Link Dump

I've been laying low this week.

It's not by choice. The house is still wrecked, which means we're well into the second month of living in a hotel. Which means the grandparents don't have room to crash overnight when Michelle's working. Which means I have no babysitters at 5 a.m. Which means no gym. Which means I'm cranky and restless.

Maybe it's a good thing that I'm forced into taking a few days off. My right shoulder has been bothering me for over a week now, and I might as well give it some extra time to recover.

Plus, I've been slammed with work, kid stuff, and the Nom Nom Paleo iPad App. (Yes, still. We're feverishly working on a new update to fix the update that was supposed to fix the previous update, but didn't. Got that?) So getting a few extra hours of sleep is a good thing. 

I'm hitting the sack, but if you're looking for something to read, check out these links:

• The New York Times wrote up a nice piece about CrossFit and Memorial Day Murph.

• "The Paleo Diet Moves From The Gym To The Doctor's Office" (NPR)

• Our friend Stacy Toth from Paleo Parents is the "Face of Paleo" in Women's World!

• Holy crap. Tickets for this year's CrossFit Games are sold out. The Home Depot Center is at capacity. I fully expect that it'll be a bazillion times crazier than last year. (And it was already pretty insane last year.) To whet your appetite for the competition, check out the Regional summary videos here.

• The Wirecutter recently researched and wrote a lengthy piece on the best standing desks. Check it out, because your office chair is killing you.

• Last but not least: Glazed-donut-flavored vodka exists. Be afraid.

Link Dump

I was going to post about my workout today, but that would require that I actually work out.



Instead, I've just been hanging out with the family and eating insane amounts of meat while on vacation here in Cabo (and plugging along on some extracurricular homework for Nom Nom Paleo). I did, however, gather a bunch of interesting reads for you to chew on:

• This op-ed piece in The Atlantic's been making the rounds. Three longtime vegetarians and vegans discuss how they came to understand that eating meat and other animal products is not only healthful, but also ethically and environmentally sound. Read it here.

• According to the New York Times, coffee can boost your athletic performance by "enabl[ing] more forceful muscular contractions and delay[ing] fatigue.” CoffeeWOD, anyone?

• You should already be reading all of the sites featured in Outside Magazine's list of the blogosphere's top ten fitness blogs -- especially MobilityWOD, Conditioning Research, and RunBlogger.

• Is Bob Harper really going to be putting his "Biggest Loser" team on a CrossFit-focused training regimen next season? I might actually have to start watching the show again.

• Serious Eats recently posted Pat LaFrieda's video responses to readers' meat-related questions. Good stuff -- especially if you're interested in butchery.

• I enjoyed the crap out of this post on Lift Big Eat Big: "10 Excuses For Not Exercising & Why They Are Horsesh*t."

• Health Tip of the Day: Do not eat cocaine out of your brother's butt.

Bye for now.

Link Dump

It's been a while since I last barfed up a bunch of links for you to check out and chew on. So here goes:

• Denmark just became the first country to impose a "fat tax" on foods high in saturated fat. Thanks, Ancel Keys.

• The Washington Post published a piece about the "benefits" of processed food, arguing that "[i]t’s not so easy to categorize processed foods as good or bad." Really? 'Cause I think it's pretty simple.

• Did you miss Robb Wolf on Morgan Spurlock's "I, Caveman" reality show tonight? Don't fret -- the Discovery Channel's re-airing it on October 9. Set your DVRs, people.

• Septuagenarian singer Tom Jones has lost a bunch of weight on the "caveman diet." He ought to be spry enough to evade those fusillades of panties now.

• The Army Times profiled Mark Twight of Gym Jones and Mark Divine of SEALFIT as "ex-CrossFit devotees" who have taken their gyms "to the next level."

• Can you live on $30 a week? Sheila Steffen, a producer for CNN took on a "food stamp challenge," spending only her allotment of $30 in food stamps to feed herself for a week. She wrote that the $30 didn't get her very far; she bought only beans, rice, farina, chicken, pasta, broccoli, bell peppers and tomatoes. Oh, and stuff to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. As many commenters noted, Steffen didn't spend wisely, passing up nutritionally dense foods in favor of empty ones (like bread and rice).

With $30, I think I would've purchased the following: two dozen eggs ($4), five pounds of chicken thighs ($10), three pounds of ground beef ($6), and five packages of frozen broccoli ($10). Not the most varied diet in the world, but I'd be fueled up just fine.

How would you spend your $30?

Tweet Tweet

Like just about everyone else at our tech-immersed box, I've become a big fan of Twitter -- though I’d be the first to admit that I should have jumped on the bandwagon sooner. If nothing else, Twitter serves as an incredible news reader. By following the folks who share links to topics of interest to me -- including CrossFit, Paleo nutrition, minimalist footwear, etc. -- I end up with a nicely-curated selection of reading materials, videos and photos. I can also follow specific lists (say, of CrossFit Palo Alto members) or take advantage of Twitter feed aggregators like CrossTwits.

Best of all: With a 140-character limit per tweet, people on Twitter are forced to GET TO THE POINT ALREADY.

Here are just a few random items that popped up on my Twitter feed today:

• What's the connection between wheat and schizophrenia?
• Fatigued from exercising? It's all in your head.
• Steve Nash and Grant Hill appear to be eating Paleo.
• The best thing you can do with McDonald’s French fries? Sculpt a big-ass skull.
• Some guy’s body literally fused into his chair after staying seated for two years.
• Perez Hilton’s take on the Paleo diet is boring and wrong.
• Failure can be a good thing.
• I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson's workout is ridonkulous (and hazardous to your health).
• Holy crap -- two brothers (both U.S. Marines) busted out over 15 rounds (!) of Games Open WOD 11.2!
• The advice to “drink 8 glasses of water a day” has no scientific basis, so give your bladder a break.
• And while we're on that topic, I have a feeling my pee is going to smell funny for the next month.

If you're not already on Twitter, get on it. (And while you’re at it, follow me, dammit.)

Link Dump

Time for some random Internet goodness:

• Do not drink an entire bottle of soy sauce. (And not just because soy is terrible for you.)

• The Art of Manliness presents “The Napping Habits of 8 Famous Men.” (In many cases, though, it appears that they “napped” ‘cause they were on the verge of collapse from not getting enough sleep. Sometimes, lack of sleep is unavoidable -- but remember: Sleeplessness is not a sign of virility.)

• American kids think that cartoon mascots make breakfast cereals taste better. In other news, our kids are dumb.

• Speaking of cereal, check out this nostalgia nausea-inducing list of breakfast cereals of the 80s and 90s that will (hopefully) never grace your kitchen table again.

• Snooki wrestled on WWE Raw last night. I know you care.

• Men’s Fitness UK profiles Gym Jones and its new Fundamentals seminar. (Background: Gym Jones’ founder, Mark Twight, was affiliated with CrossFit early on, but moved on to develop an approach that emphasized individualized, sports-specific training. After Gym Jones received widespread attention for training the actors in “300,” CrossFit founder Greg Glassman got upset and claimed that Twight “stole” the CrossFit training program. CrossFit HQ even sent a mole to a Gym Jones seminar. Classy!)

• Gym Jones is also training the next Superman. I’m sure Glassman is steaming.

• The Dutch want you to eat bugs. “Dongen is head of the meat department at Sligro, a kind of Costco on the edge of this trim Dutch town. Besides steaks, poultry and others kinds of meat, he offers mealworms, buffalo worms, locusts and other insects, as well as prepared products containing insects like Bugs Sticks and Bugs Nuggets — not for pets, but as a source of protein for people.”

Finally, let’s just admit that all of this is trivial fluff in light of the unfolding events in Japan. When you have a moment, please donate to the relief efforts if you can. (Click here and here for more information on how you can help.)

Hump Day Link Dump

Enjoy.

• Regis Philbin shirtless: Not even close to being as bad as you think.

• Foxhunting is so 2005. If you want to hang with the cool kids, hunt humans.

• The Captain Morgan workout video isn’t nearly as funny as: (1) it thinks it is, or (2) the actual P90X videos it's parodying.

• Looks like there’s a correlation between Wal-Mart store openings and people getting fat(ter).

• Speed up the earth’s rotation and you’ll get fat and uninhibited. And if you’re already fat and uninhibited, you’ll probably become more so.

• Is dietary fat at the root of breast cancer? Or sugar? Denise Minger breaks it down.

• Not a surprise to us barefoot fanatics, but orthotics may not be the solution after all.

• Don't be a smug vegan. (Be a smug caveman instead.)

• I prefer this subway video to this subway video.

• Shocking: The L.A. Times reports that Cocoa Krispies aren't actually healthy for your kids.

• Remember the baby-swingers? Here’s an interview with one.

Where'd Everything Go?

Dunno if you've noticed, but I've been doing a bit of housekeeping around here. And just like how my kids can't seem to find their toys after I've put 'em away, you may be left wondering what happened to my blogroll, progress photos, and the links to my old daily workouts.

Everything's still here. The navigation menu above is where you can find everything that used to be in the sidebar to the right. I've added some extra stuff, too -- links to new blogs and other sites, a new shop, and some new topic summaries.

Also, I (finally) launched a Twitter feed, so hit the big blue button on the sidebar -- or click here -- to follow my sweetly tweeting ass. Let's see if I can keep my ramblings to 140 characters or less.

Link Dump: Thanksgiving Edition

It's been a long time since I served up a bunch of links -- so here goes:

• Cooking with butter this Thanksgiving? Wondering if it’s Paleo-approved? The Whole 9 folks weigh in.

• We still eat butter, by the way. We get the grassfed stuff -- KerryGold – from Trader Joe’s. Also: organic ghee from Purity Farms.

• You know your pain-in-the-butt relatives are going to ask you over Thanksgiving dinner why you’re risking your health by eating saturated fats instead of lowfat items like bread and rice. Point them to this meta-analysis, which examined 21 studies involving more than a third of a million subjects. It concluded that there is no link between saturated fat intake and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

• These researchers also pointed out that replacing saturated fat in your diet with carbs causes the formation of small, dense LDL particles – bad news! Thus, “dietary efforts to improve the increasing burden of [cardiovascular disease] risk associated with atherogenic dyslipidemia should primarily emphasize the limitation of refined carbohydrate intakes and a reduction in excess adiposity."

• Really. Throw around terms like “atherogenic dyslipidemia” at the dinner table. It’ll shut everyone up.

• And if some crazy uncle asks, tell him that contrary to reports, saturated fat won't mess up your sperm count. (Especially if you’re female.)

• Do watch your sugar and carb intake, though. According to the Healthy Skeptic, “normal” fasting blood sugar isn’t what your doctor says it is.

• But frankly, “[y]our post-meal blood sugars and A1c levels are more important” than your fasting blood sugar level. So try not to eat a doughnut-stuffed turkey, brined in Dunkin’ Donuts coolattas and served with coffee gravy and mashed hash browns.

• Another question you might be asked between bites of ham by your God-fearing family and friends: How can a good Christian go Paleo? Jimmy Moore surveyed the big names in caveman eating -- take a look and see which answer resonates best with you. (My two cents? You’re not going to fry in hell for eating Paleo. There are other, much better reasons to cast you into eternal damnation, like the fact that you secretly watched that porn clip of Maren from P90X.)

Cavemen for Christ?

• Speaking of Jimmy, he recently posted an interview with Mat Lelonde, hero to all science-minded low-carb Paleo eaters. Listen to it here.

• Try to enjoy yourself this Thanksgiving, and don’t spend the long weekend severely restricting your caloric intake and exercising like a maniac. Really – it's not good for you.

• Finally, when you're ready to work off Thursday's dinner, check out this old but super-awesome interview with Starting Strength’s Mark Rippetoe about the best way to get in shape. It’s only ten minutes long, but it’s chock-full of great fitness advice, such as: “Learn how to squat. It works more muscles than any other exercise, it’s harder, it’s a longer range of motion, and it will make more difference in your appearance over a shorter period of time than any single thing you can do. You have to learn how to squat correctly. Correctly is below parallel.”

Listen to it here:

(Photo: Tammy Green)

Another Dump

Let's kick off the week with more random links to explore:

• According to this Daily Beast photo gallery, you'd need to have sex for 3 hours and 40 minutes to work off a Chipotle Steak Burrito. On the plus side, everyone knows that steak burritos are an aphrodisiac.

• Here's a great list of 9 things to do when you're all banged up (from exercising, not working off a steak burrito).

• Are you meeting these basic strength standards?

• Another write-up about CrossFit -- this one featuring this pithy and accurate description by an affiliate owner: "Anyone out there who wants a spa environment, this is not the gym for you. Intensity is not comfortable."

• Despite appearances, the low-impact elliptical trainers hogging up all the space at your neighborhood globo-gym aren't doing any favors for your lower back.

• Can Lady Gaga can do yoga without costume changes between poses?

• Are your fitness goals (or, for that matter, any other goals) specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely? (And just what is the difference between "attainable" and "realistic" goals?)

• Training for marathons can "cause formerly healthy people to develop cardiovascular problems like increased blood pressure and stiffness in the aorta, a new study found." I guess this isn't all that surprising, given that the word "marathon" comes from the ancient Greek legend of Pheidippides, a soldier who ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the defeat of the Persians in the Battle of Marathon -- only to collapse and die upon arrival.

• The New York Times reports on the challenges of designing, marketing and selling clothing for plus-sized women:

The most formidable obstacle lies in creating a prototype. If you already have a line of clothing and a set system of sizing, you cannot simply make bigger sizes. You need whole new systems of pattern-making. “The proportions of the body change as you gain weight, but for women within a certain range of size, there is a predictability to how much, born out by research dating to the 1560s,” explained Kathleen Fasanella, who has made patterns for women’s coats and jackets for three decades. “We know pretty well what a size 6 woman will look like if she edges up to a 10; her bustline might increase an inch,” Fasanella said. “But if a woman goes from a size 16 to a 20, you just can’t say with any certainty how her dimensions will change.”

Link Dump

It's been a while since my last link dump, so this is going to be a big one. In no particular order:

Take your vitamin D.

And a cold shower.

Jesse Jackson Jr. made the list of The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful People (on Capitol Hill) – not because of his involvement in the Rod Blagojevich scandal, but because he’s a “fitness nut” who converted a racquetball court in the Congressional gym into a “space dedicated martial arts, yoga, Pilates, and the P90X exercise program.”

“Toning” shoes = snake oil.

You can work out anywhere – and not having shoes is no excuse.

Here’s how to run an ultramarathon.

The China Study is bunk, so eat some meat.

I’ve successfully made my own beef jerky. Is pemmican next?

Mark Sisson’s about to unveil his Primal Blueprint Fitness program, which will center around Workouts of the Week (WOWs) posted every Monday on his site. From the description, WOWs sound a lot like CrossFit Workouts of the Day (WODs), which led one reader to ask Sisson to distinguish between the two. In the comments section of his blog post, Sisson responded:

There will be some similarities between WOWs and WODs, but some distinct differences, too. Most notably, we’re working on constructing WOWs that:

a) occasionally use specialized equipment, but with a focus on workouts where you can use ANY kind of weight (where a dumbbell, kettlebell, weight vest, heavy rock, etc. will do equally well)

b) occasionally use specialized equipment but with weightless (i.e. bodyweight) variations also provided

In other words, Sisson's WOWs are going to be very similar to WODs, but updated less frequently, and with less equipment to buy.

Lastly, it appears that I may be an addict. (And if you’re reading this, you’re probably one, too.)

Link Dump

For those of you who think the KFC Double Down is for pussies, check out IHOP's Pancake Stackers -- a "crustless cheesecake" sandwiched between two pancakes, topped with artificially flavored fruit compote, and served with eggs, bacon and hash browns. And it contains only 1,250 calories!

I bet the increasingly girthy fast food fans over in Qatar can't wait to try out this barftastic combo.

Speaking of emetic mash-ups, half-spinning/half-yoga classes are popping up all over the place. (Well, New York, anyway.)

But before you bike like crazy, slurp down an ICEE first. As the New York Times reports, "researchers have found they can delay the time to utter exhaustion by getting people a bit chilled" prior to exercise. And apparently:

all you have to do is drink an ice slurry, also known as a slushie, before exercising. In a new study, [it was found] that young male recreational athletes who drank a syrup-flavored ice slurry just before running on a treadmill in hot room could keep going for an average of 50 minutes before they had to stop. When they drank only syrup-flavored cold water, they could run for an average of 40 minutes.

And while we're on the topic of food, we eat too much salt, as this handy (and scary) infographic shows:


Good thing PepsiCo's on the case. Rather than changing the flavor of its overly-processed snacks, PepsiCo's investing time and effort into rejiggering the crystal structure of salt to keep us happily addicted to the company's abhorrent (but tasty!) junk food.

By the way, soda makes you age faster. There's nothin' like being fat and old!

But don't worry: The Wall Street Journal tells its fat cat readers that carrying around an extra ten pounds is no big deal. (Best quote: "And it can make you look younger, too"!)

Lastly, I've been eying the Tough Mudder (which the New York Times just wrote about). But I suspect that -- as with most things that involve barbed wire, flaming hay bales, copious amounts of mud, and two-to-three hours of sustained physical exertion -- I probably won't follow through.

But the Tough Mudder home workout looks pretty decent.

Link Dump

Back at work and backlogged like crazy, so here are some links to keep you occupied until I dig my way out of email hell:

• It’s an election year, but who cares about the issues when you can dissect the diet plans of New York politicians?
• I’ve said it before: Lose your office chair and buy yourself a standing desk. (Or make one yourself.)
• Jorge Garcia (Hurley from “Lost”) is a fellow fan of Vibram FiveFingers (and also looks like he enjoyed Maui’s Surfing Goat Dairy farm as much as my pre-schooler did).
• Wondering whether your supplements are legit or just hokum? Check out this handy infographic.
• Slim Chips have zero calories. (But they’re made of paper.)
• Six words for Manhattanites (who are taking a mini-break from their diets, of course): Shake Shack Peanut Butter Bacon Burger.
• An interesting diversion: Guess which celebrity ran a faster marathon.
• Interested in a pill that fills you up so you don’t eat as much? Sounds a bit like the concept behind FullBar or edible versions of those dinosaur-shaped sponges that grow in water.
• Now that the FDA has announced that we’re eating too much salt (and that plans are afoot to place limits on the amount of salt in processed food products), MainStreet has provided a list of a dozen foods with excess sodium content.

That’s all I got. Back to the grind...

Link Dump

• Behold: the 40 deadliest fast food meals.

• A new genetic test "claims to show whether people will do better on a low-fat or a low-carb weight loss plan." Mindy Dopler Nelson, a Stanford nutritional biologist, conducted a study that concluded that "women on diets well-matched to their genes, as defined by the test, lost roughly five times more weight than those on mismatched diets." According to Nelson, "the study tested four diets -- Atkins (ultra-low-carb), the Zone (low-carb), Ornish (very low-fat) or a low-fat diet following the federal Food Pyramid." In the end, "researchers saw that women whose diets matched their genetic makeup lost more than 13 pounds over a year compared to less than 3 pounds for women on mismatched diets." 

• Could it be that Wal-Mart's produce is better than Whole Foods'?

• If you're healthy, don't go on cholesterol medications as a preventative measure. Medical experts say that statins -- "the most widely prescribed drugs in the United States -- may not be as safe a preventive medicine as previously believed for people who are at low risk of heart attacks or strokes." Among other things, "recently published evidence indicates that statins could raise a person’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 9 percent."

• The secret to touching your toes: "It's a tennis ball. You don't need to throw it, hit it or catch it. You just need to roll it under each foot for a few seconds. Then put it aside, bend down again and you're guaranteed to reach a smidge closer to the ground." Is this why Ichiro rubs his feet with a wooden dowel?

• This isn't news to anyone who's read Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories," but it's gradually getting out there that we should be eating more (good) fat: "Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, the cardiologist who led the Harvard meta-analysis that's published in current issue of the journal PLoS Medicine, says that in their zeal to rid diets of 'fat' many consumers, snack makers, and restaurateurs have loaded their meals with sugar and simple carbohydrates, instead. It's a bad trade-off for the heart."

Link Dump

Time for a dump:

• Dove, take note: Plus size models make women feel bad about themselves.

• To all compulsive bodybuilders: Do you have muscular dysmorphic disorder?

• According to the U.S.D.A., Americans' eating habits have changed quite a bit over the past 100 years.

• But are the U.S.D.A.'s guidelines trustworthy (or even understandable) in the first place?

• Does your baby need to lose some weight?

• If a blind guy can train twice a day to complete a full Ironman triathlon, you and I have no excuses.

• We've already learned that Fiji Water is evil, but unless you happen to be in a place where tap water is truly non-potable, don't waste your hard-earned dollars on any brand of bottled water:

 

Link Dump

I think it's time for a dump:

Do small changes in diet make a difference? Can eating one less cookie a day produce meaningful, lasting effects? The answer appears to be a resounding "no." To keep weight off, significant lifestyle changes are in order.

I didn't see this one coming: People can be allergic to meat.

Feel like chicken tonight (and tomorrow and the day after)? Then learn how to make 17 healthy meals out of 1 chicken and 26 bucks.

Kids: Eat an apple instead of drinking one. I remember when I went to day camp and the only snacks we got were two little graham cracker rectangles and a tiny Dixie cup of Kool-Aid. Nowadays, almost one-third of an average child’s total daily calories comes from snacks, including cookies, cake, salty/carb-y chips and pretzels, and sweet fruit drinks.

Rope burn: I'd always wondered what "The Biggest Loser" contestants were doing whipping a thick braid of manila rope up and down. Now I know.

Pavlovians, rejoice! People do really wacked-out shit in order to lose weight. Some are undergoing procedures to have a patch grafted to their tongues to make eating solid food a physically painful experience. Isn't it easier to just wire your jaw shut?

A parting tip: Stand up and throw away your office chair.

Link Dump

Time for a big dump. Warning: I'm in a preachy mood.

Evidently, the U.S. and Canada are the two laziest countries on earth.

So get off the couch and look for ways to live longer and healthier.

Take advantage of every opportunity to exercise -- like during your daily commute.

But don’t waste your time doing sit-ups:

[A] Youngstown State University study, published in the October 2009 edition of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, separated 71 men and women into three groups. The control group did no sit-ups. The other two groups performed three sets of 20 repetitions (30 seconds rest between sets) of three distinct abs exercises for 11 weeks. Group One performed the sit-ups three times a week on non-consecutive days and Group 2 trained the abs six days per week. The ab exercises increased in difficulty every four weeks and speed was regulated by a metronome.

The results surprised even the researchers. None of the three groups of exercisers demonstrated any strength gains. Nor did they reduce their waist circumference or percentage of body fat.

And try to eat better. Don’t eat so fast. By eating at a slower pace, you’ll feel fuller and reduce your caloric intake.

And while you’re at it, dine out less often. Restaurant fare can be deceptively unhealthy:

Salads, long touted as a virtuous choice, are a prime example. At IHOP, the grilled chicken Caesar salad has 1,210 calories, far more than the patty melt, which comes in at 750 calories. At Baja Fresh, a chicken tostada has 1,140 calories and 14 grams of saturated fat.

If you figure that the average person needs 2,000 calories a day, it's sobering to learn that more than half that amount can easily be consumed in a restaurant breakfast alone. And don't forget sodium. The recommended daily limit is 2,400 milligrams a day (1,500 milligrams for those who are middle-aged, are in certain ethnic groups or have conditions such as high blood pressure). Many restaurant dishes contain more than you should have in a whole day.

But you already know that, unless you're one of the few survey respondents who believe that Taco Bell helps people lose weight.

Lastly, when you’re feeling too tired to exercise, consider Aaron Heo’s regular fitness routine:

His typical workout lasts 3 1/2 hours. An hour, sometimes 90 minutes, is cardio work, a relentless regimen of 1,000-meter sprints at breakneck speed. The rest of the time is devoted to a lengthy warm-up, followed by stamina, strength and flexibility work. That can mean 1,000 to 2,000 squats per session, along with stretching, jogging and plyometrics. Then he strains against a canvas belt held by a bigger, stronger friend or coach: back and forth, over and over again.

He does this, on average, four days a week. Another two days a week, he trains on his own.

Aaron is 10 years old.

Link Dump

Happy surfing, y'all:

• Kevin Smith was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight because the captain concluded that he was too damn fat and therefore posed a "safety risk." (This wouldn't have happened to Kelly Osbourne.)

• CNN's talking about barefoot running. Have we reached a tipping point yet?

• Two multi-million-dollar class action lawsuits have been filed against Jillian Michaels, the meaner of the two trainers from NBC's "The Biggest Loser," claiming that her endorsement of a less-than-effective weight loss supplement amounts to false advertising. The two named plaintiffs say that they bought Maximum Strength Calorie Control pills because Michaels endorsed the product, but later discovered to their dismay that popping the pills didn't make their fat magically disappear. (Duh.) Is it any wonder we Americans are perceived as dumb, lazy, celebrity-obsessed, overly-litigious, greedy fatties?

• Speaking of dumb: "Registered dietitian Jill Weisenberger once had a client who kept a puzzling food journal. The calorie counts were all out of whack. The woman's tuna sandwich had 33 calories. An apple: 144. Turns out the woman was mistaking a food-calorie book's index for a calorie chart." (Source: L.A. Times)

Link Dump

Time to unload another crapload of random links:

• Some folks dismiss what Barefoot Ken Bob and other barefoot running aficionados have to say about going shoeless -- in part because many of them look like slightly-crazed hippies. But now, scientists at Harvard have confirmed that barefoot running is likely to reduce the harsh impacts that often lead to injury. "[P]eople who run barefoot, or in minimal footwear, tend to avoid 'heel-striking,' and instead land on the ball of the foot or the middle of the foot." As a result, "these runners use the architecture of the foot and leg and some clever Newtonian physics to avoid hurtful and potentially damaging impacts, equivalent to two to three times body weight, that shod heel-strikers repeatedly experience."

• According to the New York Times, "a small but growing number of evangelical churches ... have embraced mixed martial arts -- a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles -- to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low." Why are some evangelicals flocking to MMA? Because "Jesus was a fighter."

• Hardcore Burger King "superfans" are abandoning the fast food chain for healthier fare, thereby contributing to BK's two consecutive quarters of declining sales. I wonder if serving booze alongside Whoppers and fries will help lure back the "regulars."

• Speaking of food, is meat-eating incompatible with yoga?

• Take your Vitamin D. Or not.

• Lastly, what's up with the Kinesis Personal Fitness Home Gym? The sleek, austere design is certainly attractive, but if the exertion level displayed by the sweat-free, sweater-clad people in the video below is any indication, this looks like a ridiculous waste of money, time and space.

Miscellany

I'm slammed today, so I'm just going to vomit up a bunch of links for you to peruse:

• Americans are still disgustingly obese, but at least we're not getting any bigger. (So suck it, Canada. You're getting fatter.)
• The New York Times published a piece on supplements, though I'm not sure I learned much from it -- nor, for that matter, have I been able to identify the author's point. Perhaps it's simply this: "[P]eople who eat a normal diet generally don’t need nutritional supplements, even if they exercise vigorously. But among the subset of people who already eat healthfully and want to bulk up in the gym, some supplements, when taken in sensible doses, can provide a lift." Shocker.
• Also in the "No shit, Sherlock" category: The Times reports that despite New York's requirement that restaurant chains post information about the calories contained in their offerings, people still ate like pigs during the holidays. (In any event, the posting requirement is ridiculous given that calorie counts aren't even accurate.)
• Someone thinks it's a good idea to design and market a Thighmaster that plugs into your videogame console.
• Lastly, if you're into CrossFit (or looking for more information about this particular fitness approach), you might want to check out "Every Second Counts" -- a documentary about the 2008 CrossFit Games. I was considering whether to try CrossFit, but this trailer scares the bejeezus out of me: