Health and Fitness

Go Caddy Water Bottle/Gear Pack Review

Last week we posted about the importance of staying hydrated. We won’t reopen that kettle of fish but I will say that on more than one occasion I let myself get dehydrated while working on archaeological excavations in Israel and it wasn’t a whole lot of fun. So while there may be differences in opinion with regard to how much water one should drink, we can all agree that drinking water is a smart thing to do. Right? And we can all agree that drinking water beats sugary soda or diet whatever. Right? That’s what I thought. So when we…

Health and Fitness, News & Features

Garmin Introduces the Entry-Level Forerunner 10 GPS Watch for Runners

When Carly and I went for our run at GearFest in July, something that came with each of us was our GPS watch. We compared and contrasted the features and results in a video here, but the bottom line is this: we both firmly believe that using a GPS watch has made us better runners. Two of the problems with GPS watches are that they are bulky and expensive. More recently watches have dropped below $200, which is the range both of our watches cost. But the bulky part has only somewhat diminished from the Garmin 305 days to current…

Health and Fitness

When Changing Body Shape, Make Sure You Have a ‘Body Image Partner’

When you look at the image above, what do you notice after the cool car on the right and mountains in the background? For me, the answer was I didn’t like how the residual fat/skin at my ‘love handles’ showed up … but for my wife her comment was that she couldn’t believe how huge the size 32 pants looked on me. I have been losing weight as I have noted several times here, and back in early April I was pushing out of a size 40 waist – worse still, they were the type with the stretchy expander waist….

Health and Fitness

Bloomberg, Soda and the Nanny-State

Mayor Mike Bloomberg caught a good deal of flack about his proposed ban on big soda. And for good reason. After all this is (or is supposed to be) a free country isn’t it? If someone wants to drink gallons of soda, boxes of donuts or smoke pack after pack of cigarettes that is their right… Right? To many, this is a huge blow to their sense of freedom. A step forward in the installation of a nanny-state that not only invades our bedrooms but also our dining out. But maybe Bloomberg’s ultimate goal was to get debate going. If…

Health and Fitness, News & Features

Wait … That Drink Has HOW Much Caffeine?

The tremors have already shaken us – Judie quit diet coke cold turkey (and yesterday — three days in — the massive headaches started). Last week the guy at my office who picks up the recycling noted that my intake of Diet Mountain Dew was way down (to at MOST one per day), and I haven’t had any coffee at work in more than four months (and I stick to one cup in the morning at home). In other words, we here at Gear Diary are much less caffeinated than we were earlier this year. But that same trend is certainly…

Health and Fitness

Lose 20lbs and Run Faster with One Easy Step!

I have seen some bizarre iterations of treadmills, but the one I have always wanted to try is the Alter-G. It adjusts how much gravity affects you through air jets, and is used quite a bit by elite athletes and physical therapists assisting people with injuries. Effectively, by floating the runner with air, you reduce the pounding on their joints. You can also “run” much faster on it. Unfortunately, it’s a wee bit pricey, like $25,000 and up pricey. Luckily, someone has invented a more low tech but equally cool solution: the LightSpeed. Instead of crazy air jets, you use…

Health and Fitness

Gear Diary Bragging Rights, Mike’s 1/2 Marathon Edition

Last week we started our new health and fitness series. This weekend Mike put his sneakers where his mouth is. Yes, after months of training he just ran his first half marathon and – as you can see from this picture of him crossing the finish line, he made good time! Congrats Mike!

Health and Fitness

Goodbye Diet Coke, Hello Fruit Water?

You had best stay away from Judie this week. You see, after years of drinking a minimum of two Diet Cokes each morning for… years… last night she quit cold turkey. Yes, no Diet Coke for her. As she announced on Facebook, I hesitate to say anything, but i will need all the moral support you all can provide … i had my (hopefully) last diet coke this evening. i’m quitting cold turkey as of about 30 minutes ago. can i do it? we shall seeeeeee…. When many of us had expressed our concern for Kevin and… small animals Judie…

Health and Fitness

SkinnyBits, a NOT Recommended Product

Eat real food and improve your health. This is not a hard concept, and yet we all want shortcuts, no matter how badly they reek of snake oil (Shape-ups, anyone?). But nothing beats the smarmy, self-congratulatory press release we received this morning at Gear Diary. In it, we were assured of “Better Skin! Weight loss! Better nutrition!” And all it will take to accomplish this is algae tablets! Just 30 a day — though 40-100 would be even better (not surprising since the company charges $117 for 1,000 of them). Apparently, Spirulina is nature’s little miracle plant! Being the skeptical type,…

Gear Bits, Health and Fitness, News & Features

With Weight and Exercise Like Everything Else, If It Sounds Too Good To Be True …

Pretty much everyone would like to alter their body in some way: lose weight, gain weight, more muscular build, change ratios or sizes of things, and so on. And another thing you can be certain about: for every desired change there is someone waiting to try to sell you something to deal with it. There are plenty of legitimate supplements if you have a deficiency or absorption issues or whatever, but those are all things you should be getting from your doctor. Chances are that your general practitioner is NOT going to be giving you something to ‘lose 20 pounds…

Editorials, Health and Fitness

Can a Leadership Shakeup Restore Faith in Komen?

Earlier this year, I wrote about the impact of the politically motivated move made by the Komen Foundation regarding Planned Parenthood in terms of a massive backlash. A couple of months later, I noted that the backlash was having a significant impact on the very important ‘Race for the Cure’ in terms of participants — and more importantly on the level of charitable giving. Since then, there have been a number of high level departures, peaking last week with the exit of founder and CEO Nancy Brinker as well as other high level leaders (president Liz Thompson and board members Brenda…

Health and Fitness

Health Tip: Drink… a Lot

Elana’s Tip: For optimal health drink at least 64 oz of water a day. In the summer heat increase that by another 8-16oz. And if you exercise increase it further yet. Elana happens to drinks between 12 and 16 glasses of water each and every day! One way to guarantee you drink enough water is to make sure you keep water within reach throughout the day. The Go Caddy Water Bottle Holder is one way to do just that. The Go Caddy Holds a variety of bottle sizes up to 1.5 liter, of your favorite beverage. (Bottle not included). Size: 4”…

Health and Fitness, News & Features

Good News, Bad News … Obesity Rates Over 30% in 12 States, But Junk Food Laws Might Be Working

Two years ago I wrote about the ‘2009 State of Obesity’, which showed a rate rising so quickly that the map-makers needed to change the color scales AGAIN to deal with things! At that point there were 6 states with OVER 30% obesity and a single state with LESS than 20%. Now it is time again for the updated numbers and … they aren’t good. Here are the basics: 12 states now have obesity rates above 30%, though none are above 35%. 11 are between 20-25% the remaining 27 states are between 25-30% The extreme low was 20.7% in Colorado…

Health and Fitness

Easy, Tasty, Money Saving Beef Jerky

I love beef jerky. It’s a delicious, protein packed treat, but there are two issues that keep me from buying it in the store: it’s expensive, and it’s chock full of preservatives and added sugars. And I always assumed I needed a dehydrator or some other fancy bit of equipment to make my own. As it turns out, all you need is an oven! See, a few weeks ago, I stumbled across this “so easy I must have missed a step” recipe from Stupid Easy Paleo. I did some digging, compared other recipes, made some tweaks, and am ready to…

Health and Fitness, News & Features

Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby!

News flash: this summer has been HOT! As noted here, an historic amount of the world has seen record temperatures and ‘extreme heat’ this summer. Naturally, this type of heat means that it is more important than ever to keep hydrated to avoid heat-related sickness. I am currently training for a marathon (my first ever) at the end of next month, and getting ready for a half-marathon (also my first) next weekend. This has meant running more miles, harder miles, more sprints and hills, and so on. In other words – more sweat and exhaustion with less down-time. Coupled with…

Health and Fitness

Frozen Banana “Ice Cream”

Sarah and I love ice cream. However, we are trying to avoid too much dairy and added sugar, so we were cutting back on our cold summer treats. Luckily for us we discovered a replacement dessert that is cheap, tasty, and healthier, but still gives us that ice cream experience. Enter frozen banana ice cream. This recipe is so easy you will think you missed a step. It is flexible, accommodates a variety of favors, and you can go from “I want ice cream” to enjoying a frozen treat in just a few minutes. All it takes is some frozen…

Health and Fitness

Want to Get Healthy? There’s an App for That …

Yesterday we brought word of our new Gear Diary Health and Fitness Series. Withings must have been paying attention because they just released their new… and free… health and fitness app. As the release notes, Withings’ newest mobile application further simplifies the way any user can monitor and improve his or her weight, physical activity, heart and sleep quality. This free application is designed to be the ultimate health and wellness application that enables anybody to store, access and manage their weight, physical activity, heart and sleep data on a single user-friendly dashboard. I use a Withings blood pressure cuff…

Health and Fitness, News & Features

Finally Some (Mostly) Good News About Kids’ Health

When you look at the news about the health of our kids, there has been little good news over the last couple of decades: obesity, lack of activity, increased food allergies, diabetes, and on and on. So when we DO get even somewhat good news it is exciting. Here is what is getting folks going: A big government study shows that in the past decade, the proportion of children who have high cholesterol has fallen. The results are surprising, given that the childhood obesity rate didn’t budge. How can that be? Some experts think that while most kids may not…

Health and Fitness

Introducing “Gear Diary Health And Fitness Tips”

You may have noticed over the last year or so that we have sprinkled an increasing number of fitness related posts and tips throughout Gear Diary. All of us have an interest and have taken active steps toward becoming healthier, and we want to share more of these experiences with our readers. Too often, people say it is too expensive or complicated to get, and stay, healthy. The truth is, if you know where to shop, what steps to take, and what ingredients to keep on hand it really isn’t. In fact, it is not only easy, but eating and…

Health and Fitness

The Narrative of the Olympics Is What the Media Wants It to Be

The fascinating part of the Olympics to me isn’t just how badly NBC manages to screw everyone. It isn’t even the athletic achievements. What really catches my attention is the way certain stories are presented. We get fed storylines by the media to make us feel sympathetic towards one athlete, or disdainful towards another. It’s amazing how perspective on someone’s story makes a huge difference. Let’s look at the story of athlete A. There were major expectations placed on this athlete in Beijing, and she sadly failed to deliver. In the four years since, she’s suffered some ups and downs,…

Health and Fitness, Reviews

Nom Nom Paleo Recipe App Review

Sarah and I are attempting to improve our eating habits, and a big part of that is adapting a more “Paleo” style of eating. This means cutting out grains, sugar, legumes, and focusing heavily on protein, fat, fruit, and vegetables. We can come up with some basic recipes on our own, but we would get bored quickly eating the same few dishes. One of my friends has been advocating the Paleo diet and recommended the “Nom Nom Paleo” app for the iPad, and I am thrilled that he did! The app itself is visually stunning. You can flip through recipes…

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