That's Fit

Although I will expand on Randy Pausch, I imagine you're already well aware of who he is. He's the unstoppable man, who has inspired millions and millions of people around the world by his passion for life while he fights an almost impossible battle with pancreatic cancer. I learned of Dr. Pausch many months ago as Diane Sawyer interviewed him on ABC. He blew me away with his humor, dedication to his family, and outrageous courage.

His journey since his diagnosis put him on stage at the University he was a professor at, Carnegie Mellon, for his Last Lecture. This Last Lecture made it to YouTube (embedded below) and then became a best selling book, The Last Lecture. His outlook on life and stories of his childhood and career have inspired other cancer patients to fight harder and regular people to just be better. Although he's truly only concerned with getting his message across to his three young children, he's positively affected millions of others as a side effect.

Recently, President Bush was compelled to write to Randy Pausch. This can't change Randy's fate with cancer, but as a representative of the American people ... it was a fantastic way to show our appreciation for Randy setting a new standard for 'goodness' and dedicating his life to teaching others.

I distinctly recall making a trek through the New England snow during winter mid-terms while I was in college. As just about every student on campus crammed for exams, the school was nice enough to offer us late-night study breaks -- typically in the form of hot cocoa and some cookies in the student union. The break was a great way to decompress, but it turns out the hot cocoa actually offered its own unique benefits to the brain-clogged undergrads that we were.

Researchers at the Nottingham Medical School in England found that the flavonoids in chocolate increase blood flow to your brain for up to three hours. This is particularly beneficial during times when your brain may not be operating at its best -- like, oh I don't know, when you've been awake for almost three full days, trying your best to cram a semester's worth of learning into that short of an amount of time.

Dark chocolate contains more flavonoids than does milk chocolate. Best I can remember, the university's hot cocoa offering was made of the latter. I'll use that as my excuse for only getting a B minus on that final.

Curious to know how celebrities squeeze fitness into their daily lives? Want to know the secrets of the stars? Bi-weekly, our That's Fit fitness expert Fitz sits down with the celebs we want to know more about, and digs out their great and not-so-great methods to staying healthy.

My guest this week is one of those people who really puts me in awe. Desmond Howard has scooped up two of the most impressive and revered awards in the entire sport of football, a Heisman Trophy and a Super Bowl MVP. As I sat with Desmond on a sunny and breezy day in the University of Florida football stadium, The Swamp, I wondered what if felt like to achieve such greatness. Most boys feel lucky to make their high school JV football team. To play in college is an honor. To do what Desmond's done ... indescribable.

I love talking to professional athletes because they have had access to the best of the best opportunities in fitness. They have been trained for perfection and have proven to have mastered the art of discipline. Surely, they have something to share!

ince retiring from playing football, Desmond now works as a color analyst for ESPN's College GameDay. He doesn't have the luxury of an aggressive coach barking at him each day to maximize his potential. He trains because he loves being fit, and just like you and me, he has had to find creative ways to work it into his schedule.

On a personal note ... for someone with so much success in one of the most testosterone-driven sports in the world, Desmond was one of the most down-to-earth non-egotistical men I've ever met. He maintained a gigantic smile (with ridiculously perfect white teeth) throughout our entire conversation and was just a pleasure to spend time with. He's smart, funny, and everything I would want my son to become if he followed in a similar athletic path. Plus he praised his Mom, and of course, I want my baby to do that too. If you haven't been able to keep up with Desmond's success in sports, but would like to achieve great fitness as an adult ... read on.

Fitz: You've retired as one of the most successful football players in both the NFL and NCAA. What do you do now to stay fit?

Desmond: I usually try to work out four-five times a week, but it's kind of difficult when I travel a lot. When we do a lot of college football games, I'll ask the Sports Information Director of the university where we'll be if we can use their weight room. Sometimes the hotels we stay in have pretty nice weight rooms too. We really don't need a lot. I try to do cardio. I like the elliptical machine a lot, because it's low impact on my knees. If they don't have that I'll do the stationary bike. I always get in at least 35-40 minutes of hard cardio, work my core, and then work some other muscle group.

Have fitness questions? Fitz has your answer. Our ThatsFit.com fitness expert -- and now your own virtual personal trainer -- will help you get fit, increase your overall health and do it in a fun way. Drop your questions here in the Comments section below and we'll choose two per week to publish on That's Fit! Learn more about Fitz here.

Q. Hi Fitz, I am a person with T-12 incomplete Paraplegia. I'm interested in learning about some decent ab workouts (including obliques) that I could do at the gym or at home. Just to provide you with a little more information, my T-12 vertebrae are connected by rods. I'd really appreciate some guidance. Thanks! Jon

A. Hello Jon, What a wonderful question! I really feel there's a gaping hole in the fitness industry which needs to address fitness training for people dealing with injuries and/or disabilities. You are the perfect example of that. A guy who's had a spinal injury, but still strives for better fitness beyond rehab facilities. I love it. I also love the spinal cord, and appreciate the sensitivity of it. Long ago, while I was earning my Master's Degree in Exercise and Sports Sciences at the University of Florida, I took a magnificent course on the spine from a brilliant woman, Dr. Christine Stopka, Professor of Adapted Physical Activity & Medical Terminology. She taught me to respect the spine first, and then went on from there. A major aspect of the course focused on educating her students about the things people with disabilities could do. She spent far more time on the could dos than the can't dos. That's one of the most important things I took away with me. I thought your question deserved the most expert advice, so I passed it on to her.

I'm convinced cough medicine for kids doesn't work. Whenever my boys suffer with nagging coughs -- the kind that keeps them up at night because they just can't stop hacking -- and I pump them full of any brand of children's cough syrup, it doesn't make a lick of difference. They still hack.

I don't use cough medicine anymore. But apparently, many parents do.

New reports indicate that 10 percent of U.S. kids are dosed with cough medicine every week. Every week? Yep, that's right. About one is ten kids uses one or more cough medicines during a given week, says research from Boston University. Kids ages two to five use the medications most often. But the rate is also high among those under age two. This is scary stuff, especially in light of evidence that proves cough and cold medication use can lead to serious adverse effects, including death.

As scary as it may be, there is a silver lining: The overall use of such medicines declined from 12.3 percent in 1999-2000 to 8.4 percent in 2005-2006.

Hooray! I just completed a perfectly fun and grueling weekend shooting a ton of fitness videos for you. The videos were filmed for Tracy Benham's Sports Health and Exercise (SHE) company which is known for quick, smart, energetic and fun health and fitness tips from some of the foremost experts in the world.

We created a bunch of strength training and cardiovascular workouts which you'll be able to train with at home, as soon as they are released this summer. One of my favorite parts of the videos was being able to include my fellow blogger and friend, Kristen Seymour. Kristen has trained with me off and on for a few years, and truly has amazing levels of strength and endurance. She also has a perfect smile and looks brilliant on camera.

We were also blessed with the opportunity to film in one of the most beautiful gyms in the world. The Gainesville Health and Fitness Center generously opened their doors to myself, SHE and our team. The facilities are stunning, and all of the equipment is top of the line. Who could ask for more?

Curious to know how celebrities squeeze fitness into their daily lives? Want to know the secrets of the stars? Bi-weekly our That's Fit fitness expert Fitz sits down with the celebs we want to know more about, and digs out their great and not-so-great methods to staying healthy.

This week I got to sit down on a beautiful sunny day, in The Swamp with the very sweet, smart and athletic ESPN College GameDay Analyst Mr. Kirk Herbstreit. No, we weren't knee deep in mucky water. We were in the heart of Gator Country enjoying the breeze after Kirk completed his workout, running zillions of steps at the University of Florida football stadium, The Swamp. Kirk retired from playing football more than 15 years ago, after four years at quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes. But now, he's one of the major faces of college football. Pandemonium strikes college campuses across the country when he -- along with host Chris Fowler and analyst Lee Corso -- set up shop outside the biggest games of each week.

Kirk brings something unique to the team. Every time the GameDay crew heads to the University of Florida, I find more than just the expected crowd of rowdy football fans swarming their booth. There is always an unusual amount of females in a frenzy to get as close a look as possible into Kirk's pretty blue eyes. He's definitely worthy of the attention. From my interaction with Kirk, I think he's a genuinely nice and genuinely thoughtful person. Before we started talking fitness, Kirk shared concerns over all the violence taking place on college campuses. He's a protective father and husband who tries to excel in his career while taking care of his family. He is just plain old sweet! And even though his professional life has been built around sports, he works hard to squeeze in fitness and manage nutritious eating just like the rest of us. Kirk seems to be an expert juggler of life and shares some great tricks for staying fit on the go. He also dishes a few doozies on football.

Fitz: What types of things do you do to stay in shape?

Kirk: It's kind of a lifestyle really. As an athlete I worked out so hard, I could eat anything without paying the price for it. As I got older, I still had that appetite and I was not able to work out as hard as I did when I was playing football. What I really try to do is control my portions, and mix in cardio and strength training workouts four to five days a week. If I can do that, I feel like I'm in a pretty good place. It's just about doing it though!

Fitz: What do you do while you're on the road?

Last night, I spent an hour or so with the faces of college football. Now, of course these faces are no longer "in" college. But! They're the ones we turn to week after week to get the scoop on our favorite teams, athletes, and upsets. ESPN College GameDay. is coevering the Orange and Blue game, which is the University of Florida Gator Spring Scrimmage. I know...it's just a scrimmage! But...it is a big deal. A very big deal to the fans, and one of the great symbols that fall football is almost back again. Since I spend a lot of time near the University of Florida, I paid them a visit for some Celebrity Fitzness Report interviews.

When I arrived, sports analyst Kirk Herbstreit and side-line reporter Erin Andrews were working out, running up and down the bleachers in the Swamp (the Gator Stadium). Maybe they knew a fitness trainer would be popping in to check on them, but probably not. They were just wisely using their short break time to squeeze in a great workout. I was kind of sad not to have been in workout clothes myself though. It would have been fun to interview them on the go! Maybe next time they're in town we'll do that.

I'm literally a sobbing crying mess as I write this. I fell in love with a dying man a few weeks ago when I caught wind of him giving an amazing gift to his students, colleagues, friends and family at Carnegie Mellon University. Randy Pausch, a computer science professor gave his Last Lecture now famous on YouTube, on September 18, 2007. Randy's lecture was called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." Now, I have my own spectacular husband, but I imagine anyone who knows, or knows of Randy . . . would love him very much.

For a man whose pancreas is being destroyed by a cancer that could take his life within months . . . he was hysterical, energetic, inspirational, and relentless about the idea that life can be wonderful every day, and that his days still are. He told stories of his childhood and made one of the most insightful statements I've ever heard. "Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore? Choose!"

For several days now, I've been writing an ongoing series of diet and fitness posts titled "Why the Pounds Are Sticking Around," which are a collection of tips sourced from the health magazine Self. Since the response has been so positive, I decided to forge ahead with an idea I had for a series of healthy living posts. Since exercise and training are more my forte, I sought out information from an outside source -- Men's Health magazine. To that end, I found ten great health and wellness tips that I thought would be perfect for pieces on healthy living.

So, just as I have been doing with the diet and fitness posts, I will also be posting one healthy living tip per day as part of a series I think I'm going to call "Living Well." I think you'll find these tips to be as interesting and as helpful as I did.

Healthy Tip # - Showering shouldn't be a contact sport

If you wear contact lenses, you should avoid doing so while showering, say the folks at Men's Health magazine. Based on research conducted at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wearing contacts while sudsing up can expose your eyes to infection-causing water-borne microbes.

Instead, keep contacts in their solution-filled container until after you're done showering. Then, after you've toweled off, you can throw those bad boys back in.

I wrote the other day about the death of University of Central Florida football player Ereck Plancher. Plancher collapsed on March 18 after completing team conditioning drills. He was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

The autopsy on Plancher is complete but is inconclusive.

More testing is necessary to determine what killed the 19-year-old. Results are expected in a few weeks.

University of Central Florida freshman football player Ereck Plancher collapsed and died yesterday during an off-season workout intended to prepare his team for the opening of spring practice.

Plancher, a redshirt freshman receiver, was leaving the Knights' indoor practice facility when he collapsed. He was taken by ambulance to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. The cause of death will be determined by an autopsy.

Plancher's death has stunned students on UCF's Orlando campus.

Music can assist stroke victims in their recovery, says a recent report from BBC News. Researchers from the University of Helsinki discovered that stroke patients who listened to music for a couple of hours a day appeared to recover faster than those who listened to either books on tape or nothing at all.

Patients listening to music were better able to recover memory and attention skills, and also held a more positive outlook on their situation. After three months, verbal memory improved by 60 percent in the music-listening group, compared with only 18 percent in the audio book group, and 29 percent in the group who listened to nothing at all. Moreover, the ability to resolve conflicts and perform mental operations improved by 17 percent in the music-listening group, but did not appear to improve at all in the other groups.

However, as promising as this discovery may be, researchers admit that further examination into the study still needs to be conducted.

Food manufactures are doing all that they can to get around the whole trans fat ban. This much was explained in greater detail in a post I wrote a little while back, pointing to serving size trickery and other tactics to appeal to the health conscious consumer.

But, buyer beware; there is something else that you should be on the lookout for when it comes to the type of fat you are consuming. It's called interesterified oil, and it's an unhealthy fat that has sneaked its way into the likes of Peperidge Farm cookies and Little Debbie cakes.

Ineresterified oil have been shown to raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol, while also having a negative effect on blood glucose levels. A study at Brandeis University revealed much of this information. As for whether or not ineresterified fats are worse for you than trans fat, that seems to still be unknown. Either way, the stuff isn't exactly healthy, so you would do well to steer clear of any foods that contain it.

People who suffer from diabetes, heart disease, and depression (that's the third variable in this triumvirate of risk factors) have a 30 percent greater chance than the average person of dying, a Duke University study reveals.

Studying 933 subjects with heart disease over a four-year period, the researchers found that 135 of the subjects who also had depression and type 2 diabetes died during the course of the study. These individuals were found to have a 30 percent higher mortality rate than people in the study who suffered from only one or two of these maladies.

According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), people with diabetes have a higher-than-average risk of developing depression -- due in part to feelings of frustration, sadness, and isolation in dealing with their illness. Adding heart disease into the mix, so this new study tells us, appears to create a potentially life-threatening, synergistic effect.