Life is Healthy

If it’s out of sight, it’s out of my mind (except when it comes to certain types of food, unfortunately…I could think of chocolate chip cookies or banana bread or au gratin potatoes all day and they don’t have to be in my range of sight….mmmmm….cookies…bread….potatoes….See? I’m doing it again.)

How I mean “out of sight out of mind” today, at least, is that I tend to throw emails and links into a folder I named Blog Ideas thinking I’ll actually LOOK in the folder once in awhile for…well…blog ideas. I was just about to add another link to the folder this morning when I actually OPENED the folder and realized I haven’t looked inside in months. Umm….yeah. So I decided to clean house, as it were, and pass on a few of the links and stories I thought you might be interested in.

#1 – Blogs

I get info from a lot of various blogs. Some days I go from blog to blog – reading and clicking, reading and clicking – before waking up hours later from a blog-induced haze. In many ways, the blogging world is a lot like the old game “Telephone.” For instance, I read on Cranky Fitness that Fitness Fixation had a blog entry about the appalling pink patch that’s being marketed to teenage girls. BIG ugh. As if girls don’t have enough pressure to be thin. Anyway, I’m glad I discovered Cranky Fitness and have added it to my blog roll on the left.

#2 – iTunes Fitness Videos and Podcasts

I’m an iTunes junkie. More specifically, a podcast junkie. Each week I download: The News From Lake Wobegon, Audio Dharma, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, Meditation Oasis, Car Talk, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, This American Life, and Real Time with Bill Maher. I listen to them while I work out. I’ve stopped getting embarrassed when I laugh out loud at the gym. The people around me are used to the crazy lady on the arc trainer by now.

I got an email from the producers of Exercise TV a few months ago asking me to check out their new line of exercise videos on iTunes. I went to iTunes this morning to check out Everyday Yoga & Pilates, Ultimate Sculpt & Tone, and Slim Down Secrets. I looked at the 30-second clips of each segment (there are five workouts in each program) and read the few reviews that are posted, but it’s hard to make an assessment that way. Call me cheap, but I didn’t want to spend the $1.99 per episode or $8.99 per program to find out if I liked them or not, mostly because in the clips, the instructor was doing something with his or her wrists and shoulders that I would find profoundly painful if not impossible to do given the old Arthur-itis in those regions of my body. I apologize to the producers for not being able to give a more accurate review (or more timely), but if any of you reading this have checked these workouts out, please let me us know what you think of them.

Also, let us know what podcasts you like to listen to while you work out.

#3 – Potato chip lawsuit

Another link I had tucked away in my Blog Ideas folder is the CNN story “Settlement reached in potato chip lawsuit.” The first line of the story was the first thing to set me off: “Snack lovers, rejoice: Munching on potato chips just got a little healthier.” Right…like eating chips is EVERY healthy *insert big eye roll*

Anyway, what happened was that in August, four food manufacturers agreed to reduce the amount of acrylamide in their potato chips. The state of California alleged that acrylamide causes cancer. This is where being married to a biochemist comes in handy. I asked him to give me the real scoop on this alleged carcinogen, and here’s what he said:

“Acrylamide is one of the nastiest chemicals I work with. We use a lot of the pure solid powder, under careful conditions, and worry about it as a neurotoxin, not so much as a carcinogen. No one I know of has ever had any health problems. Having said that, the levels in chips and fries are so small that the real problem is, ‘Why are you eating so many chips and fries?’ The health risks from obesity are more real. It’s another example of processed foods converting nature’s chemicals into something unintended. And this story has been bouncing around for about 3-4 years now in the science lit.”

So potato chips with lower levels of acrylamide probably carry the same low cancer risk as chips produced with high levels of acrylamide, but it doesn’t mean we should EAT potato chips in the first place. (Full disclosure: I think about potato chips when they’re not in my house, too.)

So there you have it. I’ve cleaned out my Blog Ideas folder. Several “ideas” got dumped in recycling. They seemed interesting at the time I read them, but have not kept my interest over the last few months. I guess Blog Ideas are like clothing. If you don’t wear something for a year (and not because it doesn’t fit), time to get rid of them.

I’ll still pass along ideas I get in emails and blogs from time to time, but I promise to never share the “Before our father's death my mother died during giving birth of my younger sister and my sister is now critical ill with Cancer aliment. It is our desire to contact you to assist us urgently in receiving the sum of $26,600,000(Twenty Six Million six hundred United States Dollars) inherited from our late father Dr Leonard G. Las to your country for investment” emails with you. I netted three of them this week. Talk about *big eye roll*.

Happy Sunday, all!