Gym Soap Winners

[By Crabby]


So the two random winners of the Gym Soap giveaway are... (drum roll...)

Jade and Caro!

And the competition was tough for the most amusing and/or compelling plea for GymSoap. For some reason, Linteater's tale of the stolen Kahlua sandals just made me giggle.

So Jade, Caro, and Linteater, please email Crabby McSlacker @ gmail dot com to let us know where to send your soap.

Thanks everyone for your great comments!

The Annual Cranky Fitness Garage Sale

[By Merry]

Yes, that's the CF "stretch" limo... this car makes you stretch your legs...

It's time to clean out the Cranky Fitness attic and get rid of some of the clutter that's hiding up there. Surplus titles, animal videos that didn't make into a Random Friday post, cartoons, Jimmy Hoffa, LOL Cats pictures... it's all taking up space, and using up a lot of perfectly good electrons that could be recycled. So we're putting up here some stuff that you might be able to use on your blog, or might want to send to a friend, or might find useful for general workplace necessities.

Of course, being a garage sale, you ain't getting this stuff for free. You want to grab a title, or steal leverage a cat video? Then send like payment of something catchy or cute to crabbymcslacker at gmail dot com (and yes, you'll have to tweak that email address jusssst a tad.)

Spare titles that you might be able to find a use for

The Cat Days of Winter
Water you waiting for?
Do I have to shell out clams to get mussels?
Bed, bath, and Beyoncé
The Pound and the Fury


Cute Animals

This one could come in handy next time you remodel:

more cat pictures

"The Best 5 seconds on the Internet"
I know it's been around for awhile, but I love the Dramatic Chipmunk moment.



Sundry work-safe items

When to Make Coffee

more graph humor and song chart memes

Need to suck up to the boss? Try the Automatic flatterer

Think your relationship is bad? Check out this Internet classic:
Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About

Want to find a topic to argue with your girl/boy/other-friend?
The Letter in the Pond seems to have struck a chord, good or bad, with a number of people.

Need an excuse for goofing off?


Okay, your turn
Yes, you over there in the corner. I saw you sneaking off with that link. Pay up now.

Exercise in a Pill: Would You Take It?

[By Crabby]



A while back, I wrote a completely theoretical post over at Diet Blog about the development of an Exercise Pill. And now, guess what? It looks like scientists are getting closer to developing a real exercise pill that provides many of the same benefits that actual exercise does.

(And I'm guessing there are about 150,000 health, weight loss, and fitness blogger who are covering this subject today or got around to it last week. Eh, so what. One of our Governing Principles here at Cranky Fitness is: If you're too lazy to be first, you might as well be silliest.)

Currently you have to be a mouse in the right experimental group to chuck those workouts. But who knows what the future will bring?

Want some hints?

"Almost no one gets the recommended 40 minutes to an hour per day of exercise," said Ronald Evans, head research dude. "For this group of people, if there was a way to mimic exercise, it would make the quality of exercise that they do much more efficient."

How Can You Get Much More Efficient Than This?

Research Dude explained: "If you like exercise, you like the idea of getting more bang for your buck. If you don't like exercise, you love the idea of getting the benefits from a pill."

The drug helps cells burn fat better and boosts endurance. And while the pills are only available experimentally now, the drug "has a relatively simple chemical structure and can be synthesized easily."

Hmm... An easily synthesized pill that could substitute in many ways for actual exercise... think anyone will be interested?




(Note to self: sell shares in 24-Hour Fitness; buy Krispy Kreme).

Assuming that this thing ever really got developed and actually worked (with no dangerous side effects), would you take it? Would you still exercise as much?

And how would you feel about couch potatoes taking a pill instead of doing any exercise at all?

I don't know about you, but thinking about these questions makes me feel weird...



No, not weird like I suddenly turned into a handsome well-groomed European guy. Weird like confused and skeptical and judgmental and grouchy.


Yet to be honest... perhaps somewhat intrigued.

I Can Has Pill? No Moar Running?

Why these mixed emotions? Any of you experiencing the same thing?

Perhaps it's because getting the benefits of exercise without actually suffering through it seems like cheating. It strikes me as somehow "unfair"--in a way that taking an antibiotic to keep from dying of an nasty infection does not.

If we've been doing our exercise all these years, especially if we've done a lot more than we felt like doing, then we should get credit! And people who skipped out and didn't bother should be punished, right?

Er--that sounds kinda screwed up, doesn't it?

Funny how easy it is to equate "exertion" and "sacrifice" with "virtue." But if the exertion merely serves to get us something we could get with a pill, and we could use that time to save the environment or feed hungry people or catch up on that stack of Entertainment Weekly's we've been meaning to get to... what is actually wrong with that?

As it happens, I'm skeptical of scientists' ability to really replicate natural biological processes in a lab, so I'm guessing that even a best case scenario it will be a substance that you could take in addition to exercise, rather than instead of. But would I take the pill, cut down on the treadmill time, and focus more on exercise I actually enjoy?

You betcha.

What do you guys think?

Lazy Linkage

(Photo by Crowbert)

So here are a few Random Links for your weekend reading pleasure. (See, longtime readers, how I'm not making a big production out of this? Just a few miscellaneous items I wanted to mention. Not a return to full-on Random Friday Neurosis).

On Six-Packs and Life-Suckage:
First off, Kelly at Fitness Fixation wrote a great post this week called "Why You May Never Have a Six Pack." But it's about much more than six packs abs--it's about genetics, and hard work, and high expectations, and how life sometimes sucks.

Plus, being Kelly, she's hilarious and serves you up your minimum daily requirement of swear words. ("Hey, we are fucking snowflakes. We are all different," she reassures us, and I'm thinking I might need to put that phrase on a nice bumper sticker or T-shirt.)

Big Fat (and Calorie) Liars:
Two of my favorite blogs, Elastic Waist and The Great Fitness Experiment, alerted me to the incredibly depressing (but somehow not totally surprising) news that restaurant chains often totally lie about how many calories and fat grams are in their foods.

Just one fun example? Macaroni Grill's "Skinny Chicken," which is supposed to have 500 calories and 6 fat grams was found by an independent testing lab to contain 1,022 calories and 49 grams of fat.

I hope their corporate pants are totally on fire right about now. But repercussions? Are there ever any?

Grrrrrrr....

Can You Put Cranky Fitness in Your Compost Pile?
Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your perspective), Cranky Fitness is not available in print form. So we have no worries about how you choose to dispose of our posts once you're done with them. But did you know there are all kinds of weird things that you can not only recycle, but actually add to your compost pile? Like, for example, junk mail, latex condoms, and used masking tape? For more weird examples and other green tips, check out Ecosalon.

Be More Popular!
And finally, I thought I'd pass along some tips for bloggers looking to write some high-profile Personal Development posts. (The kind that get Dugg and Stumbled and bookmarked in the way that Cranky Fitness posts rarely are). Anyway, this Productivity Hack article contains some very useful tips, like:

Start off with an inspirational quote, preferably by an Asian spiritual leader. Include a picture of people jumping. Always tell people to make a list of their goals...

You get the idea. In my ramblings I see a lot of these kind of "productivity" articles, yet somehow I remain stubbornly unproductive--imagine that. This perhaps explains why!

So, back to work...

(Cartoon by Natalie Dee)

JUST KIDDING!

Have a great weekend, y'all.

(Oh, and don't forget to check out our weekly giveaway post below if you're looking to score some free stuff, or even if you just want to weigh in on Germy Gyms).

Germs and Giveaways

I have to confess I've always tended to be somewhat of a slacker in the "kill all the nasty germs" department.

For example, I practice my own customized version of "the five second rule." And when they show those shocking reports on tv about all the nasty bacteria and viruses that swarm all over your phone or desk or hotel room bedspread or toothbrush or steering wheel? Others may gasp and shudder, but I tend to say: "whatever."

I figure I've been wandering around this earth for quite a few decades, and have touched all these germ-infested surfaces and nothing bad has ever happened to me. Normal hand-washing seems to do the trick--and it's not like I even run off to wash my hands every time I touch a doorknob or pet a dog or pick up a quarter off the sidewalk or anything.

Perhaps I should be dead by now, but I'm not.

So one might think Cranky Fitness would be an odd place to giveaway several bottles of a product called GymSoap, which is a tea-tree oil and triclosan based liquid soap that kills bacteria, viruses, and fungi. You take it to the gym to avoid picking up any unwelcome microscopic hitchhikers.

But there are four reasons why it's actually a very good idea to offer up some Gymsoap!

1. MizFit thinks it's great product.

2. There are a number of Cranky Fitness commenters who are Very Serious about fighting germs.

3. The very nice GymSoap folks offered us 3 bottles for free and,

4. A few months ago I read an article like this one on the rise of drug-resistant staph infections that people are getting from their gyms. Risking athlete's foot is one thing, but this MSRA stuff is creeeeepy. (The GymSoap folks have some icky pictures on their home page (scroll down), if you want to freak yourself out.) I am starting to rethink my "live and let live" approach to germ exposure, at least when I'm at the gym.

So anyway, about the soap: it's apparently gentle, yet also heavy duty enough to kick some serious bacterial, viral, and fungal ass. And if you go by the testimonials, it looks like it can also turn you into a muscular tanned award winning body builder or athlete if you wash your hands often enough.

(She uses GymSoap a LOT).

So wanna try some? You don't have to use it the gym, they also market it for home use too. Alas, it is again for U.S. residents only (unless you want to have it sent to a U.S. address). Sorry Bag Lady and all our other beloved international readers!

Two bottles will be given away based on a random drawing. The third will be won by the person who writes the most compelling and/or amusing comment as to why they would really like some free GymSoap.

Contest deadline is Midnight Tuesday night, August 5th; winners announced the next morning; email us by Thursday night the 7th to claim your prize!