Wellspring is one of several weight - loss camps that add some family participation to the standard menu of exercise and healthy diets. Wellspring's camp in Pinehurst, NC, and the Pritikin program in Aventura, Fla., offer programs that ... Original...

Tips for starting up a fitness programThe State Journal-Register, IL - 27 minutes agoFor a cardiovascular benefit, exercise needs to last at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week, he said. People wanting to lose weight may hav...

Filed under: Windows, Productivity, Freeware

With the number of laptops I reinstall Windows on every day constantly on the rise, I've been looking for applications that might help boost my pitiful short-term memory - for some reason, my boss frowns upon me playing Brain Age at work.

And since 6AM isn't the best time to be shouting at something in my house (toddler, wife, etc.), I need something a bit more quiet to help me practice. Speed Read may be just the app for the job.

The idea is very simple: display the number of words you choose at a specified interval to improve your ability to recall groups of words and maintain attention to the subject. Speed Read will display text from any text file and comes packaged with 51 sample files.

You can, of course, add your own, which is a good idea. If you're serious about practicing, you may as well be reading something you enjoy. As your skill improves, increase the number of words displayed and turn up the speed to keep the exercise challenging.

It works quite well, and after sticking with it for about a week I definitely notice an improvement already in my ability to read quickly - and remember.

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Do Stilts Help You Exercise? Someone who uses Jumping Stilts will get to know, that they truly exerts top amount of energy. It requires some effort just to stand in stilts, walking and running lead to prime. Some statistics show that, you can possibly burn approximately 500 to 600 calories per hour, subject to your ability to navigate the stilts and move around competently.

Fitness Health blog offers you tips and useful information on Fitness, Exercise, Diet and Nutrition. It provides you latest information on fitness & exercise equipment, yoga, meditation, vitamins and supplements.

Surgical Solutions for Tubby Infants/Let's Cut to the Baby Fat (!!!)     Childhood obesity has reached epidemic levels in the United States. Researchers did a cohort study on 19,397 babies, from their birth until age seven and discovered that fat babies at four months were 1.38 times more likely to be overweight at seven years old compared to normal weight babies. Fat babies at the age of one were 1.17 times more likely to be overweight at age seven compared to normal weight babies.     Without a change in diet or exercise patterns, childhood obesity can lead to life-threatening conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, sleep problems, cancer, and other disorders. Some of the other disorders would include liver disease, early puberty or menarche, eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, skin infections, and asthma and other respiratory problems. Studies have shown that overweight children are more likely to grow up to be overweight adults.

Fitness Health blog offers you tips and useful information on Fitness, Exercise, Diet and Nutrition. It provides you latest information on fitness & exercise equipment, yoga, meditation, vitamins and supplements.

The Wii might get you involved and more immersed in your gaming experience, thanks to the unique motion control system, but the folks at Manapotions.com decided to go the extra mile where World of Warcraft (WoW) is concerned. This special mod connects treadmills and joysticks to a computer, where running on the treadmill will make you move your character accordingly. Anyone who has played WoW will definitely know that there are miles of terrain to cover, so this could be one interesting manner to get your daily dose of exercise while putting in some quality gaming time as well. The next time you see a gamer with buffed up legs, you'll know he/she's been working on this WoW treadmill concept.

Add a comment | From: World Of Warcraft On Treadmills | Visit Ubergizmo

We all know that exercise is good for us, but did you know it could help you live longer? This is especially so in Olympic athletes; but why?

Are there any applications for us gym-goers? For instance, it would be somewhat of a to-do list, where the main menu (upon launching would have titles (such as in Notes) that you can click on, such as Day 1: Chest & Tricep and it would be able to input a list of your different parts of your workout (such as 1. Bench Press (45x2) 2. Tricep Kick-backs (20) etc.)

You'd be able to check off each exercise until you were finished, and possibly reset it afterwards for when you do that workout in the future.

I think it would be very convenient for those of us who go to the gym, and would like to be more organized than having a piece of paper with a list of our workout on it.

I assume/hope this is already in the App Store, but if not, it would be great if a developer could code one up, I'd even be willing to pay for it. It wouldn't need to be very complex, but extra features (can't think of any at the moment, haha) could be added to. It has a lot of potential as an application.

Cheers!

Currently, whenever an astronaut needs to talk to someone, a counselor is only a radio call away. Unfortunately, for voyages further out, this contact time starts to increase quite a bit, so researchers have started to look for alternative methods of counseling. I just hope the new counseling software has the Dr. Sbaitso voice. "Instead of asking astronauts to reflect on their feelings, Mark Hegel of Dartmouth Medical School has them create lists of concrete things that are bothering them and brainstorm about practical ways to solve them. At the end of the exercise, users fill out a form used to diagnose depression. Clinical tests of this approach, which has never been tried in a multimedia self-help format, will start in a few months, using subjects recruited from the biomedical and engineering community in Boston."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Looking for a space shuttle to convert into a funky dwelling? Believe it or not, there are quite a few pieces of once cutting edge space technology that have been left to rot. For example: there is a Russian Buran space shuttle lying abandoned in the Arabian desert, a NASA Jet Propulsion Lab sitting in a dusty lot, and the infamous launch pad 34 where the three astronauts aboard Apollo 1 died in a fire that broke out during a test exercise. The folks at OObject have put together a list of these relics along with 9 others that you may find surprising. [OObject]

Setting up an ergonomic workspace at home or at your office where you have the most control over your environment is a lot easier than when you're traveling with your laptop and don't know where you'll wind up hunkering down for a work marathon. You already know how to set up a healthy work station with an ergonomic calculator, arrange your workspace for computing that's easy on your body, and even replace your office chair with an exercise ball to help with good posture. But what about when you're away from your home or office workstation? Mobile computing site Wi-Fi Planet offers a few tips.First and foremost, whenever possible plug an external mouse or trackball and keyboard into your laptop.
While it isn't always practical to have an external keyboard with you, tossing a wireless mouse in your laptop bag is no sweat. For a small wireless mouse, check out the Nano cordless laser mouse. You've heard it before but it's important: take frequent breaks. Set a timer or download some software, Hegeman says. Every 20-30 minutes you should get up and gently stretch.
It's simple advice but it's easy to forget when you're in the zone tearing through your work. Fortunately there are lots of great applications to help nudge you out the zone and remind you to be kind to your body. For Windows and Linux check out previously reviewed WorkRave which not only reminds you to take a break but has a great set of basic stretches to go with each break reminder. To help combat eye strain and repetitive stress injuries there is another handy Windows application, EyeDefender. For Mac users there are some great freeware options with AntiRSI and the more insistent Time Out.
Lenore Bryck, a massage therapist who works with clients who suffer from RSI related injuries, offers the following advice:"The best way to check in on the way you're standing, the way you're sitting, the way you're inhabiting your body, is to check in on your breathing," she says. Is your rib cage free to expand and fall? Are your shoulders and neck relaxed so your head feels like it's floating? Do you have a natural lumbar curve? "To me, that's the main check-in point. If you do that, everything is going to fall in place."
Armed with some tips, timers, and a general sense of body awareness you can use your laptop injury free where ever you find a free hot spot to feed your surfing needs. For more laptop and mobile computing related tips check out Gina's laptop tips and Adam's laptop lover's guide to productivity on the go. Photo by powerbooktrance.
The Downside of Mobility: Injury [Wi-Fi Planet]

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Photo by Chrissy Piper

John Darnielle and the Mountain Goats are being a little coy with this "Last Happy Night of Your Life" tour of theirs. By adding two dates in San Francisco, they've made it that much harder to tell just when the titular night will occur. And if we're going to run out of happy nights soon, we'd like to know exactly when, thank you very much.

The silver lining here is that the Goats have said nothing about the relative happiness of our days. In fact, they look to brighten a few days with the release of a new EP.

The four-song EP will come as a double-7" limited to an edition of 666. Horse and Buggy Press is designing the covers, and Aeron Alfrey is doing the artwork. The four songs on the EP are all new and were recorded with the band's recent go-to producer, Scott Solter.

While physical copies of the EP will be available only at Mountain Goats tour dates, the band is setting up a website from which folks can download the EP in a variety of formats and pay what they see fit. "Part of the point of the exercise is to see whether that's a viable route for smaller-potatoes-than-Radiohead dudes like me," writes MGs songwriter/frontman John Darnielle.

As for when the digital version of this EP will materialize, Darnielle says, "I hope/expect/pray that the site will be ready within a month or so."

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Cleaning hotel rooms is a strenuous business. However, when Alia Crum and Ellen Langer talked to 84 maids, most were under the impression that they did not get enough exercise. Furthermore, when they were measured for tests such as BMI and blood pressure, their results were typical of couch potatoes. The researchers let half the group in on the knowledge that they were getting more than enough of a daily workout and kept the rest in the dark. After a month results showed the former group were healthier on every single one of the objective health measurements tested - despite claiming to have been doing no more exercise or to have changed their diet. The study raises the possibility that mindset alone can influence our metabolism. Christopher Shea in the New York Times and Ben Goldacre in The Guardian have articles discussing the original paper.

I have a love affair with my gym.  She’s not much to look at: a rubber track and weight room in a dank basement, but appearances aren’t everything.  She’s there on my best days and on my worst days.  We never fight, and she doesn’t care what I look like as long as I give her my full attention for a few hours a week.

I was talking with a fellow gym goer recently (the gym and I have an open relationship).  He mentioned that whenever he is facing something frustrating, he goes to the gym.  The gym is his form of therapy, and if I think about it, it’s my stress release too.  So, I’d like to present my list of ten reasons the gym is better than therapy.

Note: I’m joking.  If you’re facing serious problems, talk to someone and face them, don’t just vent at the gym.  But, for smaller stresses, the gym can be one of the best therapists money can buy.

#1 - The Gym is Cheaper

A typical gym membership costs about $300 a year.  If you go to a therapist, once a week for $100 an hour, that’s $5200 per year.  If anything, the gym is a discount stress-reliever, far cheaper than paying someone to hear you talk.

Another benefit: the gym doesn’t charge for the hour.  If you need ninety minutes to sort out a particularly stressful day, she won’t mind and she won’t charge you extra.  If you want to go a few times a week, or even twice on the same day, that’s fine too.  In some places, gyms are even open 24 hours, so you can resolve stress at any time of day.

#2 - The Gym Won’t Give Advice

At first, this doesn’t seem like a benefit.  The reason you pay a therapist is to get advice on your problems, right?  But, sometimes it can be.  Many times you go looking for advice, you really just want to think.  You want an empathetic ear to hear your worries while you think about what to do.

I can’t say the gym is empathetic (she’s pretty unfeeling).  But, she doesn’t give you advice.  So if you want to think a situation over for an hour before coming to a decision, she’s patient.

#3 - You Won’t Get Fat

The gym does double-duty.  She helps you keep your stresses to a minimum, and she keeps you in shape.  That’s the kind of package deal you can’t get lying on a couch.

#4 - Free Drugs (natural, of course)

When you exercise, your brain releases endorphins.  These chemicals are associated with feeling happy and relieving pain.  Your body also releases endorphins during an orgasm and when taking cocaine.  The extra endorphins often result in a “runner’s high,” a feeling of well-being after exercise.

#5 - Breathing Exercises

Your breathing affects how you feel.  Try to stay angry after taking ten, 15-second breaths.  Although some therapy may do breathing exercises, the gym is a constant breathing exercise.

If you’re lifting weights, you exhale as you lift the weight and inhale as you lower it back down.  When you’re running, you need to keep a constant breathing pace in line with your steps. Match your breathing with the up and down of a push-up and you’re practically meditating.

#6 - Focused Distractions

Sometimes you just need a distraction.  After a stressful day with work, friends or family, you need to take your mind away from your problems.  Unfortunately, sometimes it can be hard to pry your mind away.

If you’re looking to be distracted, most therapy is definitely out.  Talking about your issues isn’t a good way to take your mind away from them.  But the gym can provide an outlet, forcing you to focus on something else for an hour.

#7 - Little Wins to Rebuild Your Confidence

The gym gives you plenty of opportunities for little victories.  Every time you do a little bit more, run a little further or last a few minutes longer, you’ve won.  Those little wins rebuild your confidence after a setback.  Stewing in your problems is a recipe to trash your self-image.  If you can get a few more victories under your belt, you can feel better about yourself.

Your First Session

The gym takes a bit of time to get used to.  If you haven’t been in regular sessions for at least a month or two, your time spent with each other might make you feel worse, not better.  You need to get comfortable with your level of fitness so that frustrations outside the gym don’t translate into frustrations because you’re out of shape.

The best part about the gym is that you don’t need a reason to go.  Just shoes, a pass and thirty minutes.

Drug companies are spending millions of pounds every year on all-expenses-paid trips to conferences around the world for doctors and other hospital staff, in what critics say is a massive marketing exercise dressed up as medical education.

What I particularly enjoy is the spectacle of fat people - ideally drinking beer - watching television, while somewhere on the other side of the world citizens of all nations are getting some nice exercise in the Olympics (throwing javelins, jumping over metal bars, climbing lamp-posts with banners, and running away from the water cannon).

Thrustmaster announced Wii controller add-ons that may make your wish list for the holiday season grow even longer.

Everyday we see more companies offering work online. There are many reasons for this. There is a real demand for people working from home rather than traveling everyday to a typical day job. It's also a win-win situation for the companies. The overhead associated with online employees is much less than with someone sitting in a store or an office. There are many different types of work at home opportunities being offered. You will see Data Entry, Type at Home, Coupon Processing, Paid Surveys, Mystery Shoppers, E-mail Processing and Rebate Processing, just to mention a few. One of the most popular, in my view, over the past (6) six months is rebate processing. I believe this is because this is a task that most people can relate too. Almost all of us have used a rebate at some time or another and it makes sense to us. When people look for work online they look for things they feel they can do that fall within their comfort zone. Working at home is a new concept to many people and they will try and stay well within their comfort zone. I can tell you from personal experience that it is indeed very nice to be able to work from the comfort of your home. It took me a little time to build up my income, but then again I was looking to make more than a few thousand dollars a month. It gives you the opportunity to spend more time doing the things you enjoy. I noticed that out of all of the rebate companies, many seemed quite similar, but quite a few were charging a lot of money for programs that offered nothing more than the rebate company I found for 1/4 of the price. It's like anything on the Internet whenever there is money to be made the scam artists try to come in an take advantage of people. This brings up another important aspect of the online environment. Make sure that you use a website like mine, but not necessarily mine, that has done some level of research or be prepared to do the research yourself. Do not just jump into any program that offers to pay you the moon for doing nothing. Make sure that you feel comfortable doing the task required, have some free time to do so, ensure the program can meet your income goals and that you have the skill sets to do the job. Most people do. Once you have done this join, read the step-by-step guidance carefully, work hard and exercise patience. Remember you will have to do some work at home to get paid. If you do not do any work it's guaranteed you will fail and not make a dime. Nothing comes for free. Think about what you will do with the extra money. How will it affect your life style? Please feel free to read both this article or one of my many others by visiting my link in the resource box below. I always enjoy getting emails pertaining to my articles or my site. Your feedback is important to me. I wish you the very best.

Filed under: Nintendo Wii, Rhythm

We don't have any idea if Helix (1 player, Rated E for Everyone, 1,000 Wii Points) will be fun or responsive. We don't know if there's enough for the money, or if it's mind-bogglingly buggy. All we know is that the rhythm-music game (developed by Ghostfire Games) allows you to follow along with an onscreen robot as you dance in time with 26 different songs and (in the process) get a little exercise.

We don't know much about how good Helix will be. But what we do know is that it's different. And for a service that (with few exceptions) has become something of a dumping ground for cast-offs and cash-ins, that's just about the most refreshing thing we can imagine.

 

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Posted by Frank Petrie

I apologize for being late. Been a good week (new exercise regimen) and a bad week (I need a octo to render). But it was worth it. Our newest correspondent, Penny S, Worthlesss, Nick O’Donnell of the Australian band, 26. And where’ there’s interviews, there’s give aways.