Food and Fitness IQ

Thank you, CNN Health, for posting something useful. Below, I've provided links to their food and fitness IQ tests. Finding out correct answers can be really eye-opening and maybe shock you into changing a habit or two. I'm trying to stay on the healthy end of living as much as I can, given my family's double whammies of diabetes and heart disease in maternal and paternal grandparents, as well as breast cancer discovered in every generation of my mom's family.


First, figure out how much you really know about what you consume.

Second, get some tips on fitting exercise into your day.

Last, get going on making a successful transition to more a healthful lifestyle.


Okay, well, I've just finished reading a second article on CNN Health, and now I'm puzzled. It reports on a new study comparing dieting alone vs. exercise + diet, and some of the statements made both conflict and confuse things that I already know. Por ejemplo:

"And their carefully controlled study added to evidence that adding muscle mass does not somehow boost metabolism and help dieters take off even more weight."

But contrast this with an exerpt from an NIH study: "Sixteen weeks of high intensity strength training resulted in increased upper and lower body strength, improved muscle quality, and muscle fiber hypertrophy. This was paralleled by favorable metabolic changes in biochemical parameters known to influence insulin sensitivity including increased adiponectin levels and decreased FFA and CRP levels." Am I wrong in interpreting this to mean that metabolism does in fact increase? Could both articles possibly be right, in that boosted metabolism can influence insulin levels but not react with weight gain factors? Or is the former claim stating, which I believe it is, that additional muscle mass does not increase metabolism period, which would then put the two statements at odds?

I do put faith in Dr. Ravussin's (author of the study highlighted in the CNN article) statement that " 'This suggests that "individuals are genetically programmed for fat storage in a particular pattern and that this programming cannot easily be overcome.' " But does that in and of itself necessarily contradict the previously assumed link between increased metabolism due to lean muscle mass gain?

He suggests, as almost every other healthy living advocate does, an adoption of healthful diets and regular exercise as the solution to maintaining an appropriate weight. I do agree with this, and I've tried to make this a lifestyle goal. However, I know I'm not a scientist, but I still stand by a lot of the anecdotal and personal evidence that I've encountered. Sufficed to say, I'll stick to my guns, but I welcome anybody who can dispel my confusion. Thanks!

:)

kim's questions

there are so many that i could answer "neither," but in the spirit of the post, i'll do my best and choose.

Questions for my readers...

Feel free to answer in comments.

1. Barry Manilow or Neil Diamond? Barry Manilow--Copacabana puts him over the top
   
2. Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert? Jon Stewart--i like how he's a *little* less over-the-top
   
3. Coldstone Creamery or Maggie Moos? Coldstone, hands down
   
4. Democrat or Republican? Dem
   
5. Jack Bauer or McGuyver? McGuyver--i prefer a non-killing hero, a la the A Team
   
6. Running or walking? running, soon to be triathlon-ing
   
7. The Beatles or Elvis? the beatles--lesser of two evils for me
   
8. Honda or Toyota? which one has the uglier hybrid? whichever one that is, i don't pick it
   
9. Ford or Chevy? which one is less likelier to fall apart? i'll pick that one
   
10. Harold and Kumar or Cheech and Chong? Harold and Kumar
    
11. Sirius or XM? XM--i laugh at sirius b/c they have an mp3 player called the "iPod killer," so named b/c it's "cheaper" and will thus sell better. and, it only costs $300, and the subscription is only $6/month. so that means, for one year only, the thing costs $372, and $72 every year after? and you don't even get to make up a playlist? are you serious? hehehehehehehehe.
    
12. Coke or Pepsi? coke. duh.
    
13. Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi? diet coke. duh.
    
14. Chipotle or Baja Fresh? chipotle, although i miss being able to go to noodles on a regular basis
    
15. Mountains or Beach? beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach all the way--favorite is costa del sol, spain
    
16. Dilbert or The Office? i'm just going to take a stab at it, since i've never actually paid attention to either one, but i'll pick The Office, just b/c Dilbert seems so annoyingly ubiquitous.
    

Can i give my OWN answers that aren't part of the choices for the ones where i hate both equally?

1. Carol King
7. Elvis... Costello
8. Saab
9. Pontiac
14. Noodles
16. Office Space

check check check check it out

below right--"the norbert wiener center for harmonic analysis"

that's where chris slaves away.

hey buckeyes--

ha ha, ha ha ha ha, ha ha.

ha.

reason #1 why Ohio State should lose the BCS championship

their band played the love theme from 'titanic' at halftime.

how do things like this happen?

i have so many questions and defenses and accusations, and it all seems to me to be a bit... i don't know. but, there are some questions that i've been mulling over--
**at what point does a person accept disingenuity for the sake of keeping the peace? when does tact trump honesty?
**when or should someone censor him- or herself, if he or she has been able to enjoy an egalitarian arena of expression? criticism and negative response should come as no surprise. but, at the same time, if the medium is such that it paradoxically makes one voice heard and infinitesimal, should this person necessarily alter the nature and/or essence of the product?
**at what point does it become selfish to demand the writer or reader to change while the other remains unchanged? when is sacrifice and compromise reasonably expected of either party?
**why is it so much harder as adults?

whatever this is, it breaks my heart, largely because it is an indicator that there is a suddenly realized estrangement that has subconciously existed for a surprisingly long period of time. and it seems that things may get worse before they get better. that's not at all a way of saying that i don't want improvement and healing and detente, because i do want those things. rather, it is simply a statement of fact, as the layers meant to hide hurt have been irrevocably burned, and now everything is going to be revealed to the open air.

and, as hindsight is often wiser, let me recommend this--please don't try to discern who i am from reading a blog. it is spotty and incomplete and doesn't show all of me for who i am. it's hurtful to me to think that i must be so shallow and vapid as to be completely understandable from the words on a webpage. so just don't.

a brick in the face

oh geez.... after nearly two weeks off from school, the alarm at 5:30AM hit me hard. i was really surprised at how energetic i was, as i was able to throw a few improv things into the lessons, just to get the kids back into the swing of things. all of us were even able to avoid climbing the walls, which was something i was dreading. my mom's students were apparently insane and really hard to get under control. am i that much of a killjoy for my kids? :) at the end of the day, the girls had basketball practice, and joelle and i decided to try an experiment. we played "good coach/bad coach." i DARE you to guess which one i was. anyway, we tried it because the girls had a *really* bad, lazy game before this practice, and joelle and i were sick of the apathy. i think that some of the girls were a bit surprised because they didn't expect me to lay into them so much. i didn't yell, but i get really annoyed at not paying attention to the coach, especially talking while she's talking. so we worked on getting stronger and faster... by doing more suicides, crunches and push-ups. ha-HA! hopefully, it got the point across that joelle and i want them to do well, but they also need to work hard if they want to win. they'll do fine.

as soon as i got home--5:30PM--i bonked. for non-marathoners, that means that you hit the wall and hit it hella hard. you are done. you have no energy. you want to collapse and sleep for ten years. THAT is what it means to bonk. i suppose that's only to be expected on the first day back. but it's 2.5 hours later, and i still lack energy to boil water for any dinner. hopefully, i'll be able to throw something together before i pass out. that's going to be soon.

and just because i'm me, i refuse to drink red bull or anything of that ilk. so i'll be a slug instead.

banned words list

i think we all owe Lake Superior State University a big "thank you" for posting its annual banned words list. among the ones the provoke my hearty "AMEN!" are A) combined celebrity names ("bennifer," et al), B) chipotle--sorry, but it's a noun, not an adjective that can describe every food that needs to not taste gross all on its own, and C) the phrase "we're pregnant." that one is especially annoying to me. why do men feel the need to appropriate a world of pain owned by women? and why would women want to share the hard-earned "glow" and the pawing that they get from some irresistable magnetism that makes rude strangers want to touch their mid-section? maybe men feel left out of the "awww, beautiful mother" thing and the "no experience like the birth of your child" stuff, blah blah blah, puke puke puke. now it may seem like i'm cynical or whatever, and, believe it or not, i do hope for children of my own someday. but no matter how earth-shattering something is, and perhaps precisely because it is so momentus, it shouldn't be trivialized by such a non-sensical utterance just for the sake of showing that it's shared.

i'd love to hear any other words/phrases that need to be kicked out of our daily lexicon. are there any takers?

new year's, 2006-2007

this new year's eve, chris and i went to todd and kim's party out in who-knows-where-ville. small but sincere crowd, and i have never sucked at "asshole" like i did last night. usually, i'm president quite often. at least i wasn't beer bitch...

i have no idea what this very involved conversation was about. my attention span was shot by then.

mariano and jess

nick mason and friend

todd's cat bugsy

almost 12:00!! mary, kim, todd & dustin

chris

we're having a great time. and yes, chris is drinking a light mike's lemonade; feel free to make fun of him for this. but seriously, we did have fun, and we're excited about 2007!

new york 2006

so mom and dad and i took thomas to nyc the thursday after christmas. it was his first time there, so it was pretty funny when he realized, as we were traveling through the lincoln tunnel, that we were underwater. all in all, we had a good time, and thomas can't wait to go back.

a mecca for bibliophiles, the new york public library; i wish i could live there...

thomas in front of st. patrick's cathedral

thomas in the west side of times square

the hole at the wtc is being filled in...

dad and me in the world financial center

dad, thomas, and mom

squishy statue of liberty

pokey head

thomas at the nyse

dad and mom on wall street

thomas... on thomas street

brownies are my weakness

so i made brownies for kim & todd's new year's thing last night. they're very rich. and moist. i'm eating them right now... :)

here are some christmas 2006 pix:

grandma

thomas (my parents' exchange student) and toby

geoff and dad

i am so jealous of mia's kitchen...

mom is enjoying the food

benicio

manny

yeah, it's some gratuitous cleavage on my blog, but this is honestly the best picture of me and clara. deal with it.