Category: Exercise
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Thankful Thursday
No comments on Thankful ThursdayThings that I am thankful for: 1 The man of the house packed a yummy lunch for me today. He also cooked each night I was home this week. 2 AC. Most houses in Seattle don’t have AC. I don’t regret installing ours, even if we barely used it last year. 3 A job where showing up in shorts one day and a dress the next is…
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Thankful Thursday
[an occasional exercise in gratitude] It’s Thursday and I’m thankful for… Being thanked for work I did on an event. Being complimented on my writing and this blog. Between blackout curtains and weight lifting I’m mostly getting enough sleep this summer. Physically feeling the benefits of regular strength training. Splurging on a few summer tops & such. New Donna Andrews book! I feel like I’m starting to wake up…
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What Does It Say That This Is News?
The truth is, getting up and moving is good even if you’re thin. Seriously, this was included in a Sunday magazine feature on exercise. Specifically: I’m perfectly fine the way I am, thank you. I’m not even overweight. The truth is, getting up and moving is good even if you’re thin. It turns out being sedentary is a health risk. Period. It’s up there with high cholesterol,…
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Cool Video on Weight Bigotry
To quote SikaResult in the video: “I am healthy, but not thin.” Note the images she chooses and how most of the video shows her exercising.
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QOTD: Health
The debate about what exactly health means goes back to ancient Greece. Does health just mean living a long time? Does it mean feeling strong? Are athletes the epitomy of health? In fact, athletes suffer more injuries and illnesses than the rest of the population because they push themselves so hard. So who represents health? What about spiritual health? Ethical health? It’s amazing how much we project onto body type these…
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Things to read
I think a lot of people look to exercise to help them lose weight, and when they don’t lose weight immediately with exercise, they quit. They return to the couch, and they basically never move again. What is lost in that is that fitness is almost certainly more important than fatness. — Gretchen Reynolds, promoting her new bookThe First 20 Minutes. On the one hand, this is…
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Five Things Makes a Post
New job! I have a new job. The place I was temping hired me in late December. I’m not doing exactly the same job, which is both “new and scary” and “cool and interesting”. It’s also been interesting to note that the things I was looking forward to ending with the contract (the commute, say) are now things I’m stuck with, and the things I was…
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“Peaceful” and “relaxing”?
From today’s Between Friends comic by Sandra Bell-Lundy comes this exchange…. Maeve: How’s your walking regimen? Susan: Actually, I’m enjoying it. Susan: Every evening I walk around the neighborhood … it’s such a peaceful, relaxing way to end the day. Maeve, shocked: “Peaceful” and “relaxing”? Maeve, accusing: I thought you were trying to improve your health!! Yes, starting a new exercise program can be hard. Yes, some…
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The Fitness Question
Suppose you exercised three times a week. Suppose you got stronger. Suppose your body were stronger and happier, you could lift more, walk further & faster, swim more. Suppose you had less back or shoulder or knee pain. Suppose you were more relaxed, slept better, and got sick less. Suppose all those things…but suppose you didn’t lose weight. Would it be worth it to you to exercise…
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I am burly girl
bur·ly Adjective: (of a person) Large and strong; heavily built. Saturday I helped my father move into an Adult Family Home — smaller and less institutional setting than a nursing home, but still with 24-hour caregivers. The home is at the top of a long, steep driveway. How long? You could easily park 3 cars, one behind the other. Possibly four cars. We are talking serious hill here. My dad…
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Research on the Health Benefits of Moderate Exercise
From an article on “what’s the best exercise” comes a concise summary of the benefits of moderate exercise: The health benefits of activity follow a breathtakingly steep curve. “The majority of the mortality-related benefits” from exercising are due to the first 30 minutes of exercise, said Timothy Church, M.D., who holds the John S. McIlhenny endowed chair in health wisdom at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in…
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Things That’s Up
New job is going well. It’s my first completely non-managerial job in years. Even when I was a “department of one” I was was still doing a lot of project / process management. I’m enjoying just doing things. I also like this “getting paid” thing. ;) My commute is about an hour each way, sometimes longer, depending on bus connections. This is longer than I’m used to,…
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QOTD: Fitness and fatness
From Reuters, on a study in patients with coronary artery disease that looked at fitness levels and BMI: [Heart specialist and study leader Dr. Francisco] Lopes-Jimenez said, the lesson for patients is clear: try to improve your physical fitness. “It is much easier to become fit than it is to become slim,” he said. “Anybody who has gone into an exercise program would agree with that.” While Lopes-Jimenez…
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Some things I’m glad about today
1) Riding the bus to my new job means I’m walking daily again, at least on weekdays. Funny how walking even a 1/2 mile or so every day can feel good, even if it’s spread throughout the day. 2) Yes, I have a temp gig. At the moment it’s a better fit than the old place. 3) The commute is a short bus ride and a…
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Plus-Sized Athletes (with heads)
There’s a story making the rounds on “plus-sized athletes” reacting to the US “Let’s Move” campaign. The fitness community has embraced the first lady’s ‘Let’s Move’ program, but many health experts balk at equating improving health with lowering weight. Fat aerobics instructor Sandy Shaffer and physical trainer GeMar Neloms are interviewed. Dr Kenneth Cooper, a longtime supporter of measuring fitness independent of body weight, comments. All suggest that…
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Yelling Out The Car Window
Today a young(ish?) male passenger in a car yelled something at me out of the car window. I was walking down the sidewalk at the time.* This isn’t common around here, perhaps because Seattleites are reserved (or unsocial, take your pick) — and/or because it’s the suburbs, so not a huge number of walkers anyway. I could tell by his tone that he was yelling rather loudly and…
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On Decoupling Exercise and Weight Loss
From obesity researcher Travis Saunders comes this excellent post on how Canadian public health efforts to increase activity work against their own aims by tying exercise with weight loss: [T]he average weight loss in response to a moderate increase in physical activity levels is very modest, and it’s likely that many people would see no weight reduction of any kind. Even if it’s in the range of 5%…
Living ~400lbs 