I used to hate my 18 year old little brother sometimes because he will eat an entire bag of LeBoulanger’s sourdough baguette sliced bread, one of his favorite foods along with pretzels, in one day, yet he looks like a scrawny little boy who could probably gain 10 to 20 pounds.
Carbohydrates (carbs) are by far the most attacked and restricted food in the diet industry. Some of the most popular and well-known diets revolve entirely around eliminating or reducing your carb intake, including the South Beach and the Atkins Diet.
The South Beach diet focuses on replacing bad carbs and bad fats with good carbs and good healthy fats. Bad carbs are those that have a high glycemic index, which your body digests faster than whole grains or other low glycemic index carbs. This quick digestion causes a spike in your blood sugar, which can trigger hunger cycles. Bad fats are the more well known trans fats and saturated fats that are high in LDL cholesterol, the “bad” cholesterol”, that ample research has shown increases your risk of heart disease or heart related illnesses, compared to the good fats that are high in HDL cholesterol, or the “good cholesterol”, which studies show lowers your risk for heart disease and contributes to good cardiovascular health.
The Atkins diet simply focuses on restricting your carb intake, altogether. And, After reading a recent study among an Italian population that came out about how consuming white bread, rice, and other high glycemic index carbs double the risk for heart disease in women, I wasn’t surprised that both of these diets were developed my cardiologists.
The new study even controlled for other health risks, and still found these results.
It’s always much easier for me to eliminate or reduce foods in my diet when I understand that they are unhealthy for my general health than simply on the basis that they could make me gain a little weight. I believe that it is important to allow yourself to cheat a little bit on occasion, but I think now that I know when I have a slice of pizza that I might be doubling my risk of heart disease, than that slice of pizza might be a little bit easier to resist. If you really have to have your fix, maybe try and opt for a whole grain crust or try and satisfy your craving with another whole carbohydrate.
Oh and you men out there, you seem to be a lucky bunch because apparently your bodies digest the carbohydrates differently and the dangerous results of the study did not apply to you. So I guess you can go ahead and consume those “bad carbs”, just remember how lucky you are and remember to give her a spa gift certificate instead of chocolate next valentines day- haha.
When I was 8, I was playing a tickling game with my siblings where you start on a stool on the side of a bed and run in and tickle each other till the other person couldn’t handle it anymore (I don’t quite see the point in the game, but when I was 8 years old I could probably have been entertained by a piece of lint).
The stool that I was standing on collapsed and I fell, completely supporting myself on my wrist. I was in pain and knew I broke something, but I was in a little village on an island in Croatia and the doctor only comes to the island once a week.
So, my old neighbor there decided to rub some natural soap on my arm and wrist as her idea of a natural cure. A couple days later I had 4 men pulling my arm in different directions to put it back together. The soap didn’t really work and with a broken arm I was probably better off with a couple ibuprofen, but still I admire my old neighbors ways.
I have always been a fan of finding the natural cures and remedies in life. So, when it comes to my mood and my feelings, exercise seems to be the best cure if I’m in a depressed mood or if I’m experiencing a little anxiety. Research has even shown that exercise reduced anxiety symptoms by 20% in patients with chronic illnesses.
There are also several studies that prove that exercise has a positive impact on peoples’ mood and that it is beneficial for reducing negative affect. There’s some extra motivation to get you to the gym or even just active outside. Not only are you helping your heart, but your also improving your mood and from new research we can see that these two factors may be more cyclically related than you expect.
It is a universally understood principle that exercise helps your heart, but it is a less known fact that actually being happy or just generally having a positive attitude about life can benefit your heart as well. A new study in the European Heart Journal of 1739 adults in Nova Scotia, Canada found that
increased positive affect was protective against 10-year incident CHD [coronary heart disease], suggesting that preventive strategies may be enhanced not only by reducing depressive symptoms but also by increasing positive affect.
The study notes that a successful way to increase your positive affect is to write down daily activities or hobbies that are enjoyable. They also recommend increasing the time spent doing these enjoyable activities throughout the day. So, next time you pick up a good book or spend time laughing with your friends, consider it natural medicine for your heart.
A review from 2006, Positive Affect and Health, confirmed these finding. Sheldon Cohen and Sarah D. Pressman reviewed recent research on Positive Affect and Health and they found that Positive Affect was associated with lower morbidity, decreased symptoms and pain, and increased longevity among elderly. The moral of this story would be to exercise and spend more time enjoying yourself and you will be happier and have a healthier heart. Sounds like a pretty easy fix for me.
They say that opposites attract- I don’t believe that. In fact I actually think entirely the opposite is true. So, when it comes to finding my soulmate I want to find someone as similar to my tastes as possible; someone that I will have a lot in common with.
My bookmarking soulmate is no exception. So, in honor of Valentines Day, I decided to use the extra time that I have on this lovely day, since its not quite a singles holiday, to find my bookmarking soulmate and a few hours and a glass of wine later (I had to celebrate somehow) I finally found her. I’m assuming it’s a she since her username on delicious is SummerW- I’m going to call her Summer.
Summer’s top interests reflected in her tags are health, food, and fitness. She is also interested in supplements, food, cooking, and farming; a perfect match for my interests in this blog. Summer has 498 sites bookmarked and 26 blogs bookmarked. She began bookmarking in October of 2008 and she adds one or several new bookmarks every day or every couple of days. Her 660 tags are extremely well organized and she adds comments about half of the time when the title of the site isn’t self-explanatory.
While I was looking though Summer’s bookmarks, I came across a couple of interesting sites that I had yet to find on my own. One, Healing Naturally by Bee, featured an article about foods that damage and foods that heal. The article listed unnatural oils, table salt, and sugar as damaging foods, which I agree with, but then it went a little bit extreme in saying that fruit is not as healthy as you think and that the cholesterol theory is a scam. I’m sure there are legitimate reasons for thinking this way, but from what I know about nutrition research this is not true. Still, however, the site is interesting to look at and see what they have to say.
I also found an interesting website in her bookmarks called Earth Clinic. Earth Clinic outlines all of the classic old remedies for lots of ailments. One of the remedies, which I had never heard of before, is to gargle cayenne pepper with water for a sore throat. I would probably go with the more well known gargling of salt, but the website has 329 testimonials about how the cayenne pepper works. Next time I get a sore throat, which hopefully won’t be soon, I’ll have to try it. Earth Clinic also shows which supplements are good for specific issues, like grapefruit extract for sinus infections, the flu, and toenail fungus (random?), and the benefits of specific vitamins and minerals. Summer also shares my love for the blog Summer Tomato, which is a great blog for foodies.
I’m going to have to keep looking through her almost 500 bookmarked sites and I’m sure I will find some more interesting material.
I could not help but think of the saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” during my first 90 minute Bikram yoga session on Sunday. In this case the saying should go “what doesn’t make you pass out, rejuvenates you!” It’s interesting to me the amount of pain that people, myself included, are willing to put themselves through to achieve maximum physical health and fitness. Most health experts agree that Bikram yoga, which is a series of 26 postures each repeated twice in a 100 degree heated room with 40 percent humidity for 90 minutes, is beneficial for healing your body and stimulating your internal organs. I couldn’t help but question this as I attempted to turn my knee in a way that just did not seem possible. Still however, after two consecutive days of knee twisting and sweating profusely, I am a new addict and am looking forward to my next sweating session.
My love for borderline painful hot yoga probably stems from my years of pleasant torture rowing 7 seat in a lightweight 8 in high school. I started crew about 10 pounds over lightweight status and when my coach claimed that I could easily be a lightweight, I immediately attempted to be as healthy as possible in order to achieve this goal. I educated myself on healthy eating and tried to stay as hydrated as possible throughout the day. It took me several months to lose the weight but eventually I became a lightweight. The combination of working out as hard as I could and dieting was extremely hard and took a serious amount of self-discipline. Not only was my last season of crew the healthiest and strongest (the picture captures it haha) that I have been in my life, it was also a time in my life that I grew the most as a person. There is no comparable experience to following stroke seat and setting the pace for the other 6 people in the boat while doing an extremely difficult anaerobic and aerobic workout for a little over 7 minutes with the coxswain yelling at you to pull harder as you see the other boats falling behind you with a beautiful reservoir in the background. Eventually, I would like to buy a single and workout on the water, but for now Bikram yoga and running the smoggy loop around campus will fulfill my exercise and health needs.
If it’s not obvious from my previous stories, I am very interested in overall health, specifically fitness and nutrition. I believe that exercise is essential and that processed foods are the devil. I do not like artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame (although I love chewing gum and have yet to find a chewing gum without aspartame so I make a few exceptions) and I try not to eat products with ingredients that I have no idea what they are. Healthy food makes me feel good and exercising makes me happy, so I am going to attempt to comment on different aspects of each of these in my blog.
profile
Welcome back! I was one of those children that would pretty much eat just about anything that you put in front of my face. I was addicted to sour patch kids and could eat an entire loaf of bread in one sitting. One of the saddest moments in my life was when I realized that I could no longer eat anything and any portion size I wanted and still look great. At that point, I was still participating in athletics so I still didn't really have to worry because I had forced exercise everyday. Then college and the notorious freshman 15 happened and the weight struggle began. Finally, this year I have the opportunity to have my own apartment and cook healthy meals for myself. But, then I think to myself, “what to cook?” So, I did what every normal 21-year-old college student would do; I searched the internet and came across a blog that really struck my eye, Darya Pino’s Summer Tomato. After reading her bio this morning, I can understand why I was so attracted to her blog. Not only is she also from Northern California, she has also struggled with her weight and finding the right balance of food and exercise for her optimal health. I admire her in that her whole life she has
strived to balance academic and professional success with personal health and fitness
and a healthy balance is one of my lifetime goals.
Darya Pino graduated as one of the top students in her class from UC Berkeley with a degree in Molecular and Cell Biology. She is a UCSF scientist and is currently working on getting her PHD in neuroscience (wow). She posts at least every other day on her blog for Summer Tomato and she also writes for UCSF’s newspaper, Synapse, and has had a few posts featured in the Huffington Post.
Her blog, Summer Tomato, is fairly popular with a technorati authority rating of 122. The layout of Summer Tomato is nicely organized with tabs on the top for Basic, News, Market, Science, Recipes, Tips, and Random. Every Friday, Darya makes a For the Love of Food post, which is basically a weekly miscellaneous post with links to interesting sites relating to health and fitness that she’s found within the week. Darya is also an avid fan of fresh farmer’s marketproduce and she often blogs with updates about farmer’s markets that she has been to in the San Francisco Bay Area and what she’s purchased with illustrative pictures of nutritious goodies, which is a nice break from all the fast food ads surrounding my daily life. You don’t even need to be from the Bay Area to benefit from these nutritious posts- recently she blogged on Meal Planning at the Farmer’s Market and gave a detailed 5-step process for how the ordinary shopper tackles the farmer’s market.
Overall, what struck me most about Darya’s blog is that she has developed a new word for the overused negatively connotated word that I really do not like (diet). Instead she uses the word Healthstyle, which she defines as
your own eating and exercise habits that influence your health.
Darya’s goal with her blog, Summer Tomato, is to help people do away with short term fad diets and instead, simply upgrade their healthstyle. Definitely going to keep reading this one.
voice critique
When you think of weight loss or fat loss, you probably think of aerobic activity or doing an hour of cardio on the treadmill or elliptical everyday. However, you’d be doing yourself a favor if you did a little research in the area. You would most likely find that the greatest benefits are actually achieved from strength training or strength training combined with interval training instead of just steady-state cardio. Alwyn Cosgrove, a certified strength & conditioning specialist with a degree in Sports Science, mentions several studies to back up this point in his blog post, Hierarchy of Fat Loss.
He begins his post with a motivational quotation from Dan John, a Masters Highland Games athlete and the American Record holder in the Weight Pentathlon, which really draws the reader in to what he is about to discuss. Then he continues his post with the fact that time is a limiting factor with fat loss and that that the rest of the post is his opinion, but he credits himself with the fact that he has had 17 years of experience in the field.
Then, his Hierarchy of Fat Loss begins. The hierarchy has correct nutrition as the most important, exercises that promote muscle mass and elevate metabolism as the next most important, and finally exercise that only burns calories as the least important. His posts are enjoyable to read because he uses plain language like the word "crappy" in referring to an unhealthy diet and he also uses catchy expressions like "icing on the cake." Alwyn refers to several physiological studies to back up his opinions on fat loss and he follows the studies with basic analogies of what the facts would mean to an ordinary person. For example, he translates a study backing up fat loss though metabolic resistance training compared to diet or aerobics alone by mentioning that:
The diet group lost 14.6 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. The aerobic group lost only one more pound (15.6 pounds) than the diet group (training was three times a week starting at 30 minutes and progressing to 50 minutes over the 12 weeks). The weight-training group lost 21.1 pounds of fat (44% and 35% more than diet and aerobic only groups respectively). Basically, the addition of aerobic training didn’t result in any real world significant fat loss over dieting alone. Thirty-six sessions of up to 50 minutes is a lot of work for one additional pound of fat loss. However, the addition of resistance training greatly accelerated fat loss results.
He really proves his point by explaining these studies in layman’s English. Alwyn finishes this post by suggesting what you can do with a certain amount of time that you have available to exercise. He breaks down the facts and mentions the best ways to get results if you have just 3 hours/week or a whopping 6-8 hours/week available.
Another one of his posts, S.Y.S.T.E.M.S, ironically begins talking about how McDonalds is successful and people eat there, even though they may not have the best burger, because it has established a time efficient system. He really captured my attention in this post by ironically using the analogy of McDonalds in his Results Fitness blog. Overall, Alwyn speaks to the ordinary person in his blog and it makes his posts easy to understand and very interesting. People who spend an hour each day on the treadmill or elliptical trying to lose the lbs could really benefit from reading a little bit of what he has to say.- particularly this week.
For most people, when they think of weight loss or fat loss, they think of aerobic activity or doing an hour of steady-state cardio everyday. However, they’d be doing themselves a favor if people did a little research in the area. They would most likely find that the greatest benefits are actually achieved from strength training or strength training combined with interval training instead of just steady-state cardio. Alwyn Cosgrove, a certified strength & conditioning specialist with a degree in Sports Science, mentions several studies to back up this point in his blog post, Hierarchy of Fat Loss.
He begins his post with a motivational quotation from Dan John, a Masters Highland Games athlete and the American Record holder in the Weight Pentathlon, which really draws the reader in to what he is about to discuss. Then he continues his post with the fact that time is a limiting factor with fat loss and that that the rest of the post is his opinion, but that he credits himself with the fact that he has had 17 years of experience in the field.
Then, his Hierarchy of Fat Loss begins. The hierarchy has correct nutrition as the most important, exercises that promote muscle mass and elevate metabolism as the next most important, and finally exercise that only burns calories as the least important. His posts are enjoyable to read because he uses plain language like the word "crappy" in referring to an unhealthy diet and he also uses catchy expressions like "icing on the cake." Alwyn also refers to several physiological studies to back up his opinions on fat loss, but he follows the studies with basic analogies of what the facts would mean to an ordinary person. For example, he translates a study backing up fat loss though metabolic resistance training compared to diet or aerobics alone by mentioning that:
The diet group lost 14.6 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. The aerobic group lost only one more pound (15.6 pounds) than the diet group (training was three times a week starting at 30 minutes and progressing to 50 minutes over the 12 weeks). The weight-training group lost 21.1 pounds of fat (44% and 35% more than diet and aerobic only groups respectively). Basically, the addition of aerobic training didn’t result in any real world significant fat loss over dieting alone. Thirty-six sessions of up to 50 minutes is a lot of work for one additional pound of fat loss. However, the addition of resistance training greatly accelerated fat loss results.
He really proves his point by explaining these studies in layman’s English. Alwyn finishes this post by saying what you can do with a certain amount of time that you have available to exercise. He breaks down the facts and mentions the best ways to get results if you have just 3 hours/week or a whopping 6-8 hours/week.
Another one of his posts, S.Y.S.T.E.M.S, ironically begins talking about how McDonalds is successful and people eat there, even though they may not have the best burger, because it has established a time efficient system. He really captured my attention in this post by ironically using the analogy of McDonalds in his Results Fitness blog. Overall, Alwyn speaks to the ordinary person in his blog and it makes his posts easy to understand and very interesting. People who spend an hour each day on the treadmill or elliptical could really benefit from reading a little bit of what he has to say.
Welcome back! I was one of those children that would pretty much eat just about anything that you put in front of my face. I was addicted to sour patch kids and could eat an entire loaf of bread in one sitting. One of the saddest moments in my life was when I realized that I could no longer eat anything and any portion size I wanted and still look great. At that point, I was still participating in athletics so I still didn't really have to worry because I had forced exercise everyday. Then college and the notorious freshman 15 happened and the weight struggle began. Finally, this year I have the opportunity to have my own apartment and cook healthy meals for myself. But, what to cook? So, I did what every normal 21-year-old college student would do; I searched the internet and came across a blog that really struck my eye. Darya Pino is the author of the blog, Summer Tomato. After reading her bio this morning, I can understand why I was so attracted to her blog. Not only is she also from Northern California, she has also struggled with her weight and finding the right balance of food and exercise for her optimal health. I admire her in that her whole life she has
strived to balance academic and professional success with personal health and fitness
and a healthy balance is one of my lifetime goals.
Darya Pino graduated as one of the top students in her class from UC Berkeley with a degree in Molecular and Cell Biology. She is a UCSF scientist and is currently working on getting her PHD in neuroscience. She posts at least every other day on her blog for Summer Tomato and she also writes for the UCSF newspaper, Synapse, and has had a few posts featured in the Huffington Post. Her blog, Summer Tomato, is fairly popular with a technorati authority rating of 120. The layout of Summer Tomato is nicely organized with tabs on the top for Basic, News, Market, Science, Recipes, Tips, and Random. Every Friday, Darya makes a For the Love of Food post, which is basically a weekly miscellaneous post with links to interesting sites relating to health and fitness that she’s found within the week. Darya is also an avid fan of fresh farmer’s market produce and she often blogs with updates about farmer’s markets that she has been to in the San Francisco Bay Area and what she’s purchased with illustrative pictures of nutritious goodies, which is a nice break from all the fast food ads surrounding my daily life. You don’t even need to be from the Bay Area to benefit from these nutritious posts. Recently she blogged on Meal Planning at the Farmer’s Market, with a detailed 5-step process and conclusion for the ordinary shopper.
Overall, what struck me most about Darya’s blog is that she has chosen a new word for the overused negatively connotated word 'diet'. Instead she uses the word Healthstyle, which she defines as
your own eating and exercise habits that influence your health.
Darya’s goal with her blog, Summer Tomato, is to help people do away with short term fad diets and instead, simply upgrade their healthstyle.
I could not help but think of the saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” during my first 90 minute Bikram yoga session on Sunday. In this case the saying should go “what doesn’t make you pass out, rejuvenates you!” It’s interesting to me the amount of pain that people, myself included, are willing to put themselves through to achieve maximum physical health and fitness. Most health experts agree that Bikram yoga, which is a series of 26 postures each repeated twice in a 100 degree heated room with 40 percent humidity for 90 minutes, is beneficial for healing your body and stimulating your internal organs. I couldn’t help but question this as I attempted to turn my knee in a way that just did not seem possible. Still however, after two consecutive days of knee twisting and sweating profusely, I am a new addict and am looking forward to my next sweating session.
My love for borderline painful hot yoga probably stems from my years of pleasant torture rowing in a lightweight 8 in high school. I started crew about 10 pounds over lightweight status and when my coach claimed that I could easily be a lightweight, I immediately attempted to be as healthy as possible in order to achieve this goal. I educated myself on healthy eating and tried to stay as hydrated as possible throughout the day. It took me several months to lose the weight but eventually I became a lightweight. The combination of working out as hard as I could and dieting was extremely hard and took a serious amount of self-discipline. Not only was my last season of crew the healthiest and strongest (the picture captured it haha) that I have been in my life, it was also a time in my life that I grew the most as a person. There is no comparable experience to following stroke seat and setting the pace for the other 6 people in the boat while doing an extremely difficult anaerobic and aerobic workout for a little over 7 minutes with the coxswain yelling at you to pull harder through a beautiful reservoir as you see the other boats falling behind you. Eventually, I would like to buy a single and workout on the water, but for now Bikram yoga and running the smoggy loop around campus will fulfill my exercise and health needs.
If it’s not obvious from my previous stories, I am very interested in overall health, specifically fitness and nutrition. I believe that exercise is essential and that processed foods are the devil. I do not like artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame (although I love chewing gum and have yet to find a chewing gum without aspartame so I make a few exceptions) and I try not to eat products with ingredients that I have no idea what they are. Healthy food makes me feel good and exercising makes me happy, so I am going to attempt to comment on different aspects of each of these in my blog.
