Random: poetry, sex, & journalists

Photo: DerrickT

This blog covers subjects of fitness
But sometimes, as God is my witness,
We need to be random
And share with the fandom
Some studies that are mostly hit/miss

What? Why're you looking at me like that? Poetry is educational. It's classy. Makes us look like we're into culture and all that stuff.

I know we joke about how a study is published and then the next week another study contradicts it, but in real life it usually takes longer than a week. Not this time.

According to one study, Britain is going to be a lot less crowded to visit in the future. British people are too lazy for sex.

I mean, we're talking seriously lazy. "One in six say that if the remote control was broken, they would prefer to watch a TV program they didn't like rather than get up to change the channel...."


And yes, this study is related to fitness. "More than half (58 per cent) ... blamed their barren sex lives on a lack of fitness."


Seems straightforward enough. Except...

The week after this study came out, it was followed up by this one:

The British birth rate is on the increase. "The UK population grew more in 2008 than at any time since 1962." How they're managing that when they're too lazy to have sex would make an interesting study in itself.

Um... this method doesn't look like much fun, judging by her expression...

All right, so half of the increased births were to women "born overseas, but living in the UK." Even so, if they're living in Britain, aren't they affected by the environment they're living in? According to the first study, Glasgow was "Britain's most slothful city, with 75 per cent of people admitting they don't get enough exercise, followed by Birmingham and Southampton in joint second place with 67 per cent admitting their laziness."

If you're surrounded by that many lazy bums, it's going to rub off. If nothing else, it's an environment geared toward people driving cars rather than walking, living in buildings with easily accessible elevators and dingy, hard-to-find stairs, being surrounded by fast food and slow traffic. Besides which, there have been enough studies out there demonstrating that hanging around obese people will increase your chances of gaining weight. One study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, "found that a mutual friend becoming obese correlated with a 171 percent increase in the probability of obesity in the other friend."

No, as I see it, the second study is 180 degrees from the first. The women being 'from overseas' isn't really an important enough factor. We tend to pick up on the behavior of those around us.

Photo: rumpleteaser

I know I tend to sound off a lot about journalists, but sometimes it's hard not to. For example, a Bangladesh newspaper picked up on an article in an American publication, which featured an interview with Neil Armstrong confirming that the Moon Landing was a hoax. Only problem? It wasn't a real story. It was a hoax. (I mean the story was a hoax. A hoax of a hoax, if that makes any kind of sense.)

This is the part that got me. The journalists' defense? "We thought it was true so we printed it without checking. We didn't know The Onion was not a real news site."

Okay, let me make this clear. Just because The Onion makes incredible sense sometimes Does Not mean it's real, 'k?



Bratz Dolls May Give Young Girls Unrealistic Expectations Of Head Size


Okay, one last weird story. I realize everybody's getting more lawsuit-happy these days, but even so...

Legal case against God dismissed
A US judge has thrown out a case against God, ruling that because the defendant has no address, legal papers cannot be served.


Oooooookay. I'm not even going to try to relate that one to health or fitness.

Truuuust me... it's Random Tuesday time

People are getting jaded.

No, that doesn’t mean they’re turning into greenish-colored stone. Really. Nor would it be correct to refer to a person as a jade, on the off chance that the person you’re referring to thusly turns out to be an Elizabethan scholar, who slaps your face.

Scientists are churning out studies every week, and every single one contradicts all the others before it.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Okay, not every single one. Sure feels like it, though. It’s easy to get cynical. Even some scientists are getting attitudinal.




I don't want this post to be considered a rebuttal to Crabby’s post. (Not that her post was a buttal to begin with.* More a plea for common sense.) Me, I'm not in the mood for sense. It's a beautiful summer's day outside, and I hafta go to work. So I'll sum up my theory of science and research studies and what to do about them before going on to the silly cat video. It's time for... [cue dramatic music]... Random Tuesday [da da dahhhhhh]


Merry's theory du jour:

Obviously, the thing to do is to believe everything you read in Cranky Fitness. All others pay cash.

Psst… Crabby? I think we might be onto a money-maker here. I mean, we could tell the scientists, "You want me to believe your study, show me da money and I’ll say nice things about you." As opposed to the Cranky Fitness review page, which is a “show me the money and I’ll write what I really think about the product” page.

Okay, Random Tuesday Time!

I found a great way to climb hills without having to do any of that nasty exertion stuff.

It's a... well, a foot lift in Norway. You pays yer moneys and put yer foot in it and it carries you up the hill. A cyclist, for example, sits on her bicycle and puts one foot on the lift. The lift... er, lifts her and the bike up to the top of the hill. Personally, I think these things would be a great hit in San Francisco.


Look, if you thought that topic was only remotely linked to exercise and fitness, then it's time to stop reading. Because it's downhill from here...

This video is clearly linked to fitness. "Staring at the swim team gets you killed by a gang of ninja men who know how to twirl." Clearly, it's important that you be informed of such a contingency. Besides, it made me laugh.





Good Act Gone Bad: In Ohio, a man was arrested for mowing the lawn in a city park. Hey, it's not as if anyone else was doing it.

Quiz du jour: IQ test to prove whether you're "smart or stoopid." Yes, of course you can tell a person's IQ by a few random questions. Would I lie?

Strange du jour: You have to admire a man who, when trying to make friends, admits that his interests include having fun with cheese, or kites, or time machines. Wait... did I say "admire"? I think I meant to say "back away slowly from."

Kitty video du week

Hey, it's not a random post without a cat video. And this one deals with refusing to eat the food you're supposed, and pleading for the food you want instead, which is clearly related to health... and whining...

Ain't too proud to beg kitty video
Uploaded by klpprr.

On the bright side, Crabby will be back tomorrow with another great post!

__________________________________________

*Look, I doubt that's a real word to begin with, but even if it does turn out to be listed in some obscure dusty dictionary in the back of the library, I know it doesn't mean what you think it means. Shame on you.

Random Thursday posts cause a flat stomach!

My personal theory is that reading Random Thursday posts causes people to become healthy, fit, flat-stomached, and fully prepared for anything that the rest of the week may bring.

Photo credit: luiginter

Sisters make people happy

Sisters spread happiness while brothers breed distress, experts believe. Researchers quizzed 571 people aged 17 to 25 about their lives and found those who grew up with sisters were more likely to be happy and balanced.

Except... I have more brothers than I do sisters, so does that mean I'm more distressed than I am happy?

People who snore heavily burn more calories

People who snore heavily or have sleep apnea burn more calories when resting when the condition is more severe, researchers have found. Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco found that the average number of calories burned during rest was 1,763 per day. But those who scored the worst on a scale of apnea and disruptions in breathing burned 1,999 calories per day, about 300 more on average than those who scored the lowest.

Since people who live with heavy snorers are themselves likely to have trouble sleeping, and since lack of sleep can interfere with the ability to lose weight, that means the snorers will be thin and the non-snorers won't be?

Do people who take the bus to the gym get extra credit?

People who use public transit are three times more likely to meet fitness guidelines than those who don't, say researchers at the University of British Columbia.

When I first read this article, I thought "Well, duh." The researchers asked people to keep travel diaries for two consecutive days in two consecutive years, which sounds a bit skimpy. However, they interviewed over 18,000 people, which sounds more impressive. (Also sounds like a lot of work to me.)

Maybe Nike should try doing this...

This has absolutely no relation to health or fitness... or even whining... but I thought it was kinda cool. This website lists different shoes and articles of clothing made by the company Patagonia. It describes what part of the world the clothing was made in, where in the U.S. it's distributed from, the carbon dioxide emissions involved in transporting it... okay, so I ended up feeling a bit guilty after reading these things. Still good to know: Patagonia: the Footprint chronicles.

A Random Thursday post traditionally finishes up with a S.A.V. (yes, Silly Animal Video). Today, it's time for a change.



[Text for the video-impaired: musical rendition of ordering food in a restaurant. Kind of like the Monty Python Spam sketch, only with classier music.]


My other, and more probable, personal theory is that people who read Crabby's marvelous post tomorrow will tend to be healthier, thinner, fitter, richer, flat-stomacher, and better suited for the weekend.

What, you got a better personal theory?

Stuff I Meant to Mention

Sometimes I accumulate various items or links I want to pass on to you guys, but I can't quite squeeze them into regular posts and have them make any sense.

I used to do something called "Random Friday," which was a great place for miscellaneous links. But then, somehow, "Random Friday" turned into a monster, one that constantly needed to be fed.

But if Random Friday were this cute a monster,
I'd probably go ahead and feed it.

(Drawing by Dylan)

Unfortunately, if I had two things I needed to say, I couldn't just have a whole "Random Friday" post with 2 paragraphs in it! That would look weird. So instead I'd spend hours and hours surfing the net, goofing off, all justified in my mind with the idea that I was "just looking for "Random Friday" ideas.

Best not to bring back that tradition, methinks. Instead, how about I just pass on the actual things I wanted to tell you about this week?

Blog You Must Check Out

First off, here's a hilarious blog that you folks probably already know about, but I was late finding. (Or quite possibly I found it, liked it, and failed to bookmark it, which happens quite frequently and I really should get all set up in a feed reader but I'm too stubborn and there are too many blogs that would need to go on there so better to have nothing that something imperfect, right?) Anyway, the blog is called Chunky Monkey Mama. It's all good, but be sure to check out Gigi's awesome review of Jillian Michael's 30 day shred DVD.


Moms and Daughters and Body Image:

I had to double-check my calendar that I hadn't inadvertently missed Mother's day, because there are 3 items with this theme!

1. Remember the Dark Dirty Secrets of a Dietician post from last week? Well, Marsha and the other bloggers over at Green Mountain at Fox Run are running a blogging contest about mothers, daughters, and body image. And you know what you could win? A week at Green Mountain! If you are a blogger, you might want to check it out.

2. For those of you who are Blogher members (or want to join), there is voting going on right now about whether to have a panel at their conference this summer called "Blogs & Body Image: What are we teaching our kids?".

So why would a childless crab care enough one way or the other to mention this? Well, not only is a great subject, but the awesome MizFit and others you may be familiar with (like Steph from Back in Skinny Jeans and Roni from Roni's Weigh and some other great bloggers) will be on the panel, if they can get enough votes to have it. See more details over at Mizfit's place.

(And speaking of Blogher... yes, I heard your anguished cries and finally figured out how to disable the Floating Layers ads. I think. Let me know if they reappear.)

3. Dara Chadwick, whom many of you may remember from her blog and her great comments on many other blogs, has a new book coming out that also deals with mothers and daughters and body image. It looks great! It's called: You'd Be So Pretty If...

Charlotte at The Great Fitness Experiment has a review and giveaway, and you can read all about the book at Dara's website.

Silly Animal Video

OK, some old Random Friday habits die hard...


Fed Up from shots Mag on Vimeo.

Random Thursday returns, loaded with gossip

Admit it. Sometimes you need a random Cranky Fitness post. Especially when there hasn't been a single random post all year.

Photo credit: Redvers

Especially a post that reveals some really out there interesting gossip about Crabby McSlacker...

Did that get your attention?

News flash: people aren't good at paying attention (Yes, I'm talking to you)

Psychologists are finding out that even when people try to focus on a task they tend to lose concentration within 40 minutes, and sometimes as little as 10 minutes. A psychology professor at the University of Cincinatti, Joel Warm, tracked blood flow in different areas of the brain to determine when people were, or were not, paying attention.

"During various 40-minute tests, researchers saw a decrease in blood-flow velocity over time, and, therefore, a decrease in attention. "Sometimes in the first 10 minutes," Warm says. "That early." And he says many times the participants didn't realize it was happening."

The really scary part? They plan to use this to test people who work in nuclear power plants, to find out when the person monitoring the controls has zoned out while on the job. (Just the thought of a person in that job zoning out scares me. Or a pilot zoning out while flying a plane. Or... okay, you get the idea.) Pay attention!

Another reason to feel paranoid when you're feeling sick

Fatal heart attacks and other heart disease deaths increased during flu epidemics in St. Petersburg, the researchers report. In an article published in the European Heart Journal, if you're over 50, and live in St. Petersburg (Russia, not Florida) and have the flu, you have a higher risk of having a heart attack.

The study stresses that while the flu may make fatal heart attacks or other heart disease deaths more likely, just the fact that you have the flu doesn't seem to actually cause a heart attack. Dr. Mirkin reasons thusly:

"Nobody really knows why, but inflammation is the leading theory on the cause of heart attacks and strokes. Your immunity is good for you because it helps protect you from infections However, if your immunity stays active, it can attack your body to cause inflammation which damages blood vessels and sets you up for clots that cause heart attacks and strokes. "

Moral: if you have heart trouble, get a flu vaccination. Especially if you're over 50 and live in Russia. Well, frankly, even if you live in Florida.

Hey, I had to throw in a scary bit of research to see if you were paying attention

Cyclists are fit to be tied... er, I mean clipped in

People who really get into bicycling tend to use toe clips or clip-in shoes to secure their foot to the pedal. The common wisdom is that this is more efficient that regular pedaling. (You not only push down on the pedal, you also pull up on the upstroke, thus utilizing all the leg motion to keep the bicycle going.) Researchers (not the same ones as the gossip study) at the University of Bath in England showed that cycling efficiency is not altered with and without toe clips (Journal of Sports Sciences, January 2008). Turns out toe clips don't really lower submaximal oxygen consumption (VO2).

On the other hand, riding clipped in does help in other ways. Your foot isn't going to slip off the pedals if you have to speed up or slow down quickly. Personally I don't recommend it if you're the forgetful type. Otherwise, you'll come to a complete stop and only then remember to unclip... while the bicycle is falling sideways onto the pavement... um, not that I'm speaking from experience. Oh my no. Nope, not me. (Thankfully, most bicycles do not come equipped with video cameras, so there's no evidence to suggest I'm being less than candid.)



more animals

Did you know that looking for YouTube clips of bicycles with toe clips brings up Porn videos? I didn't know that until just this moment. Wait... where's everybody going? Geez, now you pay attention?

Turns out it's healthy to read People magazine

Photo credit: Jessica Driver

Professor Manfred Milinksi, working with Drs Ralf Sommerfeld, and Hans-Jurgen Krambeck in the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany, found that gossip is a vector for socially relevant information.

Those who were fascinated by the lives of others were more successful than those who were not, the researchers found. Gossip is "the glue that holds society together." (It can certainly create sticky situations, so I suppose that analogy is accurate.)

The next time you're at the gym and someone stares at you while you're working out, just tell yourself that they're looking for socially relevant information about you to share with others.

The study concludes that if people hear a lot of gossip about someone, they tend to automatically discount what they're hearing. But in small dosages, gossip can (they say) give useful information, such as whether you should avoid a prospective mate because of habitual infidelity.

I don't know. Seems to me if I heard a lot of gossip over and over about someone, I'd be inclined to start thinking about cliches such as 'no smoke without fire' and things like that. The kind of gossip I like is the sort that I used to find in the Weekly World News. Did you know that a scientist has created a death ray for the iPhone? It's amazing what you can learn.

So, did you hear the rumor about Crabby? Well, it turns out it's all true. Yes, she really is the secret love child of Elvis and Princess Diana, but don't tell anyone I told you...

Tomorrow, I promise, there's a real post about fitness and crabbiness and interesting stuff like that. Honest!

The CF Holiday party: Yule be surprised

Remember last year's Cranky Fitness Christmas party? Crabby rented this snowbound outhouse cabin in the woods. Very scenic, but a bit cramped for space.



This year, I put my foot down and insisted on a proper party. Unfortunately, due to a sad but understandable homonym mixup, the plan for a Yule celebration resulted in ...

a Euell celebration. We had hickory nuts in addition to the more traditional rum balls. Still a good party. And I think I can write this post without being affected at all by all those rum balls and the festive atmosphere. Probably.

(Euell Gibbons was the author of Stalking the Wild Asparagus, a book about harvesting food from nature. Also he did a commercial about Grape Nuts, if your memory goes back that far.)

Tis the season? Bah humbug

In addition to rum balls, 'tis the season to be thinking about stuffing yourself with stuffing and pecan pie and turkey and pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes and mince pie and sundry similar high calories foods (including more pie). Something about this Season of Excessive Calories makes me yearn for plain fresh green vegetable type foods. (And no, that damn green bean casserole does not count! Get it away!)

Eat, Drink, and be Vegan has a pretty tasty recipe for a Greens smoothie. What I especially liked about her recipe was that the green mentioned was kale, which is a winter vegetable. And probably much healthier than this rum ball that I'm about to consume. At this time of year, I need to focus on eating vegetables, just to balance out all the fa-la-la indulgence.

Greens are important: internally and externally

A study in England suggests that having access to nature, "green space," had a noticeable effect on health even after other health factors had been taken into account.

"When the records of more than 366,000 people who died between 2001 and 2005 were analysed, it revealed that even tiny green spaces in the areas in which they lived made a big difference to their risk of fatal diseases. "

This makes sense to me. As a species, we've spent thousands if not millions of years living out of doors most of the time. We can't expect to adapt to an all-indoors environment of fluorescent lights, anonymous cubicles, wall-to-wall carpeting and whatnot in just a few generations.

The rum balls start to take effect

Hmmmn... what was I talking about? I can't remember. I bet it was about procrastination. Did you see that an academic published a report that reduced procrastination to a mathematical formula? It took him 10 years to figure the formula out. (10 years? What an amateur. Why, it would've taken me at least 20 years.)

The equation is U=EV/ID.

The 'U' stands for utility, or the desire to complete a given task. It is equal to the product of E, the expectation of success, and V the value of completion, divided by the product of I, the immediacy of the task, and D, the personal sensitivity to delay.

According to the researcher, people who procrastinate (about 20% of the population) are into short-term gain rather than long-term satisfaction.

Seems to me that the percentage is a lot higher than 20%. And that took him 10 years to figure out? Why thank you, I will have another rum ball.

Researchers say we're either Homer or Mr. Spock

Another study that made me wonder if the researchers had been nibbling at the rum balls was one about the two types of travelers. According to a study published by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Technology Strategy Board in the U.K., few people "bother to check train times or consult websites to see if there are problems on the motorways. We often ignore overhead warnings on the roads because we think we know best." The study claims that people can be classified as either a Mr. Spock or a Homer Simpson type.

A Mr. Spock type personality is logical and proactive. He or she will check out websites ahead of time, call 511 for roadside information, ritually slaughter the oracular chicken and examine its entrails for information about the future of the roads over the next few days.

A Homer Simpson type, on the other hand, adopts a more happy-go-lucky approach. "As long as things work out he has many other things on his mind besides 'optimising' his travel."

Can't there be an in-between approach? Am I the only one who consults the websites, slaughters the oracular chicken, then goes off on the road hoping things will work out okay?

Stressed out seaweed affects the weather? What?

I think I might have overdone the rum balls. This study sounds too bizarre. Apparently, stressing out seaweed results in gloomy weather. According to the researchers, this only applies to areas that are near the kelp, i.e. I can't blame Portland's seven days of snow on stressed out kelp beds an hour away on the coast. Pity. I would like to find something or someone to blame the weather on. It's very satisfactory to have someone (else) to blame.

Hmmmn.... is the room supposed to be spinning now? It looks like Crabby has lit up that huge glittering disco ball again. (I thought I got rid of that last year.) I'd better go make sure there's no disco inappropriate music in the CD player.

To sum up: you can blame the bad weather on the kelp, the happy-go-lucky drivers out there on the Simpsons, and any extremely random holiday blogs on rum balls. Hope your holidays are fun!