That's Fit

A while back, we told you about Gwyneth Paltrow's new website, called GOOP, on which she provides tips and inspiration on how to live healthfully. You can even sign up to receive Emails from Gwynnie herself. Over at The Daily Mail, one columnist did just that -- here's what the Oscar-winning actress has to say about living your best life.

• Do your own cooking, rather than relying on take-out, delivery or fast food. It only takes a few minutes to make something delicious, and Gwyneth has lots of recipes to share.
• Get lots of sleep, at least eight hours a night. Having trouble going to bed that early? A warm cup of chamomile tea will help.
• Eat well by choosing only foods that can be dug from the ground, cut from a tree, hunted or fished. Avoid white flour, sugar, caffeine and dairy.
• Police your thoughts, and make sure you 'redirect' any negative or judgmental thoughts, especially when they're about yourself.
• Walk and do yoga every day.
  
  

These are some great tips (there's more here and here), but are they practical for us common folk? What do you think?

Fitz and I both recently wrote about the purposeful and not-so-purposeful human consumption of bugs. Bugs are apparently a hot topic. More big bug news follows.

When I say "big," I mean BIG. Like 11 centimeters long big. Like hamster big.

A huge beetle was just found in London, on a boat delivering bananas from Costa Rica to South America. Animal experts have identified the bug as a male elephant beetle -- an endangered species from the rainforests. They're calling him "Bill" and have taken him to a zoo in Cambridge.

Bill has conquered one amazing feat: He traveled thousands of miles and was probably sprayed with a multitude of chemicals to ward off insects. And he survived. He was rescued just in time. Good thing for him -- the poor guy would have eventually been frozen along with the fruit on his journey -- and good thing for humans since one of could have one day discovered Bill amongst our bundle of bananas.

A research team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is pinpointing obesity as a key cause of global warming. Their argument is that it costs more in fuel to transport heavier people. Also, obese people require more food to sustain themselves.

The World Health Organization predicts that by 2015, more than 700 million people worldwide will be obese. The London-based research team feels this overweight trend will have a hefty impact on the environment as well as health.

The researchers found that people who are obese consume nearly 18% more food than their thinner counterparts. This can impact the environment by creating a higher food supply demand and by causing more food travel miles. Also, the researchers state that thin people are more likely to walk than rely on cars for travel. What do you think?

Whoever decided that big breasts, impossibly tiny waists, and curvy hips was a good look for a woman must not have had these features themselves. Well-endowed women often deal with aching backs, shoulder pain, and other issues due to their breast size. In fact, breast reduction surgery is one of the top five cosmetic procedures.

According to doctors at a London hospital, many surgeries could be avoided if women wore a properly fitted bra. The London Free Hospital started a bra fitting clinic and, so far, 100% of the women have been wearing the wrong bra size. For women with large breasts, an improper fit can lead to the shoulders bearing the brunt of the weight instead of the chest. This can create severe back, neck, and/or shoulder pain.

Giran Jobe, a grunting weightlifter, had some disgruntled neighbors who felt he was too loud when lifting his weights. And, it turns out he probably was too loud, as he has now been fined, given a noise abatement, and taken to court.

Before you get too upset, you should know that the noise coming from his top floor flat was measured last June, and found to reach 100 decibels, the level of noise typically found at a rock concert. He was ordered to keep the noise down. Then, only a month later, the neighbors lodged another complaint, so the the Council implemented some noise recording devices.

Lisa Marie Presley is one celebrity who is not putting up with media reports pegging her as fat. In fact, she's suing British newspaper the Daily Mail for suggesting she has an unhealthy appetite and is gaining weight like her father Elvis did.

It's not appetite plaguing Presley. It's pregnancy. Yep, the 40-year-old singer is pregnant. That's why her waistline is expanding.

Presley is none too happy to be announcing her news in this fashion and on this MySpace Celebrity blog, she writes with fervor about sharing her happy news amidst a media attack.

Will Presley win this lawsuit? It's a possibility, says Mark Stephens, a leading London media law expert who says "for an observation that would not be actionable in the USA, she will undoubtedly be recovering damages in London."

Want to slow down the aging process? Who doesn't! Just the same, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who wouldn't like to live for as long as they possibly can. Well, based on research out of King's College in London, one way to help make this happen is to make sure you're getting enough vitamin D.

The findings of this research, which are published in a 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, show a link between vitamin D and the leukocyte telomere length. Telomeres are DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes that become shorter as a person gets older, and also shorten as a result of cell division and inflammation. Researchers discovered that women with the highest levels of vitamin D had the longest telomers, even when age differences were taken into account. Furthermore, women with the lowest levels of vitamin D were found to have the highest levels of C-reactive protein, which is a marker for chronic inflammation.

Foods that are rich in vitamin D include: Salmon, tuna, mackerel, milk, and many other dairy products. Plus, you of course can also get your daily dose of vitamin D from exposure to sunlight.

When I think of Reebok, my mind immediately goes to the most fashion forward cities in the world, like Paris and Madrid. Doesn't yours? It should!

Reebok is debuting its Freestyle World Tour Collection with a campaign that began on February 21. The footwear and apparel line is inspired by the "iconic Freestyle shoe that forever changed the face of women's fitness." Back in the 1980's, when Freestyles first hit the streets, they were just as much about fashion as they were about fitness.

This time around, Reebok will incorporate a completely original campaign, basing its line on six up and coming young women from six cities around the world -- Tokyo, Paris, New Delhi, Madrid, London, and NYC. Six different versions of the Freestyle have been created based upon each of these cities. For example, Tokyo's has flashy foil, while London's shoe is a reserved mix of muted colors.

Check them out -- which shoe epitomizes your sense of fitness fashion?

One of the scariest moments in my own movie-watching history was when Pennywise peeked through the sewer grate in Stephen King's It.

There's a reason why clowns are routinely used to scare adults -- they scared us when we were kids too. That's what a recent poll of children in London found when the University of Sheffield questioned kids age 4-16 in an effort to improve the look of area hospital children's wards. Every child polled -- 250 in all -- reported disliking clowns, and many (even the older children) reported being afraid of them.

I think it's safe to say that children's wards in London won't be seeing any large clown murals when the redecorating starts!

London Fashion Week may prove quite a disaster this year unless event planners comply with new regulations requiring models to produce health certificates proving they don't have eating disorders and ensuring girls aged 16 to 18 are chaperoned. If these provisions are not made, financial backers may pull their funding.

London's fashion industry was put under fire recently by Beat, the UK's leading eating disorders association. Many say it's important to keep the pressure on the industry -- for the models whose health depends on it and for consumers who need to know the fashion industry is not exploiting anyone as they market products.

What do you say? A step in the right direction? Or a catwalk catastrophe in the making?