The BODiBEAT Has Arrived

Posted by JuryDuty - 09/30/08 at 11:09:02 am

Love to listen to music during your workout, but find yourself jolted when you’re running at a good pace and suddenly Celine Dion breaks in with a slow ballad?

Yamaha has a revolutionary new device you might find intriguing: the Yamaha BODiBEAT. This little MP3 player wraps around your arm and plays music like an iPod. But here’s the rub: It is designed to “intelligently select and play songs that match your footsteps.” In other words, it will automatically create a playlist of songs that matches your running tempo. Or, if you desire, you can pre-program the device with interval workouts to keep you on pace. It even comes with thousands of preloaded electronic mixes.

Other features include distance tracking, time tracking, pace tracking and a heart-rate monitor. There are also several modes including a fitness mode (so you can work out at 70% of your max heart rate, for instance), a training mode (with predetermined targets for you to reach), and a free workout mode (where BODiBEAT just matches your pace).

While we haven’t yet tried the BodiBeat, it looks promising. We do wish it were an iPod add-on instead of a stand-alone player, and it should have been created with much more storage. Retail is $299.95 for the 512mb flash device. It plays MP3, WOV, ACC and other DRM-free formats.

–JuryDuty

(Christopher Maselli at WritingMomentum.com)

Avoid this and avoid packing on the pounds.

Posted by SonOfKrypton - 09/25/08 at 12:09:32 pm

Recent research from the UT Southwestern Medical Center and appearing in the Journal of Nutrition illustrates the stunning rate we pack on body fat following fructose intake.  In the study, six healthy, fit individuals went through three tests where they each consumed a fruit mix drink.

In the first of three tests, the breakfast drink was produced with sugars that were 100 percent glucose, like the tests doctors give to patients to test for diabetes.  In the second test, the drink was produced with sugars that were half glucose and half fructose, and in the third, subjects consumed drinks with 25 percent glucose and 75 percent fructose.  All tests were performed randomly and blinded, and the subjects were allowed to eat a regular lunch about four hours later.

The researchers discovered that following replacement of as little as half of glucose with fructose, a dramatic rise in lipogenesis, the process by which your body converts sugars into body fat, could be observed.  

Dr. Elizabeth Parks, lead author of the study, remarks that her teams finding are important because they state that the kind of carbohydrates you consume can be just as important with regards to weight control as how many calories you consume.  She goes on to state, “This is an underestimate of the effect of fructose because these individuals consumed the drinks while fasting and because the subjects were healthy, lean and could presumably process the fructose pretty quickly. Fat synthesis from sugars may be worse in people who are overweight or obese because this process may be already revved up.”

Fructose eaten in breakfast meals also changed how our body deals with what we eat at lunch.  After fructose consumption, the liver increased the storage and production of fats from lunch meals.

Nutrition and Workout Tracking Improvements

Posted by Stephen - 09/18/08 at 09:09:31 am

A handful of improvements have been made to both the nutrition and the workout tracking features of Gyminee. Improvements can be seen on both the PRO and the non-PRO side of things. Here’s a quick breakdown of new stuff.

• Better Time-Tracking: Back in the old days when you did some cardio and wanted to track it on Gyminee, you couldn’t enter hours, minutes, AND seconds. You could only enter a value and then select between hours, minutes, or seconds. Now, when you are tracking your cardio exercises you are able to enter your performance time more accurately using a compound HH:MM:SS field.
• Editable Food Log: Many of you have requested this feature, and now those requests have been answered. Your Food Log shows you what foods, and how much of each, you have eaten for a given day. The only problem was to change how many servings you had eaten you had to remove the food, search for it, and then add it again (quite a hassle). Now, clicking on the number of servings will allow you to quickly modify the amount you have eaten.
• Meal Planner & Grocery List Improvements: You have to be a Gyminee PRO member to enjoy these changes. The Meal Planner is a great tool that allows you to plan what you eat ahead of time to make sure you’re going to hit your goals each day. Before, the Meal Planner showed the amount of calories, fat, protein and carbs that were planned. Now fiber, cholesterol, sodium and potassium are shown as well! After planning out their meals, PRO users have a Grocery List that they can take to the store with them. Before, this grocery list allowed configuration of the ending date for the planned foods they wanted to see. Now, PRO users can configure both the starting date and the ending date.

Need To Lose Weight? Get Some Shut-Eye

Posted by Susan - 09/17/08 at 10:09:26 am

According to the National Sleep Foundation, 60 million adults report having interrupted sleep at least a few nights per week and more than 40 million Americans suffer from a sleep disorder.

Obesity is a disease that affects nearly one-third of the adult American population - approximately 60 million adults.

• Sleep loss has been shown to affect the secretion of cortisol, a hormone that regulates appetite. As such, despite adequate calorie intake individuals who are sleep deprived may continue to feel hungry.

• Decreased amounts of restorative deep sleep have been associated with significantly reduced levels of growth hormone; a protein that helps regulates the body’s proportions of fat and muscle.

• Lack of sleep may interfere with the body’s ability to metabolize carbohydrates and cause increased levels of glucose (sugar). Excess glucose promotes the over production of insulin, which can promote the storage of body fat.

• Sleep deprivation directly impacts the production of both leptin and ghrelin, two hormones that regulate appetite. Lack of sleep results in higher levels of ghrelin, a hunger stimulating hormone, while decreasing the production of leptin, a hormone that signals your brain that you are satiated.

So, how much sleep do we need? Eight hours is optimal according to The National Sleep Foundation.

Train hard; stay strong; get a good night’s rest!

Peace.

Development Update

Posted by Stephen - 09/10/08 at 11:09:56 pm

There have been a handful of behind-the-scenes improvements to Gyminee that I would like to share. Many small improvements have been made (the type of stuff that many users wouldn’t notice), but also a handful that are worth pointing out.

• New Exercise Search: Until now, there hasn’t been an easy way to track individual exercises or to easily find the exercises you are looking for. A new search field has been added right at the top of your Workout Log that will allow you to search for, and then track individual exercises. This makes it much easier to track that random day where you played tennis or went for a swim, instead of your normal workout routine.
• Prettier URLs for Users: I’m sure only fellow geeks will appreciate this one, but I know there are some of you out there  The old profile links looked like “gyminee.com/locker_room/43592″ (not very pretty). The new profile links look like “gyminee.com/locker_room/stephenb” - a link you can be proud to show your friends.
• Total Weight Change Shows %: This is one that only Gyminee PRO users will see (maybe it’s time to upgrade?). On your Locker Room, you will see your grades and your Total Weight Change, which is nothing new, but now your Total Weight Change is given as a percentage, along with the normal lbs/kg. I must admit, it’s interesting to know that there is 2.13% less of me here than there was when I started using Gyminee. 
• View All Posts by a Forum User: If you’re a Gyminee Forum user, you may have noticed that the text that shows how many posts have been made by a particular user is now a link. Clicking this link will show all the posts that user has made, and can be a great way to learn some interesting health and fitness tips from your favorite users.
• Of course, a significant amount of effort continually goes towards fixing small bugs and making Gyminee run faster and more smoothly. It’s not a feature that you’ll see, but it’s still one to appreciate.

Understanding EPOC

Posted by Susan - 09/09/08 at 10:09:01 am

Often referred to as “after-burn”, EPOC stands for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. It is the actual amount of energy (calories) that the body continues to burn post-exercise.

I am a big fan of high intensity interval training (HIIT).  HIIT is done by alternating brief periods or high intensity work (85% or more) with a brief recovery period. HIIT is an example of an anaerobic exercise, which means that an inadequate amount of oxygen is being delivered to working muscles during the course of the exercise.

When inadequate oxygen is available lactic acid is produced. Lactic acid is what gives you that burning feeling during a workout. It leads to muscle fatigue and must be burned up by the body during a recovery period before another anaerobic bout of exercise can be attempted. This recovery period also allows the muscles to use oxygen to replenish the energy used during HIIT.

Conversely, aerobic or “steady-state” exercise uses oxygen as a constant rate with no accumulation of lactic acid.

While both anaerobic and aerobic exercise burn calories and create some EPOC effect, EPOC increases dramatically with intensity thus making anaerobic exercise a more effective means for fat loss.

A commentary in the December 9, 2005 of the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition ( http://www.jissn.com/content/2/2/32) examined aerobic and anaerobic energy expenditure for two exercise tasks of equal work using a treadmill.

The results of the study showed that the steady-state exercise tends to burn more calories during the actual exercise than interval training, while interval training generates a higher EPOC leading to a much larger number of total calories burned.

Measure	Steady-State Cardio	Intermittent Sprints
Exercise O2	28 calories	4 calories
Exercise O2 + EPOC	35 calories	39 calories
Anaerobic Energy Expenditure + Exercise O2 + EPOC	39 calories	65 calories

Ultimately, HIIT results in significantly more calories burned in a much condensed period of exercise.

This is not to say that steady-state cardio does not have a place in your workout routine. Interval training should be limited to 2 – 3 times per week to lessen the risk of injury and allow for an adequate recovery period.

Steady-state cardio on the other hand can be performed daily, depending on duration and intensity level.

Gyminee provides an excellent HIIT program by Shawn Phillips that can be done using either a treadmill or exercise bike.

Hopefully you can use this information to maximize your workouts and turn your body into a fat burning machine!

Train hard; stay strong.

Peace.

Susan

www.catapultfitnessblog.com

Fitness Deals – Part 2: Online Deals

Posted by JuryDuty - 09/08/08 at 09:09:04 am

We recently looked at the best places you can find deals for exercise equipment locally. There are also great deals-maybe better deals-online. Of course, one of the best deals is “going Pro” with Gyminee for only $5/month!

Never pay full price. Here are the best places to find new and used gym items online at bargain basement prices:

• craigslist-If you’re looking for a Bowflex or a mountain bike, Craigslist may be your best friend. You can search for sellers around your area and find gently used items for a fraction of the retail price. Of course, never commit to a sale until you’ve had a chance to see/use the item yourself.
• ebay-You can find larger items on ebay, but smaller items are where ebay really shines because shipping won’t kill you. If you want that latest P90X DVD set or the Perfect Pushup, this is the place. Make sure a user is trusted by reviewing their feedback rating before purchase. Keep in mind that you may have to wait for the best deal. I recently needed a lat bar for my home gym. They regularly sell for $40 in store, $30 on ebay. Patience got me one for $15 shipped.
• Coupons-In Part 1, we talked about the power of coupons and other discounts. When shopping online, also look for free shipping. GNC buyers may not realize they can get even better deals online. Use your GNC card on their discounted products at drugstore.com. You can get Syntrax Nectar, for instance, for $21.59-nearly 50% off the in-store price.

What are some of the best online fitness deals you’ve come across?

–JuryDuty

(Christopher Maselli at WritingMomentum.com)

For the Love of All That is Yolky

Posted by Brian - 09/04/08 at 09:09:18 am

A recent Gyminee post by SonOfKrypton regarding eggs got me thinking of this, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a point about the nutritional value of an egg and the oh-so-wonderful goodness that many people are missing out on.  What goodness am I referring to?  Why, the yolk, of course!

Show of hands.  How many people out there eat egg whites, but throw the yolk away?

Go ahead…it’s okay…raise your hand…I know you’re out there…I saw your comments on SonOfKrypton’s post.

Let’s take a look at the incredible, (completely) eatable, egg.

Fat, calories, and protein

First, let’s take the 45,000 foot view of the two basic things the human body needs to function: water and an energy source (and we need the former more often than the latter).  So, what’s the energy source for the human body?  Food!  Broken down into fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, we tend to think of these in terms of grams, but to the body it is nothing more than pure, raw, energy used to sustain every aspect of our body.

So, by using the Gyminee food search functionality, and limiting our results to USDA nutritional data only, let’s compare whole eggs vs. egg whites.  Since carbohydrates are not only less important than fats and proteins but, in this case, represent a minuscule difference of only one gram between the two, we’ll focus on the other two energy sources.

On the left, you’ll see a whole, large egg, with its 7 grams of fat, and 7 grams of protein.  On the right, the egg white lags behind with its embarrassing 0 grams of fat, and only 4 grams of protein.  The proof is in the numbers.

Some of you may pick up on the higher level of cholesterol present in the egg yolk, but don’t let that dissuade you.  A recent study in the Advanced Online Publication area of the International Journal of Obesity (1) comparing four groups of overweight individuals shows, among other things, that adding a couple of (whole) eggs per day to your diet in no way affects your level of cholesterol.  Dr. Michael Eades gives a great summary of the study here.

Diving head first into an explanation of my position on cholesterol would take us away from the subject at hand.  Suffice to say, I’ll save that one for a future post.  In the mean time, I implore you to check out THINCS or any of the writings of Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, author of The Cholesterol Myths.

A little thing called nutrients

I would have preferred an actual breakdown of mg of each of the following nutrients rather than the “recommended daily percentage” based on a 2,000 calorie diet, but for the simple sake of comparison, these numbers will be more than adequate.  Again, this data is from Gyminee and again the whole egg is on the left, with the egg white on the right.  Look at all the goodies that the egg yolk has to offer!  Vitamins A, D, E, K!  Calcium!  All contained within the yolk of the egg, not the egg white.

Mother Nature (by way of a helpful chicken) has provided us, yet again, with a natural, healthy food that needs to have nothing added or removed to benefit our bodies.  It should simply be eaten the way she intended it: yolk included.

On average, I eat about two dozen eggs per week purchased, of course, fresh from the local farmer’s market (if you’ve never tasted “real” eggs from a farmer’s market, you don’t know what you’re missing out on).   Just keep in mind when cooking your egg that the more heat you apply, the more nutrients you are removing from the yolk.  A good rule of thumb for yolk is the runnier, the better!

Citations:

(1) Egg Breakfast Enhances Weight Loss

Ask Adam: How Much Protein?

Posted by Adam - 09/03/08 at 02:09:33 pm

First of all let me apologize for my extended absence. I had somewhat of an extended vacation and then 2 weeks of studies had me somewhat bogged down. However, I appreciate all of the questions sent my way and for the few that I was unable to respond to I will be getting at those shortly. But for now, I will take my time on this post to answer a question I have received a couple of times from various users:

How much protein do I need?

Not so surprisingly, this is a question that varies from person to person depending on several factors including sex, weight, muscle mass, and fitness goals.

One of the most common and overstated misconceptions about protein intake is “1 gram of protein for every pound” if you are trying to build muscle. Every personal trainer, high school coach, and body builder will claim that 1 gram of protein per pound is the very minimum you should take if you are trying to add muscle mass. Where this thought developed, I do not know, but ever since some nutrition numskull blurted it out of their ill advised mouth swarms of people have gone delusional with confusion.

Make note that every gram of protein is equivalent to 4 calories. When my poor little mother who weighs about 135 lbs was told by her new trainer to eat 1 gram of protein for every pound she weighed. She quickly realized that 45% of the calories of her recommended 1200 calorie diet was protein. This, as I told my dear mother, is wrong.

My mother was not trying to gain weight or muscle. She was trying to do what most middle aged women do- lose body fat. I quickly corrected her trainer and told her what every nutritionist learns in their first basic nutrition class: the DRI is 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram of DESIRABLE body weight. Keep the desirable part in mind and not your CURRENT weight.

Just think about it: The largest amount of protein in our bodies makes up our “lean-tissue” (muscles, organs, and collagen in bone, teeth, cartilage, and ligaments). Determining how much protein you need in your diet to support protein turnover in your body is best estimated by basing it on how much lean tissue you have. Lean tissue is almost directly proportional to body weight (assuming you are not overweight because of excess fat). Finally, it only makes sense to use grams with kilograms rather than pounds for obvious metrical reasons.

So, now we go back to 7th grade math class to clean up our conversion skills. 1 kilogram is roughly 2.2 pounds. So my mother, who I mentioned weighs around 135 lbs, is trying to get down to 125 lbs. She would take 125 and divide that by 2.2 to get her desired weight in kilograms. Then, she would multiply that number by 0.8 to reach her goal for total grams of protein in a day:

125 lb ÷ 2.2 = 57 kg
57 kg x 0.8 = 46g of protein/day

This is about a third of what was recommended to her, and you can tell is an extremely drastic difference.

0.8 grams is only recommended for people trying to lose or maintain weight. If in fact you are trying to gain muscle mass, then remember that protein is the most important thing you can put into your body. The more you work out, the more protein you will need to build muscle. The more muscle you have, the more protein you will need to just maintain that muscle. As for a specific amount of protein to consume for gaining muscle mass, there is no easy formula. I personally recommend no more than 2 grams per kilograms you weigh unless you are a professional body builder or athlete. Too much protein can easily be detrimental to your body’s health.

Fun Nutrition Fact of The Week: Which of the following are berries?
a. Strawberry
b. Raspberry
c. Peach
d. Watermelon

“A berry is defined as “a fleshy fruit containing several seeds.” Strictly speaking, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries are not berries but aggregated drupes- a drupe being a fleshy fruit containing a single stone or pit.
Peaches, plums, nectarines, and olives are drupes. The world’s largest drupe is the coconut, which, because of its hard flesh, is called a dry drupe.
Strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries are called aggregated drupes because each individual fruit is actually a cluster of miniature drupes- the characteristic bumpy bits which make up the blackberries and raspberries.
Each one of these drupelets contains a single tiny seed- these are the bits that get stuck in your teeth when you eat a blackberry.
Tomatoes, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, watermelons, kiwi fruit, cucumbers, grapes, passion fruit, papaya, peppers, and bananas are all berries.
Blueberries are also berries. They are variously known as bleaberries, billberries, whortleberries, huckleberries, hurtleberries, myrtleberries, and trackleberries.”

Lloyd, John, and John Mitchinson. The Book of General Ignorance. New York, NY:
Harmony Books, 2006.

Have a question about food or nutrition? Send Adam an email for the Ask Adam series on Gyminee Blog.

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