October 14th, 2008 — Chinese, Food from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Newsweek has a useful article today by Tina Peng titled Unhealthy Chinese-Food Choices listing the seven worst choices at a Chinese restaurant.
Fried rice
Lo mein
Chow fun
Crispy (orange) beef
Lemon chicken
General Tso’s chicken
Barbequed spare ribs
Why were some of those foods bad? Fat, sodium, and calories. All pack more than you think but those are the worst offenders. What [...]
September 27th, 2008 — General, Roundup from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Lazy Man has some good tips for dealing with childhood obesity, here’s one: “Introduce your children to a wide variety of foods, including lots of fruits and vegetables. Consuming lots of fresh produce is a great way to promote healthy eating, and giving your kids variety increases the chances of them finding produce that they [...]
Continue reading → Weekly Roundup: Childhood Obesity, Breastmilk & Book Reviews
September 24th, 2008 — Food from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
The List Universe has a list of ten things that are surprisingly good for you, which really means they’re healthier than you may think. The reality is that most things that are bad aren’t that bad when taken in moderation, but I was very happy to learn that Ice Cream made the list at #1.
Ice-cream [...]
Continue reading → 10 Things That Are Surprisingly Good For You
September 18th, 2008 — Asparagus, Food, Pine Nuts, Pomegranates, green tea, weight loss, whole grains from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Ever get tired of seeing all those green tea weight loss advertisements everywhere? Think they’re scams? Turns out they’re, green tea anyway, actually on the list of five foods that can help you lose weight according to Dr. Maoshing Ni, author of Ask. Dr. Mao on Yahoo! Health.
The five foods are:
Whole Grains: He specifically [...]
Continue reading → 5 Weight Loss Foods: Grains, Asparagus, Pomegranates, Nuts & Green Tea
September 17th, 2008 — General, weight loss from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Israel recently posted that he would be ditching the scale and weekly weigh-ins because seeing only a one pound drop on Monday really threw his head in for a loop. He’s a smart guy, he knows that it’s just a number and that he’s not a failure, but he’s also human. I personally don’t focus [...]
September 15th, 2008 — General, Hiking from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
This weekend, my wife and I visited some friends who live in the Poughkeepsie, NY area and, among other things, hiking a little trail Saturday afternoon. It was labeled a “moderately difficult” trail that had an estimated three hours round-trip completion time so we headed up there around 2 pm. My wife and I, and [...]
September 10th, 2008 — Food, Hiking, Trail Mix from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
On my desk is a bag of PLanter’s Trail Mix - Fruit and Nut. It’s a pretty good medley of nuts and fruit actually, some peanuts, raisins, banana chips, cashews, pineapple, cranberries and even some papaya. It’s absolutely delicious. It’s also jam packed with a lot of fat (good and bad fats), calories, and sugar. [...]
September 6th, 2008 — FullBar, Roundup, squats from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Israel received a box of FullBars, a product created by Dr. Michael Snyder. It’s designed to make you feel full and Israel says it does a great job of doing just that.
Lazy Man shares the right way to do squats. “Squats are perhaps one of the most misunderstood strength training exercises. They can be very [...]
Continue reading → Weekly Roundup: FullBars, Squats, and a Book Review
September 4th, 2008 — General, Sleep from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
I’ve always heard that eight hours of sleep is the optimal amount of sleep every person needs, but I honestly get around 6-7 hours each night. After about that long, I start waking up and my brain starts thinking… and then I can’t get it to stop. After a while, it’s really just me lying [...]
September 2nd, 2008 — weight loss from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
A round trip around the nearby lake is three miles and if you were to walk it, takes about an hour or so (depends on how leisurely you want to take it) to get there and back. It’s not a strenuous walk by any stretch and on a nice day you probably wouldn’t even break [...]
September 1st, 2008 — General from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Mr. Low Body Fat, the newest addition to the Fitness Health Network, has posted the newest inspirational post about Dr. Kal Chinyere (Lost 130+ Pounds!).
JD of Get Fit Slowly wonders if increasing portion sizes are affecting our health, I think they are. As portion sizes increase, mostly for competition reasons (store A has more than [...]
Continue reading → Roundup: Welcome Mr. Low Body Fat & Other Goodies
August 28th, 2008 — General, Welcome from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Today I’m proud to introduce a new addition to the Fitness Health Network, Mr. Low Body Fat!
The story of a 310 lb. college English professor transformed into a lean inspirational health machine is one that’s graced the pages of CNN. If you want to read Muata’s journey, he’s chronicled it for all to read [...]
August 26th, 2008 — Bike, Gadgets from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Last week, my wife and I bought brand new Schwinn Midtown bicycles from Costco. Since then, we’ve been riding around town without a care in the world! Actually, I’ve been doing a lot of riding during the day as a way to unwind and relax and it’s been such weather for it too here in [...]
August 25th, 2008 — Roundup from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
I spent this past weekend at Ocean City, MD and didn’t get a chance to put up the roundup before I left. I am happy to report that I have returned, sans a sun burn, and am here with this week’s goodies. As an added bonus (for us, not really for you), my wife and [...]
August 25th, 2008 — Cholesterol, Food, eggs from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
I remember watching old movies where you’d see body builders consume a dozen raw eggs for breakfast. I mean these guys would be filling up a cup of the good stuff and chugging it down as a source of quick source protein. Since then, with the advent of whey protein powders and shakes and reports [...]
August 20th, 2008 — Adidas, Gadgets, Garmin, Nike, Watches, wii fit from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
One of last week’s Deal of the Day at SmartMoney was a look at seven gadgets that might help you get in better shape and they ran the gamut of accessories:
Suunto wrist-top computer
Nike + iPod Sport Kit
Adidas-Polar Project Fusion
Diet and Exercise Assistant for Palm OS
Garmin Forerunner
Wii Fit
PumpOne
It was cool to see the Wii Fit in [...]
August 18th, 2008 — Energy Drinks, Food, Red Bull from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Hmmm… the first time I saw Red Bull was on a trip to China when I was a teenager, about a dozen years ago. We saw the bus driver drinking these cans and thought he was getting drunk! It wasn’t until we inspected the can did we learn that these were energy drinks, which hadn’t [...]
August 13th, 2008 — Food, Michael Phelps, Olympics from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
The New York Post has an article today about the diet of swimmer Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps eats an amazing 12,000 calories a day (vs. a typical diet of 2,000 calories) and is well on his way to trying to beat mark Spitz’s record of 7 gold medals in an Olympics. The man has already [...]
August 13th, 2008 — Food, caffeine, coffee from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
The New York Times recently took a look at America’s #1 beverage, coffee, and the ingredient that makes people drink, caffeine, the most widely used drug. The article has a lot of facts but here were the ones that stood out for me:
There’s a list of how many milligrams of caffeine is present in average [...]
August 11th, 2008 — Food, spinach from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Popeye used to eat the stuff by the can when he needed a little ‘pick me up’ against that brute Bruno. I like to grab a whole bunch whenever I make a salad. What is this awesome leafy green? None other than Spinach. Spinach is a leafy green vegetable that is packed with an incredible [...]
August 10th, 2008 — Roundup from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
There’s a great post at Fat Man Unleashed: Why are we fatter than the animals at the zoo!? Part of the reason is that “cooking food makes us fat and unhealthy is that heating a food above 118 F destroys its precious enzymes.” I’ve been reading a lot about raw diets and how good they [...]
August 7th, 2008 — Food, Volumetrics, diets from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Volumetrics is a diet plan developed by nutritionist Barbara Rolls, PhD, with one aim in mind - fill you up with food that is low in calories but high in volume (volumetrics! get it!?). She explains the Volumetrics diet in a 2000 book titled The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan and then in 2005 with The Volumetrics [...]
August 6th, 2008 — Funny, General from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
For your Wednesday afternoon enjoyment, I saw this AskMen.com gem of a top ten list - Top Ten Things Only Men Can Do.
One of my favorites has to be #9 - Hold our liquor simply because the photo is hilarious. I have to contest this one though because even though we may be able to [...]
August 4th, 2008 — Eggplant, Food, Garden, tomatoes from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
This spring and summer, my wife and I have restarted our patio garden and planted some tomatoes, hot peppers, and bell peppers. So far we’ve only harvested a handful of patio and Roma tomatoes but they’ve tasted fantastic. We did it for several reasons:
There is entertainment value out of growing your own fruits and vegetables,
It’s [...]
August 2nd, 2008 — Roundup from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Lazy Man reviews Bowflex SelectTech 552 Dumbbells, one of those “dumbbell systems” where you have one set and multiple weight configurations.
Fat Man Unleased has an unreal bicep routine that’ll teach you how to build the ultimate bicep. The image is chilling but the routine seems straightforward and effective.
Kevin at Weight Ladder shares the Beck Diet, [...]
Continue reading → Weekly Roundup: Dumbells, Thin Thinking & Unreal Biceps
July 31st, 2008 — Avocado, Cholesterol, Food, HDL, LDL, Lycopene, tomatoes from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
As a child I never had the opportunity to eat much avocado. I’m Chinese and avocado simply didn’t make its way into many, or any, of the meals my mom prepared so I wasn’t exposed to the delicious treat until much later. I think my first try was sometime in college when I tried guacamole, [...]
July 29th, 2008 — Bile, Body Hacks, Urine, hydration from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
With a double header softball game this afternoon in what will undoubtedly be a hot day, hydration is always on my mind. Dehydration can hit pretty quickly when you’re running around outside in the sun and it can affect your mood and athletic performance in insidious ways. You’ll get moody, cranky, and miserable to be [...]
July 27th, 2008 — Roundup from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Much like Lazy Man, I’m a huge fan of edamame and am surprised to hear that soy products may lower sperm count. Darn darn darn, I need my spermies!
Kevin at Weight Ladder has some good tips for making lifestyle changes.
Israel asks an interesting question, why is it that we’re fatter than animals at the zoo? [...]
July 24th, 2008 — Fat, Fish, Food from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Earlier this week I wrote about why Omega-3 fatty acids are important and discovered that it’s not only important to eat Omega-3 oils but it’s important to ensure your Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids are in proper balance. Both are essential but the proper ratio is necessary because both compete for the same metabolic enzymes. [...]
July 22nd, 2008 — Fat, Fish, Food from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Omega-3 fatty acids are good for you, that’s something we’ve known for quite some time now, but do we know why? I didn’t until I did some research.
Why Omega-3
Omega-3 fatty acids are family of unsaturated fatty acids that your body can’t make itself and it’s an essential nutrient for your body. What exactly is the [...]
July 21st, 2008 — Cholesterol, Daily Recommended Values, Fat, Fiber, Food, Saturated Fat, calories, carbs, protein, sodium from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Do you know what the daily recommended values (DV) are for everything on that nutrition label? It’s like budgeting, you don’t know if you’re doing well or doing poorly unless you have a reference point. Daily recommended values is the FDA’s way of setting reference points and it’s important to know what they are, even [...]
July 20th, 2008 — Roundup from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
I had no idea there was an Overeaters Anonymous but it’s great that such an organization exists, this week at Fat Man Unleashed there is a guest post by Jenny Clark about the group. She gives us an inside look at Overeaters Anonymous meetings.
Can walking prevent a common cold? I’m surprised to find out that [...]
July 16th, 2008 — Food, diets from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Which is best? Low carbs? Low fat? Or the Mediterranean diet chock full of healthy fats, fruits, and veggies? Turns out that conventional wisdom, where lower fat is always better, doesn’t always win out and the latest study shows that low carbs is actually the biggest winner. This was a story featured on ABCNews and [...]
July 15th, 2008 — Carcinogens, Food, Nitrates, Nitrites from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Nitrates, and nitrites like sodium nitrite, are additives. They were added processed foods, usually meats like cold cuts and hot dogs, to fight botulism. The unfortunate part is that they can form nitrosamines in our intestines once they are digested. Nitrosamines are bad because they might be carcinogenic.
Does that mean you should avoid processed foods [...]
July 13th, 2008 — Roundup from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
A few weeks ago I decided I’d like to pick up golf. Since then I’ve been practicing on my back deck hitting balls into a net from my little path of artificial turf heaven. My father had given me his old set of clubs, which were in great condition, and so I pretty started up [...]
July 10th, 2008 — Best Food, Food, weight loss from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
My wife used to drink a lot of apple juice as a child. She absolutely loved the stuff. Me? The only juice I ever drank was orange juice. Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice, usually with as much of that juicy fiberous pump as humanly possible. I always thought apple juice was like sugar water and [...]
July 9th, 2008 — Gatorade, Medical, Powerade, Softball, hydration from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Every Tuesday for the last two months I’ve played in a work softball league that starts around 6 PM. Fortunately in the last few weeks our games have been played in relatively mild temperatures, but there was a stretch where the temperatures were pretty high. Well, I’m an outfielder, generally center right or center left [...]
July 8th, 2008 — Food, Worst Food from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to a carnival but the same types of food served there are also served at local Renaissance festivals, wine festivals, and, well, every other festival. Newsweek took a crack at the most unhealthy carnival foods:
Deep fried Oreos
Cotton candy
Corn dogs
Deep fried Twinkie (detecting a trend?)
Snow cone
Funnel cake - [...]
July 3rd, 2008 — Butter, Food, Margarine from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
It’s gotten to the point where I don’t know if margarine is good for you, bad for you, better than butter, worse than butter, which is it? The flip flopping by the scientific community has my head in a spin and I have no idea which way is up. Fortunately, in the confusion, science has [...]
July 2nd, 2008 — Food from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Beets and cabbage have headlined the latest “best foods you’re not eating” article, this time on the Well column of the New York Times. Author Tara Parker-Pope listed these items as foods you should be eating but probably aren’t (along with simple preparation methods):
1. Beets
2. Cabbage
3. Swiss chard
4. Cinnamon
5. Pomegranate juice
6. Prunes
7. Pumpkin seeds
8. Sardines
9. [...]
July 1st, 2008 — General from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
My wife and I have the great pleasure of living within walking distance of a nice man-made lake. The total distance from our front door, around the lake, and back is approximately three miles. Our neighbor, who has lived here for quite some time, gave us the estimate of the length and we’ve never had [...]
June 30th, 2008 — weight loss from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
One pound of fat equals three thousand, five hundred calories.
If you want to lose weight, your body needs to run at a deficit. If you eat 3500 fewer calories a week, you can expect to drop a pound of fat. If eating 3500 fewer calories seems unreasonable, especially if the typical diet is 2000 calories [...]
June 30th, 2008 — General, Myths from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Many many years ago, someone told me that if you kept bulking up and then stopped, all of your muscles would be converted into fat. That’s right, muscles that were not used would magically turn into fat.
Wrong.
Wrong and a bit insulting to one’s intelligence I might add. Muscle and fat are two entirely different tissues [...]
June 28th, 2008 — Roundup from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Week one has been a success though my elbow continues to make a clicking noise. I’ve been more cognizant of the way I’ve been holding the bar at Body Pump during the leg track, when I believe I hurt my elbow three weeks ago, and haven’t experienced as much soreness as last week. The clicking [...]
Continue reading → 100 Pushups Update: Week One Done, Elbow Issues
June 26th, 2008 — Golf, Sports, injury from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
I’ve recently picked up golfing, a sport that my dad is an avid fan of. I remember, many years ago, watching him practice for hours each night. He’d stand on the back deck and hit balls into a practice net over and over and over again. Never, in the years I’ve watched him do this, [...]
June 25th, 2008 — 100 Pushups, workout from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Last week I took a break because of elbow and wrist soreness and pain, this week I’m back on track having gone to Body Pump on Tuesday and restarting the 100 Pushups regime on Monday. I just finished up Week One, Day Two with good results despite the layoff.
What I like the most about the [...]
June 24th, 2008 — Beer, Food, Small Changes, soda from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
Cut one 120 calorie soda or one 120 calorie beer a week and you’ll lose some serious weight.
A pound of fat is about 3500 calories, so cutting a 120 a week for a year would save you 1.8 lb. of fat a year. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, that’s one soda a week. [...]
June 23rd, 2008 — Food, atkins, diets from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
If you’ve ever heard of the Atkins diet then you’re familiar with one of the most popular high protein, low carbohydrate diets. The idea behind high protein and low carbohydrate diets is that you get approximately 30-50% of your calories from proteins, which is much higher than what the American Heart Association, the National Cholesterol [...]
June 22nd, 2008 — Food, General from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
I mentioned earlier that my wife and I might go vegetarian for a week and so I began researching some vegetarian sources of protein. As it turns out, there are plenty of proteins out there from non-meat sources so I figured I’d find five that could be our staples. The five are:
Beans
Tofu
Peanut Butter
Lentils
Broccoli
This whole vegetarian [...]
June 20th, 2008 — Food from jim @ Journal of Healthy Living
I heart me some meat. I like steak, I like burgers, I like chicken, I like wings, I like pork and I’ll even have some lamb on occasion, though that’s a bit of a pricier cut. I’m a fan of meat and have been for quite some time now. However lately, my love of meat [...]