That's Fit

The Road to Fitville 10.11: running together, breakfast included

Larissa Brown — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:03:00 EST

[That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown chronicles her journey to health and fitness through this regular weekly feature.]I wrote after I completed my first relay race that I was going to use bicycling to work as a way to carry myself through the post-race slump. Well, biking was exhilirating and fun the four times that I did it, but it wasn't the right kind of challenge to keep me moving. I'd biked a lot before (my husband and I lived for 7 years without a car). But this time around I was a super-tired mom who slept too late on workdays, and the challenge mostly left me feeling guilty for taking my beloved tiny convertible to the office.I started to get scared that I was going to hit the holiday season with a fat old thump. So what to do?I started running with friends. Four of them to be exact.

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The Road to Fitville 10.3: we all need role models

Larissa Brown — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 16:02:00 EST

The Internet is chock full of advice to parents who ought to be good fitness role models for their children. Like these tips for being a healthy role model to your daughter, most advice is specific, sound, and...focused on kids.Clearly this is important. But what about us grown-ups who struggle with the ups and downs of trying to build and maintain a fit lifestyle? Who commit to exercise and then don't feel like keeping it up, or who want to eat mindfully and healthfully but then blow it? Repeatedly? Don't we need someone to show us that everyday people can and do make fitness a fun and normal part of their lives? I say yes! And I'm not talking about professional ice skaters and Linda Hamilton in T2. We all need regular people like ourselves to be fitness peers with--to admire, emulate, and look to for support and mentoring especially because we are so much like them. Not a world apart.

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Healthy shoes for children's growing feet

Larissa Brown — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:06:00 EST

Olivia writes on urbanmamas about advice she got from the children's shoe expert at Nordstrom department store. Her post brought back sweet memories of going to Stride Rite and getting to stand on the metal shoe sizer, full of pride at how I'd grown. I always knew we were getting "good shoes" (with the doggie on the logo, or am I just imagining that?). But I didn't realize they were also good for my health. Developing feet need good shoes that fit just right. According to the UK's Children's Foot Health Register, bones continue to harden and grow - and shoe fitting is crucial - all the way up through age 18. What Olivia learned echoes this exactly. Correct sizing - length and width - is the most important issue in selecting shoes for children. But she also writes about the characteristics of a few popular children's shoe brands and the benefits of real leather in the fight against unhealthy shoe stink. Our son is 16 months old and just beginning to wear shoes. I've had him in used shoes that we got at consignment shops, but Olivia's post has got me reevaluating that idea. It may be time for him to take his first trip to the shoe store.

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The Road to Fitville 9.19: live blogging The Biggest Loser

Larissa Brown — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 23:00:00 EST

[That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown chronicles her journey to health and fitness through this regular weekly feature. Once a month she checks in with her fitness stats.] September 19 Today's weight: 160 lbs. Up 1.5 pounds since August's check-in Pounds lost since June: 6 Minutes it took to run my fastest mile this week: I don't even know I've gained 2 pounds since the Hood to Coast relay, and I'm feeling a little lost.Even this post is a day late. I normally blog the Road to Fitville on Tuesday. But what can a person say when her mouth is full of baked brie?

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E. coli outbreak; throw away your bagged spinach

Larissa Brown — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:53:00 EST

Organic spinach is surely part of most of our fit diets, so please take a minute to look at the information about this outbreak of e.coli and the voluntary recall of spinach under several brand names.As I sit here reading my email, I can literally see CNN.com's list of states affected by this e. coli outbreak rapidly growing.The Food & Drug Administration is warning that no one should eat bagged spinach, and advises everyone to throw it away. CNN sources note that washing the greens will not get rid of the e. coli bacteria.

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The Road to Fitville 9.12: me, an athlete?

Larissa Brown — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 14:05:00 EST

[That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown chronicles her journey to health and fitness through this regular weekly feature. Click the Road to Fitville category above to see them all.]When someone called me an athlete the other day, I had to laugh. If I haven't made it abundantly clear through this series of posts, I did not grow up athletic. Far from it. This person also had me pegged as a holier-than-thou vegan. They were so totally wrong, unless you consider an athlete someone who can jog for up to 10 minutes at a time, and a vegan someone who devours cream-filled desserts every day and who still mourns the closing of the hot dog stands at Home Depot.I'm incredibly proud of the fit and healthy lifestyle I'm building for myself, and the profusion of walks, bike rides, jogs, races, and hikes I've taken this summer. And every week my husband and I make a game of trying to eat everything that comes in our organic produce delivery box. But I still eat my share of ice cream, and when it comes down to exercise I have - until today - considered myself only slightly more active than average.

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Feed all your senses to keep from stuffing your stomach

Larissa Brown — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 09:02:00 EST

Writing for Shape magazine, Dr. Ann Kearney Cook suggests indulging all your senses if you happen to be a person who can't stop thinking about eating and loves too much food. "Food is one of life's great pleasures," she writes, "but if it's your only or most prominent one, it's a sign that something else is missing."I love this idea and can't stop thinking about how I could feed all my senses to keep me from thinking about peanut butter ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry, or salty hot macaroni and cheese, or...or...

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The Road to Fitville 9.5: the bike commute challenge

Larissa Brown — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 12:10:00 EST

[That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown chronicles her journey to health and fitness through this regular weekly feature. Her first milestone was a two-day relay race in August. Now she's heading into a new challenge.]As summer spills into fall in Portland, Oregon, we probably have about six weeks of sunny weather left and everyone knows it. It seems the whole city is both slowing down and trying to pack in a record number of barbecues and yard sales. The Bicycle Transportation Alliance takes advantage of this outside-obsessed time of year to launch its annual Bike Commute Challenge. The challenge offers friendly competition to get people biking instead of driving to work. It pits companies against one another and individuals against their own internal sloths.When a coworker asked me to join, the timing could not have been better. The bike commute challenge is going to carry me through this critical period right after my big relay race, when all my motivation is threatening to go out the window along with the fear and anxiety that kept me training so faithfully for the Hood to Coast.So today I began. And it was not just like riding a bike.

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Cleaning your camping dishes for better health

Larissa Brown — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:02:00 EST

While camping carries a mystique of healthy rigor about it, the very dishes we eat off of while vacationing in the wilderness may be teeming with tiny sick-making bugs. And it's our own fault.The food blog Brownie Points pointed me toward the Science News article How to Wash Up in the Wilderness. A microbiologist, Joanna Hargreaves, conducted a study regarding dish-cleaning practices among backpackers and expedition companies and found that their methods were not removing all harmful bacteria. She hazards a guess that individual campers may have even poorer habits than the large expedition providers she followed.The piece in Science News recalls a related 2004 study that found that 56% of backpackers studied on the Appalachian Trail developed diarrhea, and the risk was much higher among those who did not always treat their water before drinking it. But nearly half of the Appalachian hikers who did consistently treat their drinking water still got diarrhea. "So other hygiene lapses-including inadequate washing of hands, dishes, and eating utensils-are apparently major threats to health in the wilderness," concludes microbiologist Hargreaves. I have to admit my own camp dish-washing methods pale in comparison to the three-bowl scientific approach she prescribes. If I recall our last camping trip correctly, we rinsed with boiling water...or swished...or something. Umm, maybe I'll mend my ways next time we camp thanks to this article.[Photo by kwankwan.]

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Mercury in dental fillings: safe or not, debate continues

Larissa Brown — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 15:01:00 EST

Over the past few years, the debate about the safety of amalgam dental fillings - the silver kind which contain the toxic metal mercury - has grown. A good friend of mine recently had all her silver tooth fillings drilled out, then underwent two rounds of intravenous chelation therapy and colon hydrotherapy to remove the released mercury from her system. On the other hand, my dentist has advised me that the worst way to deal with silver fillings is to drill them, a practice which would release more toxic materials and vapors into my body than simply living with the filllings in my mouth. As the debate continues in the health communtiy, I wonder if we'll ever know which approach is most sound? The US Food and Drug Administration recently reviewed 34 studies of amalgam tooth fillings that contain the toxic metal mercury, and yesterday announced its conclusion that the use of such fillings is not harmful. Of course this will not convince anyone who strongly believes otherwise - chief among them proponents of naturopathy - and some concerned individuals have already alleged that this government conclusion is driven by politics and not concerns for the health of U.S. citizens. In fairness to these amalgam filling opponents, here is a link to holisticmed.com with a list of arguments against mercury filllings and their opinions as to their dangers. Regardless of the FDA's conclusion that mercury fillings are safe in the mouth, its sister agency the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) does advise against using mercury in voodoo rituals, a practice which the EPA is not keen on regulating, since it may violate the U.S. guarantee of freedom of religion.[Photo by d&e.]

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Exercise excitement: music playlists downloadable from Martha Stewart staffers

Larissa Brown — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 12:10:00 EST

Having just learned to run with earphones, I am still deciding whether I like it or not. There are the issues of safety foremost, and then also comfort and logistics (where does that cord go when you run?) What music should be on my list is something I haven't even begun to refine. But I do know that loud music when it's hot out makes me feel sick, and new agey music when I'm running in the deep of night with the stars overhead is blissful.Just in time for my exploration of the perfect running playlist, there's a new resource for adding some oomph to my next run, walk, jog, or skate. The Martha Stewart magazine called Blueprint is offering downloadable jogging playlists of their staffers' favorite exercise music, which they promise to update frequently throughout the fall. Whether they have good taste remains to be seen, and will surely be a decision for each reader/downloader to decide for him or herself.What's on your exercise playlist? Is it free and downloadable? If so, give us a link![Photo by Leonid Mamchenkov.]

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The Road to Fitville 8.29: Hood to Coast blow by blow

Larissa Brown — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:56:00 EST

[That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown chronicles her journey to health and fitness through this regular weekly feature, Road To Fitville. Her first milestone was North America's largest two-day relay race on August 25-26. Here is her report from the road.]Friday Morning: I furiously pack a few last items and jump in the car with four cases of water, a gigantic mound of healthy food, and three running outfits in Ziploc bags. I'm bubbling over with excitement. There are 12 women on my team, and I don't really know anyone in my van. I stop for my last cup of coffee for two days then meet my vanmates. As we pack our stuff, we get a proud and frantic call from our first six runners. They are 40 minutes ahead of our estimated schedule! We load up our various power ades and jump in. Later Friday: After all the excitement, we sit for a while at a big parking lot in Sandy, Oregon , waiting for our first set of runners to approach the exchange. There are more than 12,000 runners in this race, and the volume of people is beginning to show. Vans are decorated wildly, with everything from college alumni teams to the fiersome Michael Bolton Running Team (How Can We Be Runners If We Can't Be Friends?). Our team is all moms, and we have time to decorate our van with all our children's names while we wait.Friday 6:30 pm: I'm the last runner on the team, and I start my leg on a mean, nasty uphill in the hot hot sun. I struggle across a long (did-I-mention-hot) urban road that passes my teammate Sarah's house. I feel so loaded down that I consider dumping my water and MP3 player on her porch, but reason with myself that I'll want my stuff later. I dial up an inspirational message from my husband on the MP3 and hurl myself onward. Turning onto Hawthorne Blvd in Portland , I run past a group of heavy smokers waiting in line for a concert and gag. Then pass all kinds of bars with people drinking beer and eating pizza. Gag, gag, gag.

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Researchers split on the risks of being somewhat overweight

Larissa Brown — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:59:00 EST

The Wall Street Journal reported today [subscription required] on a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which shows an increased risk of earlier death among people who are overweight at age 50.I wrote recently about my desire to remain in the overweight category, even once I reach my own weight goal of 150 pounds. Ater reading what WSJ has to say about this study, I'm still sticking with my plan. The new study - by scientists at the National Cancer Institute - was conducted among older people who were asked to recall what their weight was at age 50, a method designed to correct for the "dynamic" nature of peoples' weights as they age. Also a method my grandma (who lived to be 93 and smoked every day of her life) would have called "tricky." Though so far everyone seems to agree that "obese" people are at greater risk of earlier death, they are now officially split on those of us who are just a bit fat and pretty fit.In my opinion, all these studies about weight and earlier death beg the question earlier than what? We're all going to die and we're not sure when. This new study has not convinced me that losing an extra 10 pounds will change my chances.[Image based on a photo by northern california.]

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The Road to Fitville 8.21: when it's good, it's very very good

Larissa Brown — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:32:00 EST

[That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown chronicles her journey to health and fitness through this regular weekly feature, Road To Fitville. Her first milestone is a local, two-day relay race on August 25-26.]Stringy pink cotton candy clouds floated above as I ran into the sweetest cool air and loveliest sunset last night. My feet -- in their pretty new expensive Asics -- were bouncing off the sidewalks with no hint of heaviness or sluggishness. As I ran, I composed haikus and designed knitting patterns. My mind wandered happily, and even on the uphills I'd look up to find myself suddenly five blocks closer to home.My sunset run was in stark contrast to the other run I did yesterday. That's right, I completed two runs in one day. You see, this weekend is my big relay race, and I needed to practice running more than once in a day with about nine hours of recovery time.The morning run was a hot slog. I was nervous because I was running with one of my teammates whom I'd just met. She was faster than me, but I knew the route, so I was working hard to keep up with her and yelling directions like "Go around that reservoir and then meet me back here!" At one point she took the jogger to try it out and I watched my little baby roll off over the horizon with a near stranger. A very pleasant stranger, my teammate, but still it was weird. I was highly motivated to keep up with them and I didn't enjoy the process.So when night approached I headed out with some trepidation. How could the second run of the day -- this one after nine hours of "recovery" that included hosting 12 people for brunch and reading about 40 board books over and over and over with my son -- be any better? I'm so glad I tried, because it was better. So much better. As I sprinted the last 60 seconds up to my house, I felt alive, validated, light, happily hungry and seriously proud. And I even went to bed with loose muscles, a condition virtually unknown to me.I learned that I can do this race on Friday. And I was reminded that for every hard run it's always worth trying, trying again. Because a bad run is a special kind of hell on earth. But a good run is a special kind of heaven.Here are my August stats: August 21 Today's weight: 158.5 lbs. Pounds lost since June: 7.5 Minutes it took to run my fastest mile this week: 10:42 Minutes shaved off my mile since June: 1:43

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The Road To Fitville 8.14: obese no more

Larissa Brown — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 21:50:00 EST

[That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown chronicles her journey to health and fitness through this regular weekly feature, Road To Fitville. Her first milestone is a local, two-day relay race on August 25-26.] Well, it's official. I'm no longer obese! I am now simply overweight ... and loving it.Body Mass Index (BMI) is a number calculated using a person's height and weight. According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta (why do they always add the "in Atlanta" in sci-fi movies?), a person's BMI "provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people." Body fatness? Okay. It says that based on my height and my weight of 159.5 pounds as of today, I am overweight. Not in morbid trouble, but I could do better. The thing is, they are right and wrong about me. I am overweight and I want to lose 9.5 more pounds. But even at my goal of 150, BMI standards will still put me in the overweight category. I have no plans to ever reach normal. I often joke that I'm dense, but seriously I look fine and feel terrific at 150 pounds. To get out of the overweight realm, I would need to drop to 140 pounds, a weight at which I'm bony and have to continuously diet pretty severely in order to maintain the status quo. Imagine a lifelong diet that never ends? Nope. I'm going to be overweight when I meet my goal of 150 and switch to a maintenance level diet, but I will be fit and will feel and look thin and that's just fine with me.

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The Road To Fitville 8.7: those are my choices

Larissa Brown — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:35:00 EST

[That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown chronicles her journey to health and fitness through this regular weekly feature, Road To Fitville. Her first milestone is a local, two-day relay race on August 25-26.] This weekend I did the duathlon. It was empowering, tiring, and I didn't improve my time all that much over my last go at it a few years ago. But I did come in 34th out of 38 women. It was someone else's turn to be last, and I'm never going to look back. I now have a thing for this event, this course. And next year I'm going to attack it and come in way higher on the list.In the meantime I learned something about the State of Larissa as of August 7, 2006. I am not ready. I have about 15 days left until my big relay race and I am, frankly, afraid.It's not that my body can't run far or fast enough, because it can. And it's not that I won't finish, because I will. I'm a finisher. In fact, during the second 5K run of the duathlon I found my head talking to my body like it was a three-year-old child. "Well, if you don't want to run then you'll have to walk the whole thing and it will take longer and you'll be embarrassed. Those are your choices."

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Green paint, comes in 40 colors

Larissa Brown — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:40:00 EST

Virginia Young and Janie Lowe are artists who work with paint and realized how terrifically unhealthy it can be for individual humans and for the environment. They began experimenting with mixing paints that were not so egregious. They worked with clay, plasters, milk, and more in their quest for a healthier paint product.The result of their quest is Yolo Colorhouse, a company that sells environmentally responsible paints that are free of Volatile Organic Compounds. On their website they explain: "VOC's are the solvents in paint which evaporate easily at room temperature -the stinky stuff, bad for people and the environment. VOCs are thought to be contributors to the depletion of the ozone layer, as well as contributors to poor indoor air quality." Their luscious paint is VOC-free and can be ordered online. Or, as I did yesterday, you may be lucky enough to happen upon it in a retail setting where you can peruse the colors -- grouped in ranges such as Grain, Water, and Air -- in person. The artists made a very smart move by providing poster-sized actual paint color samples that retail for $4.99 each so you can test the colors at a much larger scale than that offered by the typical paint chip.

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The Road to Fitville 7.24: it's the dog's fault

Larissa Brown — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:47:00 EST

[That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown chronicles her journey to health and fitness through this regular weekly feature, Road To Fitville. Her first milestone is a local, two-day relay race on August 25-26.] Today my training seemed like it was finally paying off (my monthly stats to prove it are at the end of this post). My uphill swing into the park was marked with bounding and confident steps, rather than the heavy shuffling of a month ago. I ran swiftly and happily through the bark-chipped trails with their winding inclines and steep downhills. I leapt over 6-inch curbs that just last week felt like mountains I had to scale with crampons. The only trouble?My sluggish dog.Cheryl Harris, D.V.M., gives tips for running with your dog. Among them is the common tip of getting a doctor's approval before beginning an exercise program. And she's not talking about your doctor, but rather the dog's. Dr. Harris echoes many experts around the web when she suggests that like humans dogs need to build up their exercise abilities over time, starting with easy short workouts. Several web articles give good dog running tips, including bringing along plenty of water, keeping footpads off of hot pavement or concrete, training your dog to heal and obey, and keeping pre-run meals to a minimum.Dr. Harris says signs that your dog needs to rest include a stiff gait or reluctance to run. I've seen the reluctance thing firsthand. I had to talk Ellie home through the last block of our 30 minute run this week.

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Nike + iPod Sport Kit review in Wall Street Journal

Larissa Brown — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:37:00 EST

Today Walt Mossberg -- one of the world's foremost computer journalists -- wrote in The Wall Street Journal about his field test of the new Nike + iPod Sport Kit.The Sport Kit is an in-sneaker computer that interacts with your iPod, tracking your running workouts and reporting on your speed and distance. But it does so much more than that, and Mossberg's column reports on how cool it is in a straightforward, thoughtful fashion. Along the way, he explains how you get the darn thing to work, from opening the packages of the various parts to hitting your PowerSong button when your energy is flagging.

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How many calories ... in a Starbucks nonfat mocha?

Larissa Brown — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:07:00 EST

["How Many Calories" is a regular feature that reveals the surprising calorie content in various foods. Thought-provoking, indeed. We're always on the lookout for surprising calorie counts, so let us know what you're finding and we may blog about it!] How many calories ... In a Starbucks 16-ounce nonfat white chocolate mocha, hold the whipped cream?(a) 190(b) 390(c) 490(d) 690

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