The 20 Minute Walk Fantasy

We've all heard it from any number of sources, all you need to do is walk 20 minutes a day and you can increase your health and decrease your weight.

If this was true I would weigh 100 pounds. The thing is that 20 minutes of walking even at a pace where your having a hard time breathing is NOT ENOUGH. I walk a half hour at lunch almost every day. I struggle with it, EVERY TIME. My cardio does not get better, my heart and lungs don't feel better and I certainly do not lose weight.

So why does every program you see, almost every diet and exercise plan tells us that we just need to move a little, to have those 20 minutes a day or get those 2 miles a day and you will be healthy and thin?

For those who do ZERO activity, I guess 20 minutes a day is better than nothing from the viewpoint of the weight loss experts. Maybe the idea is that something is better than nothing.

These of course are the same people who promise if you would just drink your 64 ounces of water ice cold instead of lukewarm, you will notice a difference in how it speeds up your metabolism.

This crap just doesn't work. Plain and simple.
I don't know what the solution is yet but I do know that it takes more than 20 minutes a day.

I’m not ignorant; I also know the bad side

If you read yesterday’s post and thought I had lost my mind, all that positive when our economy is falling apart and people are losing their jobs and savings all around us. I am not insensitive or crazy. I’m just trying to find a way to get by, just like you are.

The economy sucks and I’m afraid to even look at my 401k again this month. Still I have to be positive or I will want to give up. What’s the point of working 2 jobs and trying to write in my spare time if the world is falling apart?!

For you Negative Nellies I will acknowledge the following health negatives that the economy may cause:
1. Job loss = income loss = inability to buy food and basic necessities
2. Job loss = benefits loss = no health care
3. Stress is bad for our physical and mental health

AND THE EXTREMES
4. Hunger and starvation
5. Increased rates of suicide
6. Increases rates of violent crimes
7. Rise in infant and child mortality rates
8. ETC.

Still, the US isn’t a third world country as of yet and hopefully no matter how far we fall, we won’t let people starve in the streets. I try to be positive that even if our leaders cannot prevent this, we as a people, will band together and those who can help others, will do so. Call me sentimental or foolish but I want to stay positive.

Good news about the economy

I was reading the NY Times online this morning and came across an article that may perk up your mood (or depress the hell out of you).

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/health/07well.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

The article Are Bad Times Healthy? discusses a few ways that economic hard times can be good for our health. For dieters there are some obvious advantages.

1. Less eating out
2. More cooking at home from scratch
3. Walking and biking more to save on fuel expenses
4. More time at home with the kids
5. Less cable TV watching (I added this one on my own)

Look at your own life. Has the economy changed how you eat or exercise? Can you make changes to save money and improve your health?

I took two steps this year to save money that are helping improve my health

1. I planted two tomato plants in the spring that have yielded one or two ripe tomatoes per week on average. I save money and eat fresh produce with the added bonus that the tomatoes grown on my patio have tons more taste than the ones I buy in the grocery store.
2. I gave up the cable TV. I did this a few months ago for 2 central reasons – my cable bill was costing $150 per month which I could no longer afford and I realized I was getting home from work and planting myself in front of the TV to watch reruns of The OC and General Hospital and losing an average of 4 hours per day. I’d like to say that I use this time to exercise but it would be a lie. I haven’t gotten that far yet. I do use the time to work my second job and I’m more productive without the TV on so that I finish before 10p each night and therefore am able to get my 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night.

What small step will the economy force you to do that also benefits your health?

Back in Gear, sort of

I'm back in the diet mood again. More I'm working on a healthy diet option with one caveat - I'm not giving up the soda. Maybe it's counterproductive but there is too much stress in my life right now to give up the crutch that is caffeine and sugar.

I have however set a different goal. I intend to consume no more than 1300 calories per day (this includes the soda). I'm not sure if this means I will be cutting too many vitamins and minerals but I've decided to try getting healthy my way, the half way.

So other than the soda, I will be all raw fruits, veggies and lean proteins but my sugary simple carbs will be in the soda. I'll cut out all the others - pasta, bread, candy. Whatever it takes, I'm thinking that I can give up the others as long as I have the cold caffeine.

I don't know how this will work in the long run BUT everything I've read argues that weight loss is about the simple step of creating a calorie deficit. I need to eat less than I burn. With this 1300 calorie goal, I will definitely eat less than I burn. We'll see if it works.

I'll let you know in a week or two.

For now, start thinking about what modifications you make in your quest to get healthy and thin while trying to maintain your sanity.

Crazy Alternatives

Today I'm not really interested in talking about myself. I guess I'm in a bit of a mood. Instead I did some research and gathered 5 diets that were guaranteed to be crazy. They may have been just crazy enough to work but there were obvious and sometimes complicated side effects. So today I shall celebrate the Crazy Alternatives out there in diet land.

Number 5
Diet pill containing a tapeworm. I may have even seen this one on ER or one of those other medical dramas, it's so difficult to keep them straight. Anyway the point is that you swallow a pill and soon you are dramatically losing weight, no matter what you consume. Of course, eventually you may notice what appears to be a tumor growing in your abdomen because the tapeworm you ingested has started growing due to the constant food you've been feeding it. All I can say is GROSS!

Number 4
Master Cleanse promoted by some celebrities that requires you to drink a mix of maple syrup, lemon juice, water and cayenne pepper. If you vomit often enough, you will lose weight.

Number 3
HCG - The pregnant woman hormone that you inject into yourself on every day while you reduce your calories to between 500 -800 per day. Difficult if you are not a fan of needles. I've actually tried this one and I hate to think of the side effects that may one day creep up. I recall being hungry constantly and it was impossible to eat so few calories without a constant headache.

Number 2
Weekly colonics - this says it all. DISGUSTING and I'm not sure how it helps anything.

Number 1 - THE ALL STAR
The Druggie Diet - choose your drug of choice - cocaine or heroine - and consume copious amounts while forgoing all forms of food. Not much to say about this one. You will get thin quick but you might not be around to see it.

What are your TOP 5 CRAZIEST DIETS?

Which have you tried?

How important is the sun to our health?

I’m a native Floridian so I’ve spent much of my life exposed to sun. While I am fair skinned and therefore careful about the sun and using sunscreen, I still am used to getting most of my Vitamin D straight from the sun.

Fall is coming to Massachusetts where I now live and the new season has been ushered in by a week of dreary, rainy days lacking in any sunshine. I did fine for a few days but for the last two I’m pretty sure I’ve been losing my mind. Getting out of bed each morning has become more difficult. Plus I’m plagued by morning irritation that lasts until about 3 in the afternoon.

I've been doing a little research and found that one of the reasons many women are Vitamin D deficient is that other than sun exposure, the vitamin is hard to come by. It is found in some foods such as fish oils and in small quantities in liver, eggs and cheese. When most of us drank whole milk it was fortified with Vitamin D for better calcium absorption. But now that 1% or skim is becoming the norm, we aren't getting enough of the D. As a result, our bodies also aren't metabolizing calcium as well either.

Without Vitamin D our bones and muscles become weak which can lead to rickets, osteoporosis and insulin resistance which can lead to weight gain. Even with all these the bigger problem of Vitamin D deficiency is the symptoms of fatigue that lead to irritation and a general tendency to avoid doing anything.

If you are like me and don't take a multivitamin daily then you risk a Vitamin D deficiency contributing to the stress and weakness you feel on dreary days. I'm thinking that starting today I will be adding a multi to see if it boosts my fall and winter mood.

Welcome to October the month of endless CANDY

I have a love/hate relationship with the month of October. Last year I spent more than $50 on bags of candy for the office and will be the first to admit that I ate more of the sugar than anyone else. I probably reach 3000 calories some days with the empty sugar calories and foolishness.

I'd like to say that one day I will have willpower and just avoid buying the candy. This year I will likely not get sucked in when in the store just because the money crunch has me on a strick budget. However, I work in an environment where there is candy on every desk and in every classroom - year round. But we seem to get a little extra for the days leading up to scary candy day.

I wonder if I should just scrap the entire month then start over in November. Of course, November houses my favorite holiday (and its requisite chow down) Thanksgiving. So then I would have to give up again until December.

This just doesn't seem to be a good idea.

While candy may be my nemesis I think I will try not to give an entire month to it. I already gained back 2 of the pounds I lost last month. SO my goal for this month is 6 pounds instead of 4. Since my workout hasn't been working either I'm going to go back to the drawing board. I want to still take what I was learning from Turbulence Training and start smaller again. Right now my right wrist is swollen and sore so pushups and weights are out of the question for 2 or 3 days. So starting Saturday I will go back to working out but for the first week I will plan a simple body weight routine that lasts about 15 minutes. Then I will get back to the TT workouts the second week.

Fighting candy and lack of exercise WILL NOT get me down. Be prepared to SMACK ME if I give up this month. I'm headed back to Fitday.com and getting into a routine again. I'll let you know how it goes.