Obesity...Epidemic?

Obesity. An obese person carries an excess of body fat. I've read or hear a few definitions. WebMD says if you are 20% over normal body weight, then you're obese. I've had documentaries tell me that 100lbs over weight is considered obese. Then a few weeks ago, I hear CNBC call obesity an epidemic.

You usually associate the word epidemic with contagious diseases like the flu or the measles. But CNBC was serious. In the US, obesity is an epidemic. In 2008, no state had fewer than a 15% obesity rate.



What are the instigators? Over eating. Eating unhealthy foods. Being sedentary. Lack of knowledge. Genetics. Access to unhealthy foods (a whole other topic in itself these days - watch Food Inc. if you haven't already). I'm sure there are more.

Why is obesity so bad? Complications that come with being obese. Type 2 diabetes. High blood pressure. Heart disease. Sleep apnea. And more.

The US spends 344 million dollars a year on fighting obesity.

It costs $50,000 a year to treat diabetes.

1 in 3 children are obese or overweight.

It makes me sad to know that so many other countries are fighting hunger. But we are fighting obesity. This needs to change.

No Gym This Weekend

My encounters with Bally have really been declining. Especially now since I am not here Monday through Thursday and all the classes I like to take fall on those days. Of course. Instead this weekend I went to dance, cross-fit and yoga classes. Hip-hop has been fun and mentally stimulating - most importantly fun. After this weeks class of cross-fit I think I've realized that if I signed up, it would become a chore and then I would eventually hate it. It's a good change of pace, but just alternating what kind of resistance work out you do isn't the kind of change I need in my workouts. I think I will go back to it every now and then cause it is a REALLY GOOD workout.

I have been wanting to try a good yoga class because Teresa and Lisa seemed to really like it. None of that grandma yoga stuff they have at Bally. So what better day than today? Well probably should have waited because I did xfit this morning, but I didn't want to wait a week before I could try it. I was so pumped I went and bought 2 pairs of yoga pants and a yoga mat. haha. So then I went online and found a few places. Jenn Yoga claimed to have a class at 6pm but was definitely closed when I showed up. So I did a Joy Yoga class. Joy Yoga on reliability -> A+.

Anyway this yoga was definitely challenging. No pauses for 45 mins. It wasn't even hot yoga and I was sweating like I was outside. It was weird because internally I was really hot, but the room was probably at a nice 75 degrees. We kept going back to the same poses about 50% of the time so I wasn't that mentally engaged, but I guess that's not bad because by the end I was balancing a little bit better. You know, when you see pictures of people in those crazy yoga poses, you think "oh that doesn't look bad, I can do that" but really they're freaking hard. Today I learned that I have little balance and sometimes have trouble following directions. haha.
I think I'll give it another few go's and then decide how much of a commitment I want to have with yoga. I do want my balance and flexibility to get better, so yoga is in my future but it might take a backseat like xfit. We shall see.

Sun & Ski Fail

I've been in the market for my first snowboard because this sport is ridiculously awesome and I want to get better at it. So of course I head over to the local Sun & Ski to check out the Summer sales. Right now they have 25% off everything, which is pretty good and I found a pretty good looking board. Wherever I go I like to ask a lot of questions and scour the minds of the people that work there for opinions and info. But yesterday at this particular store, I knew more about snowboarding than anyone else there. My experience is 2 trips and 20 mins of How-To videos online.

It took 5 mins for 3 employees to figure out what size board I was. In fact, if you read this picture right here, you will know more about snowboarding than Sun & Ski Memorial City Mall.


So needless to say I was really turned off and do not want to buy anything from there. Too bad Houston only has 2 snowboard/board sport specialty stores. Otherwise I'd spend the whole weekend visiting stores/learning about snowboard gear/trying out gear. King Pinz was all sold out of my size and M2 Sports had a park board but nothing all mountain for me. Maybe I'll just buy boots for now or probably limit my search to online. Which I don't always like to buy major sporting gear online cause you don't get the relationship with the shop that can be really helpful. Whatever. I'll figure it out.

Houston Police Dept Moonlight Ride

Last night I went downtown to ride the Houston Police Department's annual Moonlight Ride benefiting the the HPD. It was cool. They shut down 5 miles of Memorial (from downtown to Shepherd and back). It was a family thing so there were also 3 mini rest stops on the loop. It was super cute. Saw Fabrice and Derek, so I rode with Derek while we lost Fabrice somehow. Saw Andy and SuJohn at the end but they left for a Spazmatics show. Finished 20 miles in 80mins.

The humidity made breathing all the harder. I don't know what's up but I've been having problems with my heart, getting flutters, breathing heavily after too short a time. I had felt my anemia creeping up on me and started my iron supplements again, but it's been 2 weeks and they don't seem to be working. So maybe it's time for a trip to the doc.

Anyway it was a cool change of pace from waking up super early to ride in the still-hot and humid mornings with the sun in your face. Still was hot tho.

Internet Incentives

A few weeks ago my friend Albert invited me to join the Daily Mile. This website allows you to track your workouts and compete or compare yourself to your friends or others on the site. I decided to give it a try and see if it helped my motivation to work out.

I've also seen friends join S2H. Here you buy a special watch that tracks your hrs of activity and gives you points accordingly. You can use points for simple things like MP3s or $5 gift cards. This is cool because if you already exercise regularly, it's like getting an extra reward for doing so. But I would never use points as my incentive to work out. The idea is too...materialistic.

I've been trying to keep up with Daily Mile, but have pretty much failed as I forget to update my status. (Sorry Albert.) It did help bring about some competitiveness in me for a little bit. But I'm not one to tweet everything I do.

Guess I'll have to figure out another way to get my motivation up.

Free CrossFit Day

Today was free CrossFit day at Lululemon in River Oaks. This store was really nice. And expensive. But the class was free to try so me and a bunch of my friends went to give it a go. Today I understood the true meaning of CrossFit and why some of my friends call it Pain Day.

The concept today was do 2 resistance workouts back to back as many times as you can within a 7 minute period. 3 different stations. 3 minutes rest in between. It was 10 Free Squats with a medicine ball + 5 Burpees, 10 Dip Lifts with weights + 10 Lunges with weights, finally 10 Kettlebell swings + Run a short distance.

I managed to get in from 5-7 sets at each station. This was like 10X the weight training I usually do. It really puts a workout into perspective. In 7 minutes I can do at least 5 sets of 10 Lunges and 10 Dip Lifts. That's 50 Lunges AND 50 Dip Lifts! Holy Crap. I gotta step up my regular workouts. No more of this 3 sets with 10 reps in whatever time BS.

If you just go at it with no reprieve, you're basically sprinting your way to big muscles. I tried to stay in control and pace myself. But I probably should have went all out on the last one. I think it's the sprint-your-way-to-as-many-sets-as-possible mentality that really gets you into the best shape. The group aspect was also a big motivator as you're watching people and making sure you don't fall behind too much. Then at the end if you're competitive you can compare your number of sets to everyone else's.

Haven't decided if I want to do this regularly as this is not really my kind of work out. But it was a good change of pace. I'll have to incorporate the concepts into my routine.