Tag: Mayo Clinic

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Adding a Hula Hoop to My Day

In the interest of trying something new and fun, I have purchased a weighted Hula Hoop.  I spent 10 minutes this morning listening to music and hooping.  It wasn’t bad although I had to learn to keep my elbows out of the way! You supposed to hula hoop in both directions. Mix it up alternating between clockwise and counter-clockwise direction.

Benefits

Hooping is a great ab workout to start with before integrating other exercises into your routine.  Because a hoop workout requires constant push-pull contractions in your core muscles (abs plus obliques, at the sides of your waist) as well as in the glutes and thighs, the added resistance created by a somewhat heavier hoop should sculpt and reshape all the right places.  For what it’s worth there are also many references to unnamed studies stating hooping is an effective way to burn visceral fat  which is deep within the abdominal cavity.  Visceral fat is also linked to metabolic disturbances and shows an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and many other dangerous health conditions.

Here’s some advice I found on Hula Hooping:

The Mayo Clinic reports that you need to spend at the very least 10 minutes at a timWeighted Hula Hoope exercising your abs with the Hula-Hoop in order to see concrete results. An average woman can burn about 165 calories in 30 minutes of hula hooping, and an average man can burn about 200 calories in 30 minutes of hula hooping.

1.    Stabilize your torso and legs, and mobilize your midsection. Only use your abdominal muscles and hips to keep the hoop spinning.

2.    Scoop your belly in and lift your rib cage. Extend from the center of your body out. The better your posture, the easier it will be to hoop.

3.    Hold the hoop parallel to the floor as you start the spin, and give it some good momentum so it doesn’t start out wobbly.

4.    If your hoop starts to fall, lengthen your spine, push forward and back, and move faster. Imagine yourself as the axis of the orbit, not the orbit itself. If you try to move with the hoop (rotating your hips in a circle) the hoop will lose momentum and fall. Move side to side with your waist and hips or back to front with your belly. Feel the centrifugal force, but don’t try to be the circle; let the circle move around you.

5.    Stick with it. The longer you hoop, the more your body gets used to the movements

 

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High Fructose Corn Syrup is Bad

I went to see Yayoi Kusama’s Fireflies on the Water at the Whitney Museum. [http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/FirefliesOnTheWater]  It was absolutely amazing.  The exhibit is a small room that only one person may enter at a time.  The museum staff will open the door after one minute.  The sensation is surreal.  You stand upon a small platform surrounded by still water in a mirrored room full of tiny lights.  The space appears to go on forever; the water on the ground is never completely still so its reflection throughout the room means there’s movement around you as well.  I could have happily stayed inside for quite a bit longer.

Yayoi Kusama’s Fireflies on the Water
Yayoi Kusama’s Fireflies on the Water

From the Whitney Museum site: Kusama’s Fireflies on the Water (2002)—with its carefully constructed environment of lights, mirrors, and water—is one of the outstanding examples of this kind of installation, which creates a space in which individual viewers are invited to transcend their sense of self.

 

 

During lunch, my friend and I discussed healthier eating and the dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Here is some info that I found:

In 2010, a Princeton University research team demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States. ….

Read the entire article:  http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/

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Not everyone agrees that High Fructose corn syrup is any worse for you than regular sugar.  Here’s an excerpt from a MayoClinic.com article about high-fructose corn syrup with some suggestions:

Some research studies have linked consumption of large amounts of any type of added sugar — not just high-fructose corn syrup — to such health problems as weight gain, dental cavities, poor nutrition, and increased triglyceride levels, which can boost your heart attack risk… Recommendations from the American Heart Association — not a part of official U.S. dietary guidelines — say that most American women should consume no more than 100 calories a day from added sugar from any source, and that most American men should consume no more than 150 calories a day from added sugar, and that even less is better. That’s about 6 teaspoons of added sugar for women and 9 for men.

It’s prudent to consume any added sugar only in moderation. Consider these tips to cut back:

  • Avoid sugary, nondiet sodas. Drink water or other unsweetened beverages instead.
  • Choose breakfast cereals carefully. Although healthy breakfast cereals can contain added sugar to make them more appealing to children, skip the non-nutritious, sugary and frosted cereals.
  • Eat fewer processed and packaged foods, such as sweetened grains like cookies and cakes and some microwaveable meals.
  • Snack on vegetables, fruit, low-fat cheese, whole-grain crackers, and low-fat, low-calorie yogurt instead of candy, pastries and cookies

Read the entire MayoClinic.com article: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-fructose-corn-syrup/AN01588

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There is a Wiki page on How to Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup.  It notes that.. “the average American eats an astounding 41.5 lbs of high fructose corn syrup per year.”