30 Minutes a Day Keeps a Heart Attack Away

Did you know that just 30 minutes of exercise 3x a week can cut your risk of premature death by 60%?

Here are the study details:

After participants of this new study followed a walking, rowing, or jogging program for 3 months the Department of Cardiology in New Orleans were amazed at the results. Researchers from this study also believe that the exercise helped to decrease stress in participants with heart conditions, which in turn lowered their mortality risk significantly.

The researchers have noticed a connection that stress can quadruple your chances of an early death if you have a pre-existing heart condition. Personally, I think 30 minutes 3x a week is a fair trade of your time for the positive benefits you can get from exercise. Are you currently getting 30 minutes of exercise 3x per week? If so, what are you doing?

Source: The Department of Cardiology in New Orleans, American Journal of Medicine

The Most Effective Workplace Wellness Programs Do This

After studying about 38,000 participants researchers have found that employee wellness programs do work. It was discovered that employees were able to lower their cholesterol, decrease stress, improve absentee days, and increase their fitness levels through these programs.

The trick, through, is making sure they stick.

Here are the 3 most effective ways to make sure the program has the best chance of succeeding:
1. The exercise center must be on the workplace premises
2. The program must have strong company participation
3. Employees must have the ability to exercise during the work day

If your workplace has been thinking about developing a wellness program or looking to revamp an old one, I hope these tips allow you to make it more effective!

Read the full story here

Exercising Keeps Visceral Fat from Returning

After a year long study by exercise physiologists it was found that only those who continued exercising kept visceral fat from returning.

These results were tracked after participants went on a strict diet and lost an average of 24 pounds. They split the study participants into 3 groups of aerobic exercisers, resistance exercisers, and non-exercisers. After seeing great results in weight loss maintenance from the exercising group, the achievements of the non-exercisers were discouraging.

The group that did not exercise after losing the initial 24 pounds averaged a 33% increase in visceral fat within the next year. The point of the story is that exercise + diet is the key to long term success – not dieting alone.

Source: University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Human Studies

Michelle Obama Workout Video

Just last week Michelle Obama hula hooped for nearly a minute and a half on the White House lawn in order to raise awareness when it comes to keeping kids healthy.

She believes that if we spread the word about childhood obesity in the community and how to prevent it that we can make a significant difference in keeping the next generation healthy and fit.

If you didn't get to see the fun news clip of Michelle Obama (who is also an advocate of working out herself) you can check out the video below:

Reduce Diabetes Risks with 5 Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors

After some research into diabetics and longevity the World Diabetes Congress reported that the top 20% of those who followed the top 5 healthy lifestyle factors found that they had a 58 percent lower death rate than those in the bottom 40 percent.

That is a huge number when it comes to living a longer healthier life and so I thought it would be a benefit to everyone (diabetic or not) to follow these factors. So although there are many healthy behaviors to follow, the research narrowed it down to just these 5.

1. Physical activity
2. Not smoking
3. Higher healthy eating index
4. Moderate alcohol intake (1-2 drinks per week)
5. Maintaining weight or trying to lose weight in the past 12 months

"Among the healthy behaviors studied, regular, moderate to vigorous physical activity was most protective for those with diabetes," said Saydah, a senior scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta.

"Moderate to vigorous physical activity significantly reduced the risk of dying in both adults with and without diabetes, whereas moderate alcohol use, was only protective only in people with diabetes."

Source: Full article

Why 3 Marathoners Died in the Detroit Marathon

Have you heard about this?

"A 26-year-old half-marathon runner, and two other runners — a 36-year-old and 65-year-old — died during the event. Though autopsy results are pending, experts say the most likely cause of death while running such a strenuous race is one related to heart disease."

Health professionals also say that this tragedy is most likely a "coincidence" and "fluke" that all three runners died on Sunday. The reporters were also quick to point out that this is a rare occurrence and does not happen very often during a marathon.

It is believed that most marathoners training programs gradually improve their cardiovascular system and as a result prepare their bodies for the 26.2 mile race.

Since this is such a heated topic right now, I’d like to get your opinion on whether or not you think marathon long distance training is healthier than being sedentary most days of the week?

Source: Full Detroit Marathon Story

Where's Your Food Coming From

YottaMark of Redwood City, California, and FoodLogiq of Durham, North Carolina have developed a RFID tracking device that would allow you to see exactly where your food was grown, processed, handled, and ultimately shipped to.

The tracking mechanisms were originally created to locate and stop the spread of contaminated or diseased foods throughout the US, but I believe it would be equally as useful to see how far removed you are from your food sources.

Ideally, we'd all be eating locally grown, organic, and fresh foods and this tracking device would be a way of seeing how close we are to the farm. Plus, the fresher the food we eat (including flash frozen) the more nutrients we get from those foods and the healthier it is for us.

However, these RFID bar codes currently cost 30 cents each which is far too pricey for food manufacturers. My question to you is if you’d be willing to pay 30 cents more for a package of meat, etc. to find out where it was farmed, processed, shipped, and how long it's taken to get to your local food market?

Source: The Economist, RFID Bar Codes

"Are You Pouring on the Pounds?"

A few weeks back Dana wrote a post on the New York subway system advertising campaign titled “Are you pouring on the pounds?”

These advertisements depict sugary soft drinks and energy drinks pouring out yellow fat into a glass. Many people find the ads ugly and revolting to look at, but the message seems to be clear to all those who see them.

From a fitness perspective I was happy to see that they showed a photo of a popular "sports drink" pouring out fat and getting the message across that these drinks contain 200 or more calories from sugar. The advertising campaign hopes to shock you into realizing that Americans drink more than 15 billion gallons of sugar-based drinks each year… when you combine that with the fact that we’re less active than ever before you have a perfect recipe for being overweight.

Lose Deep Belly Fat

"In findings that should add to the national debate over rising obesity rates in the U.S., Duke University Medical Center researchers have demonstrated that physical inactivity leads to a significant increase in potentially dangerous visceral fat, while high amounts of exercise can lead to significant decreases in such fat over a fairly short time period.

The researchers also found that while lower amounts of exercise prevented the significant accumulation of visceral fat seen in the controls, it did not lead to the improvements seen in participants with higher levels of exercise."

I thought it was also amazing to read that those who DID NOT exercise for 8 months had a 8.6% increase in visceral fat while those that DID exercise lost 8.1% visceral fat in the same time period. Since visceral fat has been shown to increase cardiovascular disease, as well as negatively impact other health factors it's important that we take this study and research seriously. It's also good news to see that anyone willing to put in the effort required can significantly decrease their visceral body fat percentage, and therefore, improve their overall health.

Source: Duke research study

60-Minutes a Day for Kids

Being from New England I'm a big fan of the New England Patriots and watching them play football (American) every Sunday. Well, last Sunday when I was watching the game I noticed an ad by the NFL for their new website NFLrush.com.

It turns out that they are promoting exercise for kids. I thought this was a great way to use their influence to get kids to be more active. The NFL's theme is "Play 60" which encourages kids to go outside and run around and play for one hour a day.

Personally, I feel the only way we’re going to be able to break this cycle we're in of rising obesity rates is to really get the point across to kids about how important proper exercise and nutrition is. Children listen to their role models, so I hope every one of us who has some type of influence can lead by example and teach healthy lifestyle values to the next generation.