff, two recent studies about artificial sweeteners caught my eye.
One, published in Circulation, came as quite a shock: Drinking diet soda, it suggested, puts me at higher risk of developing a group of risk factors like high blood pressure and unhealthy levels of "bad" cholesterol that are tied to heart disease and diabetes. Another paper, published in Behavioral Neuroscience, found that—in rats, at least—cutting the traditional link between sweet flavor and high calories seems to throw off the ability to judge the caloric content of food. That, no surprise, leads to overeating. So much for the calorie factor.
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8 Strength Training Tips for Women
Tweet Share on Facebook February 8, 2008 Comment (15)I know strength training builds muscle mass and keeps my bones strong. So I drag myself to the gym a few mornings a week, use a couple of the less-sweated-upon machines, and pat myself on the back. But that's about all the effort I've given it—until now.
One of my goals for the year is to actually try a strength-training program designed by someone smarter and more experienced about this stuff than I am. And my good friend Erle, who spends a lot of time mulling over the science behind his own exercise routine (and posts his thoughts about fitness at f-40.blogspot.com), has always spoken highly of Alwyn Cosgrove, a coach, gym owner, and writer (www.alwyncosgrove.com). So when I heard that Cosgrove, with coauthors Lou Schuler and Cassandra Forsythe, has a new book out, The New Rules of Lifting For Women (Avery/Penguin Group USA), I jumped at the chance to get him on the phone. Our chat centered on some of the misconceptions that everyone—but particularly women—have about weight training. Here's some of what I learned:
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Women: Get With the Heart Rehab Program
Tweet Share on Facebook February 5, 2008 Comment (5)Not that you could tell it from the gender makeup at my gym in the morning, but women don't exercise as much as men. According to a 2005 Gallup poll, in fact, only 42 percent of women engage in vigorous physical activities at least once a week, compared with 56 percent of men. That's an all-around-bad trend, but the consequences are especially bad when it comes to cardiac rehabilitation, the programs for heart patients incorporating exercise, nutritional advice, counseling, and other preventive steps. There, the disparity continues: Studies have shown that women are less likely to participate in cardiac rehab, and if they do start, are as much as 30 percent more inclined to drop out. Since rehab is believed to cut the risk of further heart problems and improves quality of life, that's a gap worth tackling.
