Don't Be Trippin' Over Double Dippin'

This is just a quick weekend post, because Cranky Fitness wanted to bring you an important News Flash hot off the wires freshly swiped from the Sunday newspaper!

Here goes, prepare yourselves:

"Double-Dipping" and even "triple-dipping" your tortilla chips will not contaminate the salsa or the guacamole!

The study was conducted by Nancy Zeller of American University. And if this weren't a weekend, Crabby would go Google you up a link, but it is so she won't. Feel free to report back, though, should any of you feel energetic and researchy yourselves.

Professor Zeller, inspired by a Seinfeld Episode (which seems as good a reason as any to conduct a study) tested the bacteria content of various dips after students dunked, dunked, and dunked. After an hour, even the dips with some dairy ingredients had surprisingly little bacteria in them. And the salsa and guacamole had virtually none!

Which is good news, at least inasmuch as "virtually none" is a reassuring quantity when it comes to something fast-breeding and invisible like bacteria.

Crabby, while not known for her impeccable food hygiene habits, would never dip the same chip more than once. Oh hell, that's a total lie, but she double dips only when sharing appetizers with the Lobster or relatives or friends at parties drunk enough not to be paying close attention. (Just kidding on that last one, she swears).

By the way, Cranky Fitness could have missed this important bit of research entirely had the Lobster not drawn her attention to it in Parade Magazine this morning. Crabby is pathologically afraid of Parade. (It's that wholesome family insert you get in your Sunday paper). It's those ads! Terrifying large-eyed figurines, alarming dishware, and "special issue" commemorative coins reeking strongly of scamminess... it makes her feel all depressed and dizzy!

It must be Parade and not the guacamole, right?

Random Friday

Afraid this Friday is even more random than usual, folks, if that's possible. And don't worry, we won't spend too much time on anything educational!

Good News: Being Overweight May Not Kill You After All.

At least if you're not obese. (This study probably merits an entire post, which Crabby swears she'll try to get to before too long).

So as you may have noticed: there seems to be at least one dire health warning every day about the dangers of carrying even a few extra pounds. So you would think all this Horrible Dangerousness would add up to a much shorter life expectancy, wouldn't you?

Well, no, as it turns out it, it doesn't.

According a CDC study (summarized here), people with a BMI of 25-30 (overweight but not obese) were actually less likely to die of a bunch of things, like emphysema, pneumonia, injuries, and infections. And they were not any more likely to die of heart disease or cancer than folks who were not overweight.

Surprising, huh?

Of course health experts had to jump in almost immediately and say, well, extra weight may not kill you faster but it's still bad for your health, blah blah blah. Crabby wants to spend a little more time surfing the web, giggling over funny videos studying the issue thoroughly before she posts her thoughts on this. She's always skeptical about studies that contradict what we've been hearing forever so there's probably something wrong with it, but, well, in the meantime...

Cupcake, anyone?


Seriously?

"Hide Your Old Pills in Poop, Government Says" is the actual headline to this Reuters safety advisory, though they might as well have called it: "Crabby, You Have to Post About This!" because how could she possibly resist?

So why should you be putting prescription drugs in your pet's poop? Because if you flush unused prescription drugs down the toilet, the fish get poisoned, and if you just throw them in your trash you might tempt your friendly neighborhood junkie.

(Fortunately, Crabby can safely ignore this rather unsavory public service announcement. She hasn't scored anything interesting enough to tempt a junkie since her wisdom teeth were yanked a quarter of a century ago, and she finished those nice pills all up. So sorry, junkies!)


And Speaking of Somewhat Unsavory Health Warnings:

You know all those recent recalls of dangerous toys made in China? Well, it's not just toys for kids that are affected. This amusing article warns of the dangers of toxic, well, lets just keep calling them "toys" shall we?


Making A Beer Gut Look Suddenly More Appealing...

Via the reliably awesome Fitness Fixation, Cranky Fitness has been alerted to an elective cosmetic surgical procedure that makes even this one look really reasonable. Check out the before and after picture showing surgically sculpted "six pack abs" that guys are paying to have etched in their torsos.

Hot? Or not? Whaddya think?

(Also, Kelly helpfully supplies this awesome link: find out about an Extremely Tempting Recreational Opportunity).

So, abandoning for now all pretense of being a "health and fitness" blog...


Musical Cranky Fitness!

If Crabby could carry a tune, you can bet she'd run right out and sign up for one of these nifty Complaint Choirs. What an awesome idea! Grumblers like Crabby gather in communities around the world to bitch, moan, and whine to music. About everything!

Crabby could sing you a song right now about how embedded YouTube videos never work for her, but instead she'll direct you to a handy video page . Once there, you can pick a choir and hear folks from different nations complaining that their beer costs too much, that their exes are sleeping with their flatmates, and that their mascara is all smudgy.


And Happy Anniversary, Jon Carroll!

Who is Jon Carroll? Well, he's not just the guy who brought the Complaint Choirs to Crabby's attention, he's also her very favorite newspaper columnist of all time. He writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, and apparently this week is the twenty fifth anniversary of his column! Crabby has read practically every single one of them since the very beginning, and has so much admiration for the guy she could practically burst. (She saw him in person once, at a garage sale in Berkeley, and kind of stalked him for a few minutes. She feigned interest in some used books and considered approaching him to complement him on his wit and intelligence and humor but chickened out, which was probably just as well. Crabby blushes and babbles when she's nervous and would have made a huge mess of it).

Anyway, Jon's been web savvy since before blogs were invented--so you don't have to live in San Francisco and pick up a Chron to read him. You can check him out at the above links and subscribe to his column, just as though he were an obscure blog like Cranky Fitness! Oh, and special bonus, at least for some of us: he sometimes writes about his cats.


Speaking of Animals...

So this isn't exactly an animal "exercise" link (a Friday tradition) unless you consider hunting a sport. But hunters think hunting is a sport, and that's good enough for Cranky Fitness. Crabby tends to avoid stories about hunting because she doesn't like to hear about animals getting shot. When dogs shoot hunters, however, she finds herself quite willing to read all about it. (Via Weird Its).

But don't worry; no guns in this amazing video--it's really quite inspirational (though a bit long; Crabby bailed once the talk show part started.)


Got anything on your minds?

(More at icanhascheezburger.com)

Please tell us all about it in the comments, and have a great weekend!

Secret to Keeping Pounds Off Forever!

Image courtesy of Plan59

Since this is Cranky Fitness, what are the chances you're going to be reading some incredible new weight loss method guaranteeing permanent results?

Yep, you guessed it: pretty much zero! However, it's time again for Crabby to climb up on her soap box again and offer...

Advice about Self Improvement that You Already Know.

Today's question: What's the Secret to maintaining weight loss (or any other self-improvement achievement) for the long haul?

The answer: Accountability.

Yawn. There's nothing sexy about Accountability.

Making a commitment to Accountability is sort of like getting married to Mr. Rogers, or Eleanor Roosevelt, or Walter Cronkite. Accountability is not Hot and Hip and Hilarious. You're not going to have the rollicking good times you'd have going out to party with Blissful Ignorance, I'll Start Tomorrow, Hell--Why Not, or "LA-La-La I Can't Hear You."

But you're also not going to wake up in some scuzzy stranger's seedy apartment with your underwear on your head, reeking of White Russians and Kentucky Fried Chicken Nuggets and hating yourself. Accountability will cut you off and call you a cab before you self-destruct entirely.

Accountability doesn't have to be quite as dull as you think, however. Mr. Rogers (did he have a first name?) and Eleanor and Walter probably had a few tricks up their sensible cardigan sleeves for keeping things interesting, don't you think?

(OK, enough of that analogy, lets scrub those images right out of our heads!)

So here are a few tips on how to make Accountability your life-long partner. (You can still have an occasional sizzling fling with Reckless Irresponsibility too, as long as you don't let it get too serious).

1. Best Basic Accountability Tool: Write Everything Down
Not forever, but when you need to. It works, damn it. Keeping a journal or blog record or spreadsheet or whatever is a huge a pain in the ass--but it's the quickest and most effective way short of solitary confinement or a coma to get back on track when you've strayed.

2. But Accountability Can be Flexible!
Once you've gotten back into mostly reasonable eating and exercise habits, you may be able to ease up on the obsessive record keeping. (Or not!)

Accountability can mean mentally counting calories, weighing weekly, or keeping to a workout schedule--or doing nothing at all but observing that your pants still fit.

The trick to easing up, though, is having some 'trigger' events to let you know it's time to get serious again. When those pants start to get snug, you can't just blame the dryer and go out and buy a bigger pair. Promise yourself you'll drag out the gosh darned food diary again if you can't zip 'em up anymore.

3. Fight Accountability's Natural Enemy--Perfectionism!

There is a whole post on this here but it's impossible to stay accountable if you're afraid to be imperfect. YOU ARE GOING TO SCREW UP. Everyone does. The people who are successful know it, acknowledge it, and stay accountable.

Even the amazing Roni recently lost control over a sleeve of girl scout cookies. Did she pretend it didn't happen? No, she said, whoops! And then she got right back on track. She didn't hide the information from herself--or from her blog audience.

4. Know Your Cycle
Not your menstrual cycle--although that's helpful too, especially if you're big on retaining water. But some people do best with a steady approach and frequent check-ins, while others can tolerate more variance in how much effort they put into healthy eating and exercising. While "yo-yo" dieting is generally a bad idea, many people find that they can get a little sloppy over time, and then they feel a natural desire to self-correct.

Do you have this self-correcting tendency? If you don't, then you have to monitor how things are going with much more rigor, and check in more frequently so as not to let things get out of hand.

But say you're the self-correcting type, and you're going on a two week vacation. Perhaps you go totally bonkers while you're gone, eating all kinds of crazy-ass junk the entire time and having a blast. But then you come back and say: Yeeesh, enough of that, I feel Disgusting! And you go back to healthy eating and exercise with renewed vigor because it just feels right.

Are you this kind of person? Some of us are, some of us aren't. The trick is to figure out what works for you. If you enjoy periodic all-bets-are-off bouts of absolute naughtiness, and can recover from them, don't feel like you have to structure your approach like everyone else's. Staying accountable means staying accountable to your own goals, not someone else's.

5. Have A Three-Way
Or invite even more folks to the party! By inviting friends or blog readers or whatever to watch you and Accountability going at it, you add a level of commitment to the process that can help keep you on track. (But warning: by involving other people, you will also increase the temptation to lie or cheat rather than embarrass yourself in front of them. This is counterproductive! If you find yourself fudging, then stop sharing info. Honesty to yourself is more important than keeping others in the loop).

6. Recognize that "Accountants" are Often Considered Freaks
People who keep food diaries; who refuse a piece of cake at the office party; who order their dressing on the side or track how many miles they ran before work can be regarded as "obsessive" or "fanatical" by others. Even if you work or hang out with people who have totally unhealthy lifestyles, it's tempting to look to others to decide what's "normal." And counting calories or tracking your 10k times? Not "normal."

But face it: in our society, it's "normal" to order and eat a 3,000 calorie meal for lunch at a restaurant; to go from dawn to dusk and back to dawn again having gotten no exercise at all. It's normal to pack on more pounds every year and feel crappier and crappier but do nothing about it except feel miserable.

Be proud of your Freakishness! Go ahead and take Mr. Rogers as your date to the company Christmas party and don't let anyone give you any crap about it. After a few decades, you're going to realize that Mr. Rogers is actually looking pretty hot.

Note: after writing this post, Crabby was cruising around the net, behind on blog visits, and discovered a similar but better post recently written by BunnyGirl! So make sure to read that one too if you haven't already.

Miracle Drug Pumps up Athletic Performance

What's this new wonder drug that helped athletes battle through painful workouts as though they couldn't feel a thing?

Oh gosh, it's not such a new drug after all: it's called a placebo.

Crabby never fails to find herself amused by the placebo effect, because it's sort of the Practical Joke of health and medical research. Yet it's also real and tremendously effective. Because we humans are so goofy, our expectations about what's going to happen are often way more powerful than any medication researchers are trying to test.

Anyway, this particular study (spotted by New Scientist) might be interesting to those who are competitive athletes or sports fans, because it seems to suggest a sneaky way around some of the anti-doping restrictions.

Basically, a group of Italian athletes underwent an artificially painful and unpleasant workout in the Name of Science (just like in yesterday's study, because apparently European researchers like to torture athletic young men just for giggles). The scientists timed how long these guys could "operate an exercise device while blood flow in their arm was restricted, making the exercise painful." But during two practice sessions (spaced a week apart), some got morphine injections. The morphine-doped men were able to exercise for longer.

Well, a week later the morphine group got a fake injection. And what happened? They still managed to exercise for longer, "seemingly oblivious to the pain."

The New Scientist article noted that World Anti-Doping Agency rules allow athlete to take opiate painkillers like morphine during training, but not on the day of a competition. And they suggest that this creates a Big Conundrum. Is it cheating to train an athlete with morphine, then use the placebo effect to give him a boost on the day of the competition?

Interesting question, kinda. Franky, Crabby doesn't really give a crap because she's not a huge fan of sports or competitive athletics. But many of you actually run races and go tearing around on bicycles and swim competitively and such, and some of you might have an opinion on whether this sort of thing should be kosher.

Crabby had a far more pressing question, but even when she went straight to the source, she couldn't find the answer. (Unfortunately, the source was greedy and wanted money, damn it, so she was stuck with just the abstract.) The question was about the "fake" morphine shot. It sounds, from the article, like the athletes thought they were getting morphine but didn't. Which is generally part of the placebo effect.

Well, if that's true, then how the heck is a trainer going to take advantage of it for real races?

Sneaky Trainer: All ready? The race starts soon, it's time for your shot!

Athlete: Whoa, dude, morphine on race day? Won't that disqualify me?

Sneaky Trainer: Uh, no--not at all! It's totally legal now for you to have morphine right before a race.

Athlete: Really? Awesome! Bring it on, I like that stuff!

Sneaky Trainer: Go get 'em tiger!

As an aside, Crabby is rarely able to take advantage of the placebo effect herself. She suspects it takes a more optimistic world view than she has. She expects pain pills and other remedies not to do much, and sure enough, they don't. She has always envied the Placebo People, who often tell her about the latest weird herbal remedy they just tried that totally fixed their chronic (whatever) problem. No doubt it will work for Crabby too!

It never does.

So is anyone else intrigued by the placebo effect? Are you susceptible? Or have any thoughts on doping in sports, or the gratuitous exercise-torture of young buffed male athletes?

Beer for Post-Workout Hydration?

How did Cranky Fitness miss this story over the weekend?

Good thing Martha at That's Fit caught it, because Crabby hates to let news like this go by unnoticed. After all, it's her favorite kind of study: when something she likes turns out to be good for you in a completely unexpected way! And this time, it's really unexpected:

Beer consumed after an intense workout can actually help you rehydrate.

Which is of course the exact opposite of everything you've ever read. Researchers think the sugars, salts and carbonation in the beer assist with fluid absorption.

The beer study comes from Granada University in Spain, where a Sadistic Med School Professor apparently made 25 volunteers run on a treadmill in 104 degree heat until they were about to die but not quite. (Killing study participants is frowned upon, even in med schools where the professors could make great use of the cadavers for educational purposes).

Anyway, the researchers took some measurements from the nearly-dead participants, including their hydration levels, "concentrationability," and motor skills. (Is concentrationability even a word? Well, sure it is--at least after a few beers). Then they gave half of 'em a pint of Spanish lager, while the rest got water. Next, everyone got to drink as much water as they wanted.

And guess what? Those who got beer had a "slightly better rehydration effect."

The Daily Mail article also mentions that "sensible drinking of one or two units (of beer) a day can reduce the risk of heart disease, dementia, diabetes and Parkinson's disease." And that beer ingredients are a "rich source of vitamins and minerals."

Wait, um who's reminding us of this again? Oh. "A spokesman for the Campaign for Real Ale."

But that's okay--Crabby's pretty sure she's read Real Studies that said the same good things about beer before. She's just too lazy busy doing important things to go look them up. Anyway, it seems totally reasonable to believe good things about beer, in moderation, because beer is so darn likable. (Especially if it's Real Beer with actual Beer Flavor and not the mass-marketed watery excuse for beer that we often settle for in this country).

And yet... Crabby probably won't be cracking open a Spanish Lager or even a Fat Tire Amber Ale after her next work out.

Why not?

Well, for one...

Oh wait, lets make a list. Too many boring paragraphs, it definitely time for a list!

1. Crabby usually works out sometime between 7:00-9:00 a.m.--and beer on her breath at that hour might alarm her neighbors.
   
   
2. Beer doesn't taste as refreshing to her as water, perhaps because she's been told for years and years that beer will dehydrate her and she believed it and now her thirst has been trained to not even bother to go there when she's thirsty 'cause she's not getting any.
   
   
3. Crabby hates being overheated and doesn't work out to the point of exhaustion, so her rehydration needs are pretty modest. Even those gatorade-y things are a total waste of calories as far as she's concerned.
   
   
4. Crabby has decided after years of taking studies at face value that often the ones that come up with suprising new information completely out of the blue often turn out to be wrong. So she'll wait awhile before taking this one too seriously.

But what about you folks? Plan to chug a brewski after your next workout? Or what sort of beverages do you tend to drink, whether dehydrated or just sippin' for pleasure?

(Note: Crabby is aware that in trying to make some additions she has broken her blogroll. She will try to fix it as soon as she has a chance!)