Good Stuff in the LAT Today!
The LA Times posted three useful articles today. Rather than just pick one to highlight, I decided to run with the lot!
1. “In Your Face Fitness: All You Need is Love.” This lengthy article is my man James Fell’s take on the UltimateFatBurner.com mantra: “if it sounds to good to be true, it usually is.”
Perhaps you’ve made New Year’s resolutions that have something to do with fitness. If so, it helps to remember that there are no quick fixes. There is no such thing as easy.
Americans spend more than $40 billion a year on weight-loss products and services, and, according to the Federal Trade Commission, much of this stuff is bogus. A 2007 FTC survey of consumer fraud determined that Americans were more likely to be taken in by weight-loss scams than by any other type of fraud and that 4.8 million people were victims that year. Survey respondents stated that 20% didn’t even use the product, 34% lost no weight and 28% lost just a little weight.
This year, fine-tune your male-bovine-droppings detector. You can’t feel the love for a lie.
I’ve always liked Fell’s stuff, as he pulls no punches about what it really takes to get – and stay – in shape. And the most important factor, IMHO, is time. It takes time to establish new habits; to build up your strength/endurance; to find workouts/exercises you enjoy; and to find sources of information you can trust. You’re more likely to be successful if you approach fitness as – in Fell’s words – “… a gradual, incremental progression toward awesome.”
2. “New Year’s resolutions in the works? Small steps are best.” LAT reporter Jeannine Stein frequently pens some good articles, and this one is no exception. The title pretty much says it all… and it’s an approach that I personally endorse. Sure, some people can make dramatic lifestyle changes, and make them stick… but for all too many others, it’s a recipe for (eventual) failure. As Stein puts it:
Most people start off the new year by making grand, sweeping changes — and the changes never stick. What does stick? Thinking small: setting modest, attainable goals and slowly chalking up petite successes as you steadily build confidence. It’s a strategy that can lead to substantial and sustainable health improvements over time, as fitness and nutrition experts well know.
Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to run a marathon or lose 50 pounds — but it’s not going to happen in a month, and when it doesn’t, people often feel a huge letdown and then throw in the towel.
…Why small steps? When you drastically cut out all fattening foods, you may bust out with a great big binge. Exercise too much and your unaccustomed muscles can suffer overuse injuries such as strains and sprains.
Or even more likely, psychological burnout sets in.
As they say, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If you haven’t been able to make major changes stick long-term, then maybe it’s time to think small.
3. “My Turn: A penny for your walks.” We’ve kept a big coin jar on the dresser for years. When loose change accumulates in pockets (or in my purse), we stick it in there. When it’s full, it holds a good $400! Since it’s sort of “off the record” money, it feels like a small windfall when we finally dump it all out and spend it (last summer, I gave it to my kids to spend during a family vacation).
All this is why I found Jack Russell’s LAT article rather appealing. Mr. Russell is an avid walker…now. But when he was just getting started, he found that picking up loose change on his daily walks served as a motivator to keep going, while keeping boredom at bay.
Having had some issues with my heart, the medicos strongly suggested that I get regular exercise. I’ve always enjoyed walking, so I embarked on regular walks of approximately two miles in the vicinity of my home in Downey. In the course of walking, I would occasionally find coins lying on the ground. I began to take note of where I was finding them — mostly beside parked cars and in commercial parking lots. From this I fine-tuned six routes in my neighborhood that consistently yield stray coins, which I record in a journal.
I have gone yearlong stretches without being shut out. The money is always lying there. It keeps me out walking, because I always wonder what I might be missing if I stay home.
Personally, I think this sounds like a neat way to tally up the miles covered. A few cents, like a mile here or there, doesn’t really mean that much. But over time, both can add up to meaningful – and useful – amounts.
And he’s right – it does beat “the boring sameness of exercising on a treadmill.”
Read one or read ’em all… and enjoy!
January 2, 2012
Three very good articles, with good common sense advice.