Try Mopping To Lose Weight

Saw this comment on the article below:

I place ankle weights on my mop handle and mop all floors in the house for about 30 minutes each day. The movement of slightly bending down to look at the floor while moving my upper body side to side helps keep my abs tight.

Just came across this advice on two exercises... the author seems to think it's for men only, but really, a woman can do it too...
Lose The Spare Tire With Just Two Exercises
They look interesting, check it out:

A few months ago, I asked Alwyn Cosgrove, C.S.C.S. -- one of the world's top trainers -- to create a cutting-edge fat loss program for Men's Health. And, of course, he obliged. But a curious thing: One of the workouts in the plan featured just two exercises.


That's right: When asked to create a super-effective, calorie-torching routine, Cosgrove gave us a workout that had readers do only a kettlebell swing and a squat thrust. This confused some folks, who wondered, "How can you lose fat with just two exercises?"

Cosgrove's response: "Running is just one exercise, but no one questions that when it comes to burning fat."

(Another great way to lose fat: Avoid The Worst 20 Drinks in America.)

He makes a good point. And in fact, once you understand the philosophy behind Cosgrove's routine, you start to see why it works so well. But first, an explanation of the actual routine itself.

Here's how it works: You do 15 repetitions of the kettlebell swing (you can also use a dumbbell for this), followed immediately by 15 reps of the squat thrust. (See below for descriptions of both exercises.) Without resting, do 14 reps of the swing and then 14 reps of the squat thrust. Continue this pattern until you complete only one rep of each exercise. This is called a countdown workout.

Sure, that's just two exercises, but do the math: If you complete the entire routine -- from 15 down to 1 -- you'll do 120 repetitions of each exercise. That's 240 repetitions. And these aren't just any exercises: They're movements that challenge your entire body.

They're also done at a fast pace. On average, it'll only take you about three seconds per rep. So you'll do those 240 reps in just 12 minutes or so. That'll light your muscles on fire, and have you gasping for air (in a good way).

If you think that sounds too easy or too fast, I suggest you try it. You may find you can't even finish. But that's okay -- you can just start with a lower number, like 8, and work your way up as you improve your fitness. (In fact, I recommend this strategy.) What's more, if you want an even greater challenge, you can always take a breather and repeat the routine.

Remember: Whether you're running or lifting, your muscles require energy to help you move. And this workout forces more of your muscles into action than you'd ever use while jogging for the same duration. It'll also boost your metabolism for hours after your workout.

What's more, unlike jogging, these aren't joint-pounding exercises. So this is actually a "low-impact" workout that you can do at a high intensity, making it ideal for overweight folks. The best part: You can do the routine without even leaving your house, since all you need is a single kettlebell or dumbbell.

(And for another fast way to fight fat, check out this awesome 9-minute kettlebell workout.)

How to do the countdown workout: Do 8 reps of the kettlebell swing, followed immediately by 8 reps of the squat thrust. Without resting, do 7 reps of the kettlebell swing, and then 7 reps of the squat thrust, and so on, until you work your way down to 1. A reminder: Don’t overdo it. If your form breaks down during the routine, just stop there. Then next time, adjust your starting point so that you can work all the way down to one without having to stop. As you become better conditioned, start with a higher number. An important note: This isn't a complete workout program, but it is a great routine that you can do almost anywhere, anytime. And it's a fantastic substitute for 15 minutes on the treadmill.

Kettlebell (or Dumbbell) Swing

Bend at your hips and hold a kettlebell (or dumbbbell) with both hands at arm’s length in front of you. Now rock back slightly and “hike” kettlebell between your legs. Then squeeze your glutes, thrust your hips forward forcefully, and swing the weight to shoulder height. Allow momentum to swing the weight—you're not trying to actively lift it with your arms. Reverse the movement, so that you swing the kettlebell between your legs again. Make sure you don't round your lower back at any time; it should stay naturally arched when you bend at your hips. Continue to swing back and forth.

Squat Thrust

Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Bending at your hips and knees, squat down and lower your body until you can place your hands on the floor. Kick your legs backward—into a pushup position—and then immediately reverse the move and quickly stand up from the squat. That's 1 rep. To make the exercise even more challenging, you can jump up from the squat instead of simply standing up quickly

What Makes a Glamourous Woman

Blisteringly sexy, she killed Nazis with her bare hands and had a 5 million-franc bounty on her head. As she dies at 98, the extraordinary story of the real Charlotte Gray

Just An Interesting Comment on Female Pultritude

Yes, I know you're reading this blog because you have a certain weight that you want to achieve and maintain. And I'm not trying to tell you that you should make a lifestyle choice to be 20-30 pounds over weight. Everyone has a healthy weight - and health is the only thing that's important. If you don't have your health you do not have anything.

But, I was reading this article and thought it was interesting to look at the photo of Nancy Wake and read the description that she was considered "blisteringly attractive." Obviously the photo showed her in her Army uniform, and not made up and dressed as she would have been when she was vamping Nazis, but you note that she's certainly not underweight.

Women have been trying to make themselves attractive to men since time began.

In medieval Japan, women would paint their teeth...black.

In Africa, a certain tribe puts rings around their neck, which elongates it by up to a foot.

In medieval Europe, women were buxom and proud of it.

It wasn't until about the 1920s that women in the US started getting obsessed with being thin. Remember that bosoms did not exist in the 1920s (ever see Thoroughly Modern Millie?)

Marlene Dietrich was a chubby-attractive woman when she starred in The Blue Angel. When she came over to the US she immediately had to lose 20-30 pounds and keep it off.

Here's a photo of the "Blisteringly sexy" Nancy Wake. Does she look like she's underweight to you?.




Blisteringly sexy, she killed Nazis with her bare hands and had a 5 million-franc bounty on her head. As she dies at 98, the extraordinary story of the real Charlotte Gray

She stares into the camera with a coquettish half-smile and an unflinching come-hither look. The eyebrows are plucked, the lips full, the long auburn hair a classic 1940s style, falling onto the shoulders of her khaki uniform.

She could easily have been one of the sassy songbirds who brightened up World War II. But this was the face of Nancy Wake, one of that conflict’s bravest underground fighters against the Germans in France — and certainly the most stylish.

A male comrade-in-arms in the French Resistance summed her up as: ‘The most feminine woman I know, until the fighting starts. And then she is like five men.’ She lived up to both parts of that compliment.

So feminine was she that when escaping from pursuers on one notable occasion, she dressed in a smart frock, silk stockings, high-heeled shoes and a camel-hair coat, arguing that she didn’t want to look like a hunted woman.

In that same outfit, she jumped from a moving train into a vineyard to avoid capture at a Nazi checkpoint

And so aggressive was she that, after being parachuted into France as a Special Operations Executive agent, she disposed of a German guard with her bare hands and liked nothing better than bowling along in the front seat of a fast car through the countryside, a Sten gun on her lap and a cigar between her teeth, in search of Germans to kill.

Passionate and impulsive, with a tendency to draw attention to herself, she was not the ideal undercover agent. Her superiors didn’t think she would last long behind enemy lines.

But Wake proved them wrong and died this week, aged 98, in a nursing home for retired veterans in London. Her death brought to an end a life of such daring, courage and glamour that she was the inspiration for the Sebastian Faulks novel Charlotte Gray, which was made into a film starring Cate Blanchett.

Much of Wake’s extraordinary life was lived under assumed identities. She carried papers as Nancy Fiocca (her married name) and Lucienne Cartier. Her official SOE identity was Andree, though a gay friend in the service called her ‘Gertie’. On one operation she was tagged ‘Witch’.

But the best-known name was the one the Gestapo gave her when they put her on their ‘most wanted’ list, with a five million franc price on her head — that of ‘the White Mouse’, because she always managed to wriggle out of their traps.

Nancy Wake was born in New Zealand and brought up in Australia, a difficult child who took the first opportunity to leave the Antipodes for Europe.

There, she partied between assignments as a journalist, before marrying a rich businessman from Marseille who could indulge her taste for champagne, caviar and the good life.

Nancy was visiting London, for, of all things, a slimming course, when war was declared in September 1939. When she tried to join up to fight she was pointed, to her disgust, in the direction of a Naafi (Navy, Army and Air Force) canteen.

So she went back to France and, when that country fell to the invading Germans, she proved herself as brave and as aggressive as any man — and more than most.

In 1940, in the half of France unoccupied by the Nazis, Marseille was a magnet for downed RAF crew and British soldiers left behind after the Dunkirk evacuation, all hoping to make their way home via Spain.

An escape route over the Pyrenees was organised underneath the noses of the pro-German French authorities. Nancy’s wealthy husband, Henri, financed operations, while Nancy herself, dressed up to the nines, carried messages between members of the group.

Then she progressed to escorting the ‘packages’ — escaped Allied soldiers and airmen — along the coast to the border.

It was dangerous work, with constant fear of discovery or betrayal. At one stage, she was arrested by French police and interrogated in prison for four days. The leader of the escape line bluffed his way in and secured her release. After that, it was clear her days were numbered and she went to ground.

As the net closed around her, she headed for the mountains, leaving Henri behind, and made the punishing two-day trek over the Pyrenees to neutral Spain and from there, via Gibraltar, to Britain by mid-1943.

Nobody could have objected if, by then, she had decided she had done her bit. Instead, in London she volunteered for SOE’s French section and, despite reservations that she was too much of a party-girl, she was taken on and trained in survival skills, armed combat, Morse code and surveillance.

Six weeks before D-Day, she was parachuted into the heavily-forested and mountainous Auvergne region of central France to prepare local Resistance groups, the Maquis, for the job of harrying the Germans and delaying their reinforcements once the invasion began.

The 7,000 partisans were disorderly, disorganised and riven by personal rivalries, more of a rabble than an underground army that would do damage to the Germans. They had little interest in newcomers from across the Channel sorting them out, particularly a woman.

Nancy proved her mettle, arranging air drops and hiding supplies of weapons, travelling between the groups, paying out money, urging them to co-operate, knocking them, as best she could, into shape. She was as tough as the old army boots she eschewed for heels. With an escort of Maquisards, she shot her way through enemy patrols and roadblocks.

She led attacks on German convoys and even took on armoured cars. When asked why she insisted on travelling in the lead vehicle, she said it was because she couldn’t bear dust being thrown up in her face by cars in front.

In one mini-battle, her car was strafed by German fighter planes but she crawled out of the wreck, hanging onto her prized possessions — a jar of face cream, a packet of tea and a satin cushion.

When the roads were too dangerous to travel by car, she cycled more than 300 miles in three days to find a working radio set to contact London.
Nancy never lost her softer side, for all the horrors of war. Two American weapons instructors dropped into her forest hideout found a jar of flowers beside their makeshift beds.

But for all the feminine wiles she employed to get what she wanted, she knew where to draw the line. She was loyal to Henri, the husband she loved.

Any Maquis who fancied his chances was rebuffed. ‘If I had accommodated one, the word would have spread and they’d have been coming over the mountains for more,’ she once explained. ‘So, no love affairs, and that was that.’

This was made clear from the start. When she dropped into the Auvergne, her parachute snagged on a tree. The agent who met her simpered that he hoped all trees could bear such beautiful fruit. ‘Don’t give me that French s**t,’ she snapped back.
The sadness was that after the liberation she returned to Marseille to discover that Henri was dead. Shortly after her flight from the city, he had been caught, imprisoned and tortured. The Gestapo shot him.

She blamed herself for his death. If he’d told them where she was, he might have lived. But he refused.

She was festooned with honours — a British George Medal, the French Legion d’Honneur and three Croix de Guerre. She remarried, returned to Australia to live, took up politics for a while, then came back to Britain to retire in 2001.

Her body is to be cremated, but at her request the ashes will be scattered in the Auvergne.

Should Little Girls Be Can Can Dancers?

Weekend rant - Saturday
I went to the Cheyenne Melodrama last night. During Cheyenne Frontier Days, this Melodrama runs every night. Amateur actors put on a play with a villain to boo, a villainess to hiss, a heroine to sigh for, and a hero to cheer. In between the acts, they have "oleos" in which other people, not in the play, come on and dance and/or sing.

And one of the acts was a troup of 8 or so young girls, dressed in can can dresses and dancing the can can. I'm not sure how old these girls were - maybe from 8 years old to 10 years old?

And they were wearing long dresses, and underneath their dresses they were wearing long, black shorts. This was good, because part of their act was to turn around and lift up their dresses so the audiences could see their behinds, which at least were covered by black shorts rather than black panties. And they did this maneuver several times.

The crowd was appreciative of the girls - it was a family crowd, husbands, wives and kids - and they were cheering more just to give the girls on stage heart, because they were clearly under-rehearsed and half of 'em were looking at the other half in order to remember what they were supposed to do at any given time-

But I was just thinking... was this dance really a good thing to be teaching girls age 8 to 10? That people would cheer you if you turned around and lifted up your dress to show them your underwear? Several times? Next stop for them, the "gentleman's club" known as the Den out on the Colorando/Wyoming border, ten miles out of town, where they'll be cheered even more to bare it all (once they grow up, of course)?

Perhaps I'm making too much of this, but surely the choreographer could have done a dance that didn't necessitate the girls doing that apparently signature move. It sent bad signals all around, as far as I was concerned.

Have you found your sport yet?

Everyone needs to have some physical activity that they enjoy enough to perform on a regular basis, for at least 30 minutes at a time.

Most of us live such busy lives that we tend to put off this exercise time, this "me" time, but this "me" time is all important.

If you want to be able to take care of your kids (if you have any!) you need to take care of yourself first!

More on this later tonight... as I'm running late to go attend the Melodrama at the Atlas Theatre in downtown Cheyenne, with Chinese food before hand!

Can't Control Your Appetite? Here's Why

This article is from Oct 8, 2008.

ABC News: Can't Control Your Appetite? Here's Why

Want another reason why you shouldn't spend too much time at the trough? Because consistently eating too much food over a period of just a few weeks can screw up your brain, taking away your ability to control your appetite.

That's the basic finding in a new study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison that could help explain why once you've put on those extra pounds, it's really hard to take them off. The study is published in the current issue of the journal Cell.

"We've discovered why the appetite doesn't shut down," said Dongsheng Cai, assistant professor of physiology at UW-Madison, in a telephone interview, even after a person has consumed enough food to maintain the correct balance between calorie intake and energy expended.

The answer lies in a normally inactive "pathway" through a critical part of the brain that springs to life after at least a couple of months of "overnutrition," he said. A pathway is a course by which brain cells transmit impulses from their origin to their destination. But in this case, a normally dormant pathway is re-energized and interferes with "signaling" that should tell the brain you've had enough to eat.

"We're not talking about one day, or even a few days" of overeating, Cai said. "It's not too long. Two or three months of overnutrition, a diet high in fat and sugar," can wake up the pathway, he said.

Once the pathway is mobilized, he said, it can "lead to a number of dysfunctions, including resistance to insulin and leptin." Leptin is a fat hormone essential for appetite control. Insulin lowers blood sugar by causing cells to extract it from the bloodstream. Both are critical to maintaining the balance between caloric intake and energy expenditures.

The good news is it may be possible to shut down that apparently obsolete pathway in the brain, thus restoring an obese person's ability to control his or her appetite. It's significant that the activation of the pathway preceded obesity in lab mice, so it is clearly part of the cause of weight gain, not just the result.

"These experiments and results indicate that oversupply of general nutrients can acutely activate the hypothalamic [pathway] before the onset of obesity," the study says.

Cai and his colleagues have focused their research on the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that for the past 10 to 15 years has been recognized as the brain's "headquarters" for maintaining an energy balance. They used lab mice for their research, since it's not practical to dissect human brains after an extended period of overeating, but they are confident the findings will apply to humans as well.

"Many pathways established in animals are exactly the same in humans," Cai said.

The same type of pathway actually plays a critical role throughout the entire body's immune system, but it has no known function in the hypothalamus. Cai speculates that it may be a remnant from an ancient immune system that is no longer active.

In their paper, the researchers identify the pathway as "a master switch and central regulator" of the body's immune system, so just simply turning it off would be disastrous. The challenge is to come up with a way, possibly medication or genetic engineering, to keep the pathway alive for the immune system, but keep it dormant in the hypothalamus, where apparently all it does is cause trouble. That could take years, of course, even assuming the basic findings are born out by further research

The research indicates that the critical signaling function of two hormones, insulin and leptin, is disrupted when the pathway in the hypothalamus is activated.

"Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas, and leptin is another type of hormone secreted by fat tissue," Cai said. "When we have obtained enough calories, these two hormones travel to the brain and tell the hypothalamus it's time to stop eating, you have enough calories.

"But these two message systems can be interrupted by the activation of the pathway we've discovered, so the appetite doesn't shut down," he said.

It's also likely that the message telling the brain to increase energy expenditure is also shut down, Cai said. So, instead of going out and walking off those excess calories, the dieter takes a nap.

That plunges the person into a downward spiral, eating more and more, and putting on more and more pounds. The sentinels that are supposed to maintain the correct balance between caloric consumption and energy expenditure remain silent, deactivated by the reactivation of a part of the brain that shouldn't be there.

"Our work marks an initial attempt to study whether inhibiting an innate immune pathway in the hypothalamus could help to calibrate the set point of nutritional balance and therefore aid in counteracting energy imbalance and diseases induced by over-nutrition," the report states.

In other words, maybe there's a way here to reset the appetite and make it a lot easier to knock off those extra pounds. The research also suggests that in some cases, there's more at work than simply a lack of willpower when it comes to losing weight.

Foods that Trigger Rheumatoid Arthritis Flare-Ups

This is another reason to keep track of your feelings - not only emotions but also physical feelings - after everything you eat and drink.

In the case below, the foods listed can cause flare up of rheumatoid arthritis, but there are other foods that can cause other reactions.

From LIfescript: Foods that Trigger Rheumatoid Arthritis Flare-Ups

Do restaurant meals and snack attacks leave you with rheumatoid arthritis aches and pains? Certain foods – some of your favorites, like steak and cookies – may be causing flare-ups. Find out what you should stay away from and how to pick tasty substitutes. Plus, what’s your inflammation IQ? Take our quiz to find out…

When you have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a restaurant menu or open refrigerator can seem like a test: Can you find foods that satisfy your cravings without making joints swell, ache and stiffen?

Definitely. It’s easier than you think.

You can still eat meat – as long as you choose leaner cuts. Crave salty snacks? Eat nuts instead of chips.

The key is following an anti-inflammatory diet, which helps you avoid RA flares. And these smarter food choices aren’t necessarily boring ones. Antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables, high-fiber grains and healthy fats can all help you reduce RA aches – in a matter of days.

“I start my RA patients on a general anti-inflammatory diet, and they feel better within a week,” says internist Leo Galland, M.D., whose book The Fat Resistance Diet (Three Rivers Press) is based on anti-inflammatory foods.

“Their pain and stiffness is greatly reduced.”

We asked RA experts how to avoid flare-ups without sacrificing your favorite treats. Here’s what they said:

1. Red meat, pork, poultry, eggs, butter
Why they’re RA triggers: These animal products contain harmful saturated fat, which increases inflammation in the body.

“After a single meal high in saturated fat, blood cells produce more inflammatory signals for several hours,” Galland says.

“Continue eating like that, and blood cells stay in this inflammatory state,” he adds.

For RA sufferers, that means joint and muscle pain, heartburn, fatigue and even acne.

Eat this instead: Love omelets? Whip one up with egg whites (the saturated fat is in the yolk).

Proud of your milk mustache? Switch to skim. Can’t give up meat? Choose leaner cuts like sirloin steak, chicken breasts and pork loin chops.

If it’s protein you crave, get it from salmon or mackerel, which are rich in healthful omega-3 fatty acids (you’ll learn more about their health-boosting benefits in the next section).

But “get more fats from plant sources than animal,” says David Rakel, M.D, director of Integrative Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine.

“Fat isn’t bad, but we need more polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, such as those found in olive oil, nuts and avocados.”

2. Store-bought chips, margarine
Why they’re RA triggers: These snacks and spreads contain trans-fatty acids (TFAs), oils that are chemically processed to make them more solid and stable.

A diet high in TFAs increases C-reactive protein, a marker doctors use to indicate the amount of inflammation in the blood, according to a 2004 Harvard Medical School study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study showed that TFA-rich foods had a profound effect on inflammatory markers, making them twice as dangerous as saturated fats.

“Adding TFAs to the American diet was one of the worst things we could have done. The body requires a lot more energy to break down trans-fats, which creates inflammation,” Rakel says.

TFAs show up in many packaged and processed foods, but they’re easily detected: Just look at the nutrition label. Since 2008, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has required that all U.S. food manufacturers list trans fats.

But watch out: Even if a label proclaims zero trans fats, it’s not necessarily free of them. Federal regulations allow products containing up to half a gram of trans fat per serving to be labeled as “trans-fat free.”

That means consumers can easily exceed the maximum daily recommended amount of trans fats (1.11 grams) with just three pieces of toast spread with “trans-fat-free” margarine.

A safer bet: Stay away from products that include partially hydrogenated oils on the ingredient list; that’s code for trans-fat content.

Eat this instead: Nuts and seeds contain omega-3 fatty acids, a healthier fat that reduces levels of C-reactive protein, according to a 2009 study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“When you crave a crunchy snack, dump the chips and scoop up a handful of walnuts, a great source of omega-3,” says Joan Levinthal, a registered dietitian in Woodland Hills, Calif.

Replace margarine with trans-fat-free spreads, such as Smart Balance Omega-3 Buttery Spread, which contains omega-3-rich flaxseed and fish oil.

3. Cakes, cookies, white bread, potatoes and white rice
Why they’re RA triggers: These comfort foods rank high on the glycemic index (GI). They quickly break down into sugar, making insulin levels rise, which can cause inflammation.

In fact, each 10-point increase in a diet’s glycemic status is associated with a 29% rise in C-reactive protein, according to a 2008 Netherlands study published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“Sugar increases the inflammatory [process],” says nurse practitioner Marcelle Pick, R.N.C., Ob/Gyn N.P., author of The Core Balance Diet (Hay House) and co-founder of Women to Women, a holistic medical clinic in Maine.

"If you must have something sugary, eat it with some protein to slow its breakdown into glucose."

Eat this instead: By replacing white bread, potatoes and rice with moderate servings of whole-grain bread, sweet potatoes and brown rice, you’re eating on the lower end of the GI index. Plus, you’re adding more fiber to your diet, which fights inflammation, according to the Arthritis Foundation.

Check out these 7 High-Fiber Recipes.

Bing cherries have been found to reduce inflammatory markers, according to a 2006 study in The Journal of Nutrition.

Apples and pears are also low on the glycemic scale. Baked and flavored with cinnamon, they’ll taste like a decadent dessert.

“Cinnamon has been shown to help regulate blood sugar; plus, it has a sweet taste all its own,” says registered dietitian Angela Ginn, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.

4. Milk and wheat products
Why they’re RA triggers: Some foods trigger food-intolerance reactions, such as bloating, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and headaches.

If you have food sensitivities, your immune system creates antibodies every time you eat them, causing an inflammation cycle, according to Pick.

To prevent this, eliminate foods that disturb your gastrointestinal tract.

Eat this instead: Because intolerances differ by person, find out your food allergies first, then pick healthier substitutes.

In month one, Pick’s patients follow a strict month-long elimination diet that excludes common food triggers: sugar, dairy, wheat, eggs, citrus, caffeine, soy. They also keep track of physical reactions in a food diary.

In month two, they slowly reintroduce missing foods, one at a time. Any foods that produce a negative reaction are permanently removed from the plate.

“After changing diets, some patients are able to go back to their doctors and ask to be taken off their RA medications,” Pick says.