It’s Healthbolt Carnival Time again. So grab a coffee and start clicking…

Madeleine Begun Kane from Mad Kane’s Humor Blog entertains us with Multi-Task Madness.

Orna Ross suggests people should F-R-E-E-Write Your Way to Wellness?.

To help you learn more about the Vegan lifestyle, Piotr Stepien from we overstep provides a list of Inspiring Vegan Links.

C. Myers from Mind Mart suggests several natural remedies for Boils in Boil, Boil, Toil and Trouble.

Tami Blodgett from Online Wellness: A Safe Haven offers a review of the book FAMILY MATTERS the Soul of a Family.

Dan Abshear from Informaproject reports on The Power Of Bacteria.

myln from ManageYourLifeNow.com looks at How to tell if someone is lying.

Alvaro Fernandez from SharpBrains: discusses Brain Training: It Works, and It Doesn’t Work.

Brain Blogger asks Is Obesity Contagious?.

Nancy Miller from Nursing Assistant Guides says just relax with these 77 Easy, Painless Tips to Focus & Invite Tranquility In.

James Hubbard’s My Family Doctor Blog asks What is a medical home? Will it cut health-care costs? Definition and doctors’ opinions.

Gem-Publishing from Weight Loss Tips asks Can you lose 30lbs in 30 days ?.

Kalidasda from Natural Healing and Applied Kinesiology writes about Back Pain Relief Naturally, An Example Of Gentle Self Adjustment.

Pregnant Woman from Pregnancy looks at Identical Triplets – Three Bundles Of Joy, saying, “Triplets occur in one of every eight thousand live births”

And that’s it for this edition of Healthbolt Carnival.

Don’t forget to stop back again next Wednesday for more interesting health and wellness posts.

And you can submit your blog article to the next edition of Healthbolt Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: a healthbolt carnival, blog carnival.

Post from: Healthbolt

It’s everywhere.

In fact, it’s almost impossible to avoid and according to Dr Scott Olson, in his book Sugarettes, it’s as addictive as cigarettes.

I’ve just finished reading Sugarettes and I got to say, it was a real eye opener. Who knew that sugar was so prevalent in society today? Seems that everything we eat and drink has sugar in it and the more processed the food, the more the sugar content. 

In Sugarettes, Scott Olson looks at how sugar affects the body and why we should look at it as an addiction and a leading cause of not only obesity but also other medical illnesses of our times.

This is a must read for anyone interested in improving their diet and their health.

Healthbolt has three copies of this fascinating book to giveaway to anyone anywhere in the world.

Here’s all you have to do….

- leave a comment with your email address about why you want a copy of this book by 8th December.

-  No email address left in the comment = no entry.

- winners will be announced on 9th December and sent an email with the subject heading ‘Healthbolt Giveaway Winner’ with instructions on how to claim their prize.

Post from: Healthbolt

Allow me to piggyback on Liz’s post from earlier today and explore another possible reason for the obesity epidemic (one that’s probably a very likely part of the equation) – The Great American Buffet Table.

According to my local newspaper, there is a new study out which suggests that sitting too close to the buffet table at a restaurant can lead to overeating. They learned some other nifty things when they divided study subjects into an “overweight” group and a “normal” group, too. Take a look:

• Heavy customers sat an average of 14 feet closer to the fixins than the normal group.
• The overweight group was twice as likely to sit facing the buffet, with all its worldly and tantalizing textures and smells.
• The heavy group started filling their plates more quickly, while the normal group sized up the buffet and considered their choices before diving in.
• The heavy group chewed their food faster, thus indicating they ate faster.
• The normal-weight subjects were more likely to choose a smaller plate.

So, what does this mean to you? If calorie counting (or just mindful eating) is on your To-Do list, sit farther from the buffet area, do not face it, choose a smaller plate to fill, and chew your food more slowly. Come to think of it, these same rules can apply to nearly any dining situation. I’m going to give it a try. How about you?

Post from: Healthbolt

That’s right, in an unprecedented move to encourage state workers to slim down, Alabama will be the first state in the nation to charge overweight workers who don’t make the effort to lighten up.

This $25 insurance fee will join the already-in-place $24/month fee that ‘Bama employees are charged for smoking. The state says it’s seen some success in getting their workers to quit lighting up, so they reason this new fee will encourage thicker employees to skinny up. Alabama is, after all, ranked second in the nation for obesity.

So how do you feel about this bold move? Would you welcome a change like this in your state, or should one’s employer butt out? Let us know…

Post from: Healthbolt

Image details: Vegas or Bust served by picapp.com

You think you have weight loss goals? Well, I’m guessing Manuel Uribe has you smoked. His goal is to be able to walk down the aisle at his own wedding. And we’re betting he’ll do just that.

The 43-year-old Uribe has dropped an astonishing 550 pounds over the last two years after breaking the Guinness World Record of 1,235 pounds. He’s now down to about 700 pounds and has dreams of whittling down further.

Currently living in Northern Mexico, Uribe attributes his obesity to the American way – a nonstop diet of soda and junk food – after he came to the US in 1988 to live for a few years. He also claims that a liposuction surgery gone bad left him with huge tumors on both legs weighing a total of 220 pounds.

Now, the cause, I ’spose, is beside the point. The fact is that Uribe is currently sticking to a doctor-monitored diet and exercise program which he does in bed (he hasn’t been able to leave his bed in 6 years) is what’s important. His fiance is thrilled with his progress and can’t wait to tie the knot.

We wish him luck in all his weight loss endeavors and hope to hear the happy follow-up news of their wedding.

Source

Are you looking to lose weight? Be sure to visit one of the latest and greatest blogs in our channel, Weighting Line, where the awesome Hope makes it her mission to inspire you throughout your quest for health.

Post from: Healthbolt

Luckily, I’ve found just the man.

Israel over at Fatman Unleashed was ahead of the game on this one. He weighed in on the subject last month with this post  ‘Fat People Cause Global Warming: Fat Isn’t Very Green.’ 

Lately, we have noticed an increasing push for “going green.” We have seen changes in everything from transportation to food preparation to the internet. This got me thinking about how I could make my life greener. My immediate realization was that I was a walking global warming vessel. I’m fat. Being fat can’t be very green. Can it? We need to reduce our emissions of heat-trapping gases and learn how to use energy more efficiently.

Think about it. I’m overweight and require an above average usage of certain environmentally non-friendly things. Like what, you ask? Well, how about showering…? Being fat makes me take longer in the shower, using up more water than I should be using. So I waste water even though I make a conscious effort to “speed up” my showers. Another waste is toilet usage. I take, um, pretty big dumps and need more than one flush. I also use a lot of wipes to clean up. Don’t even get me started on my frequent urination due to all the water and green tea I consume. That equals quite a large amount of flushing per day.

Another way that being fat, or unhealthy, isn’t green is all the crap that gets consumed. I try to be as healthy as possible, but I do have my weaknesses. There are folks that eat out day after day after day. What do you think this does to the environment? That extra bag that was used to pack those 3 double cheeseburgers doesn’t just evaporate into thin air ya know. And the process of creating those burger wrappers doesn’t help either, factories and plants are needed for the creation of all of this.

How else can being fat not be very green? Clothes! Have you seen the amount of fabric needed to create some of the clothes that overweight people wear? I know you have. It’s all over television with the “I lost X amount of pounds” commercials. Think of what it takes to make that 5XL t-shirt. Think. What about all the washing that is needed for those large clothes? The water, the detergent, the softener, the dryer time…talk about endless loads of clothes.

If you’re fat you’re probably a notorious waster of electricity and gas too. It can be either watching too much television, having the air conditioning on a lot, or driving to that nearest fast food joint to pick up a “snack.” The heavier you are the more gas your car needs to carry you around. Fat = heavy = more gas needed. It’s simple math.

I’m not saying that being fat is causing global warming (need some research and scientific proof for this), but I can assure you that being fat isn’t very environmentally friendly.

(originally posted at Fatman Unleashed. Re-posted on Healthbolt with permission.)

Wow! Thanks Israel for sharing.

Anyone else want to weigh in?

We can provide the forum – you provide the words.

Meanwhile, I’m not done with this topic. Next week I move on to ‘The Skinny on Global Warming’.

Post from: Healthbolt

So is there merit to this hypothesis or is it just one more way of laying a guilt trip on those who are overweight?

Let’s look at the facts.

This recent discussion relating obesity to global warming started when The Lancet published a letter by two British scientists that stated the obese population consumes 18% more food energy than the normal weight population. And as a result…

“…more transportation fuel energy will be used to transport the increase mass of the obese population, which will increase even further if, as is likely, the overweight people in response to their increased body mass choose to walk less and drive more.”

This, by the way, is not a new argument.

A couple of years ago Sheldon H. Jacobson, a University of Illinois professor, published a similar idea in an article – Economic Impact of Obesity on Automobile Fuel Consumption – in the Engineering Economist. Based on his calculations, it was taking a billion extra gallons of gas a year to transport increasingly overweight Americans.

Why?

Simple physics really – the more weight in the car, the lower the gas mileage.

But it’s more than just the transportation of increasingly heavier people that is increasing fossil fuel consumption.

The foods that people eat has also increased the amount of fossil fuel consumption. What with chemical fertilizers and food processing plus packaging and cross country shipping, the food system itself uses about a fifth of all fossil fuels consumed in America.

So if you are going to look at the issue of obesity and global warming, it’s not just people transportation at issue but also…

the food system itself  that could be considered the culprit.

What to do about it?

Short of ’stop eating’, I’d suggest we start…

Ditching the car whenever we can. Try walking,cycling, and local (preferably green) transportation. This allows for not only increased exercise but also decreased dependence on fossil fuels. It’s a win/win situation for your health, the environment, and your wallet.

Eat local foods whenever possible. Head for the local farmers market (unfortunately this might not help the wallet but think of all the money you’re saving by ditching the car), create your own vegetable garden, and eat less meat.

So fact or fiction – is obesity a contributing factor to global warming?

What do you think?

Post from: Healthbolt

The brainchild of Mayo Clinic endocrinologist Dr James Levine, this ‘vertical workstation’ offers exercise for both the mind and the body.

Levine’s team enlisted 15 clinically overweight people to participate in a study using the vertical workstation. The exhaled breath of the volunteers was measured to determin how many calories they burnt while walking on the treadmill and doing office work. The results showed that on average 100 more calories an hour were burnt while walking slowly (1.6 km/hr) than while sitting and working.

Dr Levine, who has focused his whole career on how humans expand energy, determined from this research that “it’s metabolically more effective to put more NEAT — ‘non-exercise activtiy thermogensis’ — into your life to achieve a healthy body weight, than seek organized exercise.”

In other words, walking while you work is NEAT.

So you what do you think?

Want a ‘vertical workstation’?

No problem.

If you already have a treadmill, there are a number of options:

The Walk n Work, a standing desk that fits over the treadmill. ($499)

The Airdesk Laptop Stand that is secured to the treadmill. ($189)

The Treadpute which is still in design phase but will have two levels of computer shelves that fit around the treadmill. ($825)

And for those made of money (no blogger or writer I know), there’s the Steelcase Workstation, an all in one treadmill/workstation. ($6000).

Or you could just follow the lead of this guy and make your own…

For more on making your own, head over to The Treadmill Desk.

Not convinced? Check this out – How I burn 600 calories a day blogging.

Post from: Healthbolt

Ladies, turns out it might not be your fault if you can’t lose weight no matter how much exercise or dieting.

It could be that you are simply missing the ‘lean gene’.

A collaborative study between Tel Aviv University in Israel and Kings College in England has determined that ‘thinness, like your smile or the color of your eyes, is an inheritable trait.’

These findings are based on a study they conducted with more than 3,000 middle-aged British women who belonged to either an identical or fraternal twin pair, measuring their ‘total lean mass’ (one of the three major components of body weight) and compared it to markers in their genes.

According to lead researcher Professor Livshits,

“The bad news is that many of our physical features, including our weight, are dependent on our genes. The good news is that women still have an opportunity to go against their genetic constitution and do something about it.”

It’s hoped that this research will help to develop a ’skinny gene test’ that will help guide women in the weight loss battle.

Post from: Healthbolt

Now, Okinawa has one of the healthiest and longest living populations in the world, so there must be something to this.

Let’s face it, eating less is not a practice done in most Western societies. We are given plates piled high with food and then expected to empty them. I don’t know about you, but as a child I wasn’t allowed to leave the dinner table until the plate was wiped clean. And how many of you got the old ‘don’t waste the food on your plate when there are people out there starving’ speech.

Our parents meant well, but it turns out that eating less is better, especially if the less you are eating is healthier foods. The Okinawan’s not only do the hara hachi bu but also eat a antioxident rich plant-based diet. So they are winning on all accounts.

Michael Pollan, author of a new book In Defense of Food, is all in favor of this way of eating. He argues that what we are eating these days is not really food (he calls it edible foodlike substances) and how we are eating it – alone in the car or in front of the television – is not really eating.

Instead, he suggests that we should follow three simple rules – Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. Sounds a lot like the Okinawan way of life.

Want to know more?

Check out my guest post over at Eating Fabulously to learn how Michael Pollan suggests we do this…

Post from: Healthbolt