Finally Getting Fit

I do this sort of thing on Fiction Scribe when there are a lot of interesting things I’ve read lately that I want to point to. I haven’t really had a need to do so here until things piled up on me this week.

So here we go!

Hanlie at Fertile Healthy has caught the Blah Bug that I’ve been dealing with the past few days. Head over and show her some love.

Cammy at Tippy Toe Diet has a giveaway going on for folks in the US. That doesn’t include me, so I figured I would promote it instead of entering. A copy of Eric R. Braverman’s Younger (Thinner) You Diet is up for grabs.

Foodie McBody at FoodFoodBodyBody put up a post last week that I have been itching to comment on here ever since I read it. Be Mindful, and Don’t Suffer is a post about Foodie’s ‘body philosophy’ for lack of better words. She talks about being mindful, being thankful, paying attention to what you eat and more. All points that I think most - if not all - of the diet plans, systems, etc miss completely. Definitely worth a read.

Why Health Advice on Oprah Could Make You Sick - Yes, there actually is someone out there who isn’t a fan of Oprah. This is a long article on how Oprah apparently doesn’t realize just how much she influences people and how she ‘innocently’ gears her shows to ‘innocently’ support causes she sometimes later denies. All up, it’s a reminder that we’re all different, so no one can be a true, infallible expert.

And there you have it! All the bits and bobs I’ve been wanting to point out over the past week or so.

It’s no secret that we live in a world filled with sugar and chemicals. If you’re not eating them, you’re rubbing them on your body, putting them in your hair, putting them on your face and whatever else. Even though a lot of us know this, we just don’t seem to care.

Well, I care.

Probably about half a year ago or so, I had allergy testing done by a naturopath. I reacted to a few things, I reacted highly to sulphur. Go figure, right? As it turns out, sulphur isn’t just in beans – it’s in nearly every bathroom thing you use. Shampoo, conditioner, lotion, makeup, face wash and more.

After finding out that I was reacting to it, I had to get rid of every single toiletry I had except two: a super sensitive facial wash and a bottle of lotion. Both made by St. Ives. I even had to get rid of my soap.

It can be kind of intimidating to start looking into all this stuff, so I found this video that touches on sulphur – sodium laurel sulphate – as well as other things to get you started.

If you’re at all interested – and you should be for the sake of your health and your family’s health – start doing some research.

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Be sure to stop back tomorrow. For the rest of the week I have special guest Dr. Dawson Church stopping in to talk about his most recently published book The Genie in Your Genes, the science of epigenetics and what it all means for people like you and me in regards to getting our health on the right track.

Note: While this news report states that the death toll is around 60, we have news reports already this morning that the toll has risen to 108. And there are still areas that haven’t been explored yet.

I love Australia. I love to travel, I love to see the sights, talk to the people… Over the past few weekends, my husband and I have been making a point to get out and explore more of Victoria. We have met so many wonderful people and seen many breathtakingly gorgeous landscapes.

So when I heard on the news that the raging bushfires have killed 108 people, destroyed over 640 homes and have completely wiped out towns that I visited just a week or two ago…

I wondered what I could do. For my fellow Australians. For my fellow Victorians.

I shed my tears and wondered how I could help. I’m not rich and I don’t have much to give, but I can try. Then I realized – I’ll do what I know how to do. And that’s reach as many people possible as I can using the internet.

This is definitely a time for people to pull together and support each other. I may not be a citizen yet, but this is my home country, my home state, and my heart aches for all the people who have lost so much.

If you are able to provide some kind of assistance, a few ways you can do so is by going to one of these sites:

CFA bushfire hotline - http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au

Red Cross - http://www.redcross.org.au

Salvation Army - http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/SALV/HOMEPAGE/pc=HOME

St Vincent de Paul - http://www.vinnies.org.au/home.cfm?nocache=932312

Wildlife Rescue - http://www.wildlifevictoria.org.au/cms/index.php

Gippsland Emergency Relief Fund - http://relieffund.org.au/

Victorian Bushfire Relief Fund - Donations can be made at any branch of National Australia Bank (BSB: 082-001, Acct. No.: 860 046 797)

Thank you.

After starting to recover from the nearly week-long heatwave that blasted through Melbourne last week, we have once again been hit by the heat and reminded that yes, in fact we do live about eight miles from the sun.

Today Victorians and those residing in New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory were advised to stay indoors, keep as cool as possible and keep the fluid intake up. Of course, there was (and is) a total fire ban in the hopes of making the lives of those out saving other lives in this heat easier. But add in the dust/smoke storm we had brewing in my part of the neighbourhood and things were just plain not easy.

Tomorrow, it is forecasted that areas in New South Wales will be the hottest place on Earth, reaching temperatures of 47 degrees C – 116.6 degrees F.

What does this have to do with me blogging?

Where I live, it got up to (at least) 45.5 degrees C – otherwise known as 113.9 F. While we did learn from our mistakes last week and ordered an air conditioner, my husband and I do try to be conscious of the environment so we turned it off as soon as we could open up the flat.

Thanks to the aircon, my brain is only partially melted, but it was also mostly melted last week and didn’t get long enough time to recover.

If I owe you an email, a response of some sort, if you wanted me to check out a video on YouTube or something on your blog, anything, I apologize. I am catching up (now that things have cooled down locally and I can think) as fast as I can. You can feel free to send reminders just so long as they are polite ones. I truly thank you all for your patience.

Oh, and if you could, please think positive thoughts for the men and women out there saving many Australian and international visitor lives by fighting bushfires and responding to calls in the SES (State Emergency Services).

Could a combination of exercise and a hormone keep you from gaining weight? A recent study seems to show it’s possible.

For a long time, the hormone leptin was thought to be the answer for helping people to fight fat. I remember hearing it on the news. But all that died off when they realized people were resistant to it. Imagine their surprise, then, when they found the key to unlocking leptin is none other than exercise!

According to the study, overweight mice on a high fat diet got the leptin to work by combining the hormone along with some time on the exercise wheel. It was that combination that got the leptin going.

I bet personal trainers everywhere are rejoicing.

Well, it’s good to see that they aren’t giving up on leptin just yet. If you aren’t familiar with what that is, leptin is a hormone that has effects on body weight, metabolism and even reproductive function. So it’s no wonder scientists have been poking and prodding it to figure out how to better use it for our benefit.

I’m not jumping up and down just yet because it will be years before we see anything our doctors are able to give us, but it does give me some hope. Just earlier this morning I was telling someone that it’s a bit more difficult for people with insulin resistance to lose weight. Having extra help is always welcome.

What do you think? Should we be cheerleading for science or should we keep our noses down with traditional proper diet and exercise?

There is so much out there to read when it comes to health. I catch myself letting hours slip by as I read this about weight, that about food…

Instead of doing a post for each cool/interesting/whatever link I find, I am going to put up “headlines” posts every now and then full of links I’ve found in the past whatever.

I hope you enjoy and find things that interest you.

Junk-Food Dieters – An article talking about the new wave of junk food dieters and what the cost of diet soda, sugar free gum, and other junk food do to your body even if you don’t put on the pounds. “According to their credo, low-calorie is good; no-calorie is better — even if the food contains more chemicals than a can of hair spray.”

20 Worst Foods When Eating Out – While some things are obvious when it comes to the calorie load, your ‘low calorie’ choices might not be as great as you think. Going beyond just the calories as well, you can see even the best of the worst of the list are very bad.

A New Diet Equation – We all know the bottom line to losing weight is to burn more calories than we consume. But there’s also the fact that we’re all different and that’s why one diet never works for everyone. So what can you do? Where you pack on the pounds could be your answer to finding out what works best for your body.

That’s it for today. If you have any links you think I and the readers here would like to read, feel free to send me the link using the ‘contact me’ button under the site description on the right.

This is a success story from earlier this month, but I don’t think a few weeks of dust on the story will make it lose anything.

Many people who go on the journey to lose weight blog about their stories not only to have somewhere to talk about things but also to find people who are going through the same experiences. Support has always been an important part of weight loss and blogging has made it easier than ever to get in touch with other weight loss bloggers.

In addition to featuring people who are on their weight loss journeys, I would also like to feature success stories I come across.

Yes, I know; success stories sometimes only serve to make you feel grumpy about what is going on in your life. However, they can also serve as a big motivation. Other people are doing it and so can you.

Thus it is my pleasure to feature the first success story here at Finally Getting Fit.

From the headlines of CNN.com comes a story of a woman who was nearing the 300 pound mark in 2004 and stepped back from that line to lose 168 pounds and thirteen dress sizes.

Writer Lynn Bering was like many of us before we started losing weight – no self-esteem and increasingly avoiding situations where we would get attention.

But Lynn is living a lovely life now and is happy to be able to pick up her granddaughter. She even has a blog where she has been keeping track of her journey. You can visit that site by clicking here.

Woo hoo! I get to use the rant category.

You may not have heard the news yet, but it’s spreading fast. According to MSNBC.com, a lawmaker in Mississippi “wants to ban restaurants from serving food to obese customers — but please, don’t be offended.”

And this guy never expected his plan to become a law in the first place.

You’re a lawmaker, you say you want to do something, and then you’re surprised when it’s possible that something you proposed could be made into a law?

Did you get the part where I said you’re a lawmaker?

The funny thing is that this guy would have a hard time under his own law.

What gets me is that there are so many better alternatives to helping people out there. Did they ever think of giving people gym vouchers? People don’t go to gyms because they’re bloody expensive. Make things affordable, and maybe you’ll seem some changes.

How about for people over a certain weight or BMI, you get a voucher – or even a free – personal trainer? Or even doing something as simple as making healthier food more affordable so people don’t have to go fast food just to be able to afford the rent.

No, they have to suggest banning obese people from restaurants, taking away one more reason obese people get out of the house.

Even if the proposal wasn’t made seriously, if you’re that concerned about obesity, quit trying to cause a media stir and start doing something about it.

Gee, thinking before speaking might be a good thing for these lawmakers to learn.