I was running this morning and thinking about what the point of exercise is. I realized that beyond the obvious health benefits, that there's a lot of mental / emotional power-ups that exercise gives to you. I've long known that certain kinds of exercise effects my general sense of well-being, confidence, and happiness. Dancing, running,…
Category: Health
Health Update + Five Tips for Meeting Your Health and Fitness Goals
So for the past year or so, I have been doing a number of health and diet interventions to live more healthily and energetically. I've tried to avoid crash diets and short-term interventions, and instead focus on small, incremental changes that might have longer-term benefits down the line, as well as more immediate improvements today. I'm…
Update on High-Protein, Low-Carb, No-Dairy Breakfast Plan: No Effect!
About two months ago, I started a new diet plan. Very simply I substituted my normal breakfast for a high-protein, low-carb, no-dairy meal. In other words, I'm eating A LOT of eggs. The idea was to get a healthy start to the day and see how that effects the rest of my health. On the…
My New Hybrid Bike: The Trek 7.2 FX!
I'm the happy owner of a new Trek 7.2 FX hybrid bike! I still love my Brompton foldie, but I've been itching for something with a little more oomph that I can take on longer bike rides across the bridge to Sausalito or for other short country rides. Part of the challenge was finding a…
New Diet Plan: High-Protein, Low-Carb, No-Dairy Breakfasts
Everyone knows that a healthy breakfast is an important part of any diet. I’ve been reading up on the benefits of a high-protein, low-carb breakfast. Tim Ferriss is a strong advocate for this in his book 4-hour Body. Several research studies (#1 and #2) suggests that high-protein versus high-carb breakfasts lead to greater feelings of…
Two Week Review of the FitBit Surge: An Impressive, Affordable Fitness Tracking Smartwatch
I've had the new Fitbit Surge smartwatch for two weeks now and I have to say I'm pretty happy with it so far! Is it going to win any design awards? Probably not. But does it get the job done as an exercise tracker / smart watch? Absolutely. For those that don't know, the Surge…
How Important Is Target Heart Rate to Your Health?
136 to 150 beats per minute: according to Kaiser Permanente's target heart rate calculator, this is the sweet spot that I'm supposed to go for when I'm exercising. My latest run I averaged 131 bpm, according to my new FitBit Surge. So that's encouraging how close I am. But how important is being in your "target…
My New Fitbit Surge
Let's do this! Here's my new FitBit Surge smart watch. Pretty darn geeky, I gotta say. More soon, once I've had time to play with it.
Running Up a Volcano in the Philippines, Like a Boss
NOTE: I posted this status update to my Facebook wall on April 18, which lots of people seemed to appreciate. I'm reposting it here, with some additional details, for posterity's sake and to have a more permanent archive of it. So I've been running three times a week for about nine months now, which alternates…
Health and Dancing: Tips from 4 Dancer / Fitness Experts
For Yehoodi.com, I assembled this article on "health and lindy hop", that I think is applicable to all kinds of dancers and people. I interviewed a couple of personal trainers, a former coach, a yoga instructor and a physical therapist, all of whom have been dancing for several years. They provided some great insights into…