Here’s another gadget for fitness geeks.

The Life Fitness Premium Digital Pedometer is easy to use and has the following features…

• Display readings include steps, aerobic steps, calories and distance

• Dual acceleration sensor enables use even when sitting in a pocket or purse

• Security strap attaches to clothing

• A seven day history enables you to review an entire week of exercise

• Automatic energy saver to extend battery life

It’s just the thing to make sure you’re hitting the recommended  10,000 steps a day mark.

Want it?

Then leave a comment by20th Dec and tell us how many steps you think you do every day. Then if you win the Life Fitness Premium Digital Pedometer, you can find out if you are right.

This one is only for US residents.

The winners will be announced on 21st December and sent an email with the subject heading ‘Healthbolt Giveaway Winner’ with instructions on how to claim their prize.

And don’t forget it’s ‘every day a giveaway’ this month at Healthbolt.

Results were mixed on which would be the best Detour Runner Bar. Chocolate Chip seemed the most popular but the Lemon Yoghurt and Chocolate Peanut Butter were a close second and third.

But the winner of the ‘one-month supply of Detour Runner Bars’, according to my trusty random number organizer, is….

Steve

who said ‘I just started training for a half-marathon in May. I think the Peanut Butter Chocolate bars would be a good energy boost’.

Congratulations Steve. You should be getting an email shortly with directions on how and where to provide your mailing address.

And good luck to you with the half-marathon. I’m sure these detour bars will help.

As for the rest of the us, there is always a chance to win tomorrow.

Okay, I’ll be honest. I don’t usually spend much time checking my heart rate when exercising. I’m usually too busy simply trying to keep breathing and not collapsing.

But I’ve just discovered a gadget that would probably let me do both. It’s the  Timex Ironman Race Trainer, a heart rate monitor system that allows the user (exerciser) to wirelessly download their workout data. Once downloaded, you can then analyze the information to find out how to improve and enhance your workouts, track your progress and attain any fitness goals you have.

Here’s what you get with the Timex Ironman Race Trainer kit…

Haven’t tried it but it sounds great. I think I’ll just have to add the Timex Ironman Race Trainer to my Christmas wish list.

Meanwhile, Healthbolt readers have the opportunity to get one of their own simply by entering the Win A Timex Ironman Race Trainer giveaway.

All you have to do, as usual, is leave a comment by 16th December telling us why this should be yours and you never know, it just might be.

This, by the way, is an INTERNATIONAL giveaway.

The winners will be announced on 17th December and sent an email with the subject heading ‘Healthbolt Giveaway Winner’ with instructions on how to claim their prize.

And don’t forget it’s ‘every day a giveaway’ this month at Healthbolt.

Watching what’s happening on Wall Street and following the politicians as they try to bailout what they are calling a crisis that could have catastrophic results for all Americans and the world, I am starting to have a recurrent dream of living out my ‘golden years’ as a bag lady sleeping under an apple tree.

Retirement might just become a thing of the past. But for some, retirement has never been an option.

Why?

Because they love their jobs too much to give them up.

Case in point - Mildred Heath. She’s 100 years old and still working in a career that she started in 1923 at the age of 15.

And she has no intention of retiring. Working as a journalist what she does and who she is. Commuting the one block from her apartment to the office on an electric scooter, she takes classified ads, files photographs, and seeks out local news. Even at a big gathering to celebrate her 100th birthday, Mrs. Heath kept a notepad and pen handy to gather news for that week’s paper.

An inspiration for people of all ages, Mildred was recently named by Experience Works, the nation’s largest provider of training and employment services for older workers, as America’s Oldest Worker for 2008.

Here’s Mildred in her own words…

I wonder how many more Mildred’s are out there…

(source)

Illusionist David Blaine has been hanging around, upside down for the past couple of days. You can find him at the swinging in the breeze above the Wollmann ice rink in Central Park, New York.

Its a stunt that requires a great deal of endurance, focus, and might I add, stupidity.

Medical, hanging up side down for long periods of time is simply not a good idea. It can mess with the heart and cause the blood pressure to rise. There’s increased risk of brain haemorrhage, seizures, and blindness because of all the blood pooling in the brain and skull. It can also cause breathing problems - with the diaphragm upside down, the intestines will be exerting pressure on the lungs, making breathing more difficult. And of course, there’s less blood, and therefore oxygen, going to the legs, which could possibly cause muscle tissue to die off.

All in all, doesn’t seem like a smart move. Even Blaine’s own physican, when told about the stunt, said ‘”It scared the crap out of me.”

So, really, I really have to ask ‘why would someone put themselves through this?’

Can anyone tell me…

(source)

What a phenomenal run America had in the Olympics this year, and what an amazing go-round athletes from around the world had overall. Lots of records broken (something about some Phelps guy, I dunno) and lots of reason to celebrate.

So, we want to know…did you watch the Beijing Olympics, or did you skip them? If you watched, what was your favorite event? If you could, would you love the opportunity to compete in the Olympics yourself? In what event? Let us know…

Image details: Thinkstock Single Image Set served by picapp.com

The push-up: it’s said to be a great indicator of good health since it uses many major muscle groups. It’s also the do-anywhere exercise that requires nothing other than your own body weight. That said, push-ups should be the go-to exercise for the whole human race, right?

Yet for many people, they’re so darn hard to do.

According to a recent NYT article, the average 40-year-old woman should be able to perform 16 push-ups, and the average man of the same age should be able to do 27.

So we want to know…

How many push-ups can you do?

Newborn twins tip scales at 23 pounds (Boy weighed 10 pounds, 14 ounces and his sister was 12 pounds, 3 ounces)

Man Drops 80 pounds on McDonald’s Diet

The All-In-One Bathroom

The Model of a Psychopharmacologist

AMATEUR TRANSPLANTS: Anaesthetists Hymn LIVE

Finally, sleeping after no sleep for three years - most new parents expect that their sleep will be disturbed, at least during the first few months after having a baby. But imagine ‘no sleep for three years’. That’s the case for the Lamb family of St.Petersburg, Florida.

 Their son Rhett suffers from chiari malformation , a structural defect that puts pressure on the brain stem which controls vital functions such as sleep, speech, circulation, and breathing. But thanks to experimental surgery designed to relieve this pressure, Rhett (and his parents) are now sleeping…

Unable to Forget - although most of us would love to have better recall of past events, no one wants to remember every single life event. After all, there are somethings in life that you just don’t want to remember. But for one woman, all events - good and bad - are stuck in her memory and won’t let go. She is Jill Price, author of ‘The Woman Who Can’t Forget’.

A Personality Test for Your Cat - The Feline-ality program, developed by Dr. Emily Weiss of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is little like a ‘What Kind of Cat are you?’ quiz.

Might sound entertaining but this program, currently running in 45 shelters, aims to end the animal-human mismatches that often results in the cat being returned to the shelter. Prospective adoptees fill in a questionaire which gives them a color code. This color code will match up with a suitable cat personality - ‘leader of the band’, ‘the personal assistant’, or the ‘private investigator’ - that will make for a happy home for both human and cat.

I suddenly realized that Liberty and I have just passed our 5 month anniversary as Healthbolt bloggers. Wow, how time flies when you’re having fun. And it is fun. Getting to research and post on all the interesting, informative, bizarre, and oddball health and medical things is like a dream come true…

I did some maths and five months working on ‘the Bolt’ equates to around 250 posts between us. That’s a whole lot of words.

My choice for Top 5 Posts…

Doing a Hasselhoff…new medical slang and it’s companion piece Pumpkin Positive - more medical slang would be my all time favorite post to write. I simply laughed my way through it.

On the other hand, it was tears and laughter when writing Randy Pausch’s ‘The Last Lecture’ Revisited. Randy is a true inspiration.

Liberty probably ruined a lot of people’s day when she posted Dangit! Now Diet Soda is Bad for You Too?!?. Healthbolt had already highlighted What Happens To Your Body If You Drink [Regular] Coke Right Now? and now it turns out diet sodas not much better…guess that just leaves water!!!

Longevity is a theme Healthbolt has been running with lately, asking questions like Can Our Earth Support Us As We Age?, and then daring you to take the Vitality Compass quiz to see how well you will age.

And who could forget this post - A Fella’s Willy - Handle With Care - that reminded us that some parts of the human body are more fragile that others. Everything, it seems, has a breaking point.

So what’s your favorite posts?