December 07, 2007

Random Friday!

Research Time, Let's Get Serious!


Fit and Fat beats Thin and Lazy!

This study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, was going to be the subject of a whole post. Why? well, it's just the sort of research Cranky Fitness loves! It rewards good behavior, not just the blind luck of the genetic draw. But Crabby's buddy Jim over at Diet Blog got to it first and summed it up nicely, so Crabby will send you over there for details. Key finding: Fit older men and women who were obese had a lower risk of death over a 12 year period than unfit people of normal weight.

BMI Slideshow
So "BMI" or "Body Mass Index" is one of those measurements that researchers and insurance like because it's so convenient. Using only height and weight, they come up with a number you can use to traumatize classify people with. (They don't even use friendly words like plump or chunky or lean or buffed or curvalicious either, it's all "underweight," or "obese" or even "extremely obese." "Normal" is the best you can do, and what's the fun in normal?)

Anyway, the problem is, (duh) height and weight alone are not enough to tell you what sort of shape someone's in. People have all kind variances in bone structure and muscle mass and boobage and whatnot, so for any number of reasons a BMI number can be a total load of crap really misleading.

So Kate Harding is all over it with a great slide show that points out how ridiculous the categories can be. Check it out!

Men: Want Kids? Better Get Crackin'!
Mary discovered this interesting article which totally challenges a common conception about ticking biological clocks: that only women have them. But men, it turns out, have a biological clock too!

"With each passing decade of their lives and with each insult they inflict on their bodies, men's fertility decreases, while genetic risk to offspring slowly mounts." Older men have more fragmented DNA in their sperm, increasing risk for infertility, miscarriage and birth defects. Risks for low IQ, schizophrenia, autism, and even certain cancers increase for offspring of older men.

More Word Power:
Cranky Fitness readers are a literate bunch, judging by the popularity of the Free Rice link featured previously. So Mary, being a more literate creature than Crabby, found us another worthy wordy link to try. It's a dictionary that...

Well, to be honest, Crabby is not sure exactly what it does, but it has pretty arrows. It also has a "random" function, and the first entry it generated for Crabby was "cucumber-shaped!" Sadly, the cucumber-shaped results were not the least bit bawdy. But serious writers and linguists might appreciate the fact that this online, er, tool, analyzes the hell out of words.

And More on Bras and Butts!

Remember Ass Cup Sized Jeans? Well, now you can buy an actual bra for your butt!

Crabby was all ready to make fun of this product, because, well, she's not the sort who wear an ass-bra herself if her life depended on it. But then she read the heartfelt letter from the product's inventor. "The story of the Biniki is one that began with a personal cheek lifting need..." she starts, and how can Crabby be mean after that? [Note: Item discovered via Back in Skinny Jeans; photo courtesy of Biniki].

And Mary discovered that at least one British retailer has now started selling bras in larger cup sizes -- up to a "J." Remember when there used to be just A, B, and C? Well Marks & Spencer recently went from G to J, responding to demands for bigger sizes. Mary also found this interesting NYT article on bouncing while exercising. (And Crabby has an old post of her own about that too!)

When is Sex So Bad it's Good?
Laura at Women of Mystery alerted us to this Literary Review "Bad Sex in Fiction" award winning passage. The recently departed but Very Famous Norman Mailer penned this, and, well, what do you folks think?

"His mouth lathered with her sap, he turned around and embraced her face with all the passion of his own lips and face, ready at last to grind into her with the Hound, drive it into her piety." [Note: the complete excerpt is longer and racier and, in Crabby's opinion, just as terrible].


And This Stuff is On A Health and Fitness Site Because... Why Exactly?
No reason at all, especially this last link! It just amuses Crabby though she has no idea why. Yes, it's a site full of pictures of (mostly) famous men who look like old lesbians. (Some of them... not so much. Others? Bingo.)


And Finally, A Gratuitous Endorsement of Antioxidant-rich Beverages:



funny pictures
moar funny pictures


Have a great Friday!

25 comments:

  1. The Hound???? You've got to be kidding me. That just cracked me up. Well, off to the store to buy my butt-bra.

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  2. That butt bra makes no sense. I mean, if you did have a saggy butt, wouldn't it hang over those straps? I just don't get it.

    Awesome pictures.

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  3. Cute pic....my cat usually sticks to ordering stuff from the home shopping network and sipping Bailey's....

    Butt bra? whaa...?

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  4. Great post. (and funny pictures!)

    Do you think my sister would be offended if I bought her a butt-bra for Christmas? (said with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes)

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  5. Re: pictures,
    Wish I could take 'em myself, still need to learn that. I spend far too much time at icanhazcheeseburger or whatever the hell it's called. I believe the Lolcat addiction is all ChickenGirl's fault.

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  6. SPG - the butt bra was definitely made to be a sister-in-law gift!

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  7. British retailer has now started selling bras in larger cup sizes -- up to a "J."

    I resent that! Nothing is sacred :-)

    Dr. ?

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  8. Squats and lunges will take away the need for the ass bra. I like squats and lunges.

    As for the bouncing article, the comment trail is sad. The women endorsing Title 9 are right on -- I've used them for years. I hope more of those women looking for help mosey on over; Title 9 is awesome.

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  9. "...with the Hound, drive it into her piety."
    I read this. I went away. I came back. I read it again. I still don't know what it means.
    Fitness is better than thinness. About bloody time.

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  10. "I believe the Lolcat addiction is all ChickenGirl's fault."

    Bwahahahahhahahahaha. :D

    Re: cup sizes... actually, for me it was never "just A, B, and C". I vaguely remember being able to wear a B cup in, like, elementary school. I was a D cup in jr high and by the end of high school I was busting out of DD bras, and from then until LAST MONTH I was completely up the creek without a decently-fitting bra because I had no idea what size I actually was or where I might go to obtain these mythical "bigger bras". Oh, I was buying "plus-size" bras for a while but herein lies my problem: I'm not plus-sized in the band. Just in the cup. And essentially the entire women's-undergarment-industry takes as a given that ONLY very fat women have a cup size larger than DD and even THEY aren't allowed to get bras larger than, oh, DDD. :p

    And it's just not true! Most women wear their bras too loose in the band and too small in the cup. And it's absolutely frightening how many well-endowed women I see who are spilling out of their bras. You know why? They're wearing a DD, which is the largest Vicky's Secret makes, which means it is It Is The Largest Size In Existence So That Must Be The Size I Wear. Women who fall outside the A-B-C-D range are actually a lot more common than, really, anyone (outside of Britain, apparently) lets on.

    Sorry, just needed to fly the huge-melons-really-not-all-that-freaky freak flag for a minute. (For the record, 34GG, and that's by British reckoning because that's the only place I can buy bras.)

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  11. I wonder how long you can wear a butt bra before you cut off circulation sufficiently to not feel your legs?

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  12. chickengirl - you are soooo right. I am a DDD - we are "allowed" bras larger then DD, just not pretty sexy bras. *sigh*

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  13. missicat: I've gotten a couple of bras from Bravissimo.com - they're overseas (British) and a bit pricey, but ZOMG! Big bras! Pretty ones! In actual colors!!

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  14. Wow, I had no idea about the large size bra dilemma! You always hear about women wearing bras that don't fit properly, but I didn't know it's at least partly because they don't make them in the right sizes.

    And Dr. J, I think most guys would be pleased to be named after the largest bra size!

    Oh and Chicken Girl, if you're still around--what does the "z" in zomg stand for?

    (And someday I'll have to ask you about the Walrus and the Bucket or whatever. Unless it's a closely guarded lolsecret)

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  15. Thanks, CG!
    Crabby - apparently, the poor walrus lost his bucket...or perhaps it was stolen? Still a mystery!

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  16. Crabby:

    The extra Z is for extra Zemphasis!

    The lolrus thing originated from this picture and kind of ran from there, just like the original "I can has cheezburger?" picture did. The lolrus had a bukkit, and oh noes someone stoled his bukkit, and now he wants it back.

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  17. Thank you thank you thank you!

    Hours saved trying to find the origins of all those bukkit references. I have to confess I don't even go into the comments there, I just admire the photos.

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  18. Butt bra?? Must be for all those unfortunate souls who got butt implants to look just like J Lo! The upkeep must not be so great on 'em afterall! lol

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  19. Gives new meaning to the saying "my ass is in a sling"...
    The Bag Lady doesn't have much to contribute to this other than to wonder if the butt bra is padded in order to give those of us who are less endowed in that area a boost? Gee, with a padded ass, and a padded bra, the Bag Lady might actually gain a girlie figure, rather than the beach ball she looks like now!!

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  20. Karen thinks that all pants should be labeled size six and the consumer should be able to eyeball to find which size six is appropriate for them.

    BMI is completely unfair to the hard core athlete. In his prime the govenator himself, Bush the elder's man about physical fitness, would probably be labeled "severely obsese".

    Whatever.

    -- P

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  21. The butt bra reminds me of spanx ---

    Alot of people do not know how or are unwilling to touch someone in order to do a bra fitting.

    I was a 34 DD for years until I breast fed. (I then went down a cup and a half grrr.. I had to spend $$ on new bras)

    The only places I was able to get a good fitting were: Robinson's may (now part of Macy's) and Fredricks ("oh honey, there is no way you are small enough to fit in a C"). I am deepchested, have broad shoulders and a small rib cage. No one else was willing to get the tapes in the right places to get a proper fitting!

    If they do it to the bigger chested girls I bet they are messing with the smaller chested ones too.

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  22. Anonymous, I have to confess I'm one of those people who avoids getting a professional bra fitting because I'm too shy to have some (usually matronly) woman come in and help. I think I had a humiliating experience with that as a teenager (when everything is humiliating) and could well be buying the wrong size out of cluelessness!

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  23. Ugh - that sex excerpt is from Norman Mailer's book about the made-up youth of Hitler. It's Hitler's dad and mom, and it alleges that Hitler's mom is actually his sister. And mom. At the same time. It's incestually bad. I couldn't read anymore after that.

    But hey I'll try the butt bra just for kicks. No pun intended.

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  24. Thanks Iron Jester, I'd forgotten the book was about Hitler. Gosh, Hitler, incest, and bad sex writing, what's not to like? (Yeccchhh). No wonder you didn't finish it.

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