More On Feet: Strength and Flexibility

Thursday, September 25, 2008

The previous post dealt with feet, and so shall this one. Moving from the technical and aesthetic to the practical, I've dug up some resources on how to improve your foot's strength and flexibility.

But first, a photo of the feet of yours truly:



I have to say, I've always rather liked my feet! But I digress...

Foot muscles aren't exactly the focus of most strength training programs. Why would they be? They just sort of...exist, somewhere at the bottom of our legs. You can't see the plantar muscles rippling with power, not like you can with a well-toned set of quads. You stand on them, you walk around on them, you tiptoe on them in releve while drawing attention to your pistoning hips. Poor little neglected feet!

Strengthening your feet

Standing on the balls of your feet requires quite a lot of strength, and not just from your calf and leg muscles. Look back to the anatomy pictures linked in my previous post and gander at the network of muscles running around that bony framework and up the ankle. You want to be able to dance in releve for extended periods? Better start training that foot - your extensor muscles must pull your toes back while the pereonial tibial helps stabilize the ankle so you don't roll. You want to execute moves with a lovely balletic point? Start building up your flexors so you can strongly pull your toes and arch your foot. There's a lot more happening in those two moves with a cohort of smaller muscles too.

Plies, releves, and all sorts of movements requiring you to raise and lower your body using your feet are excellent for developing foot strength. Should you wish to work on more explosive power, you may wish to practice springing and hopping moves wherein you focus on using your feet and ankles (as opposed to your knees and thighs) to power the jumps.

If you would like a bit of extra assistance with your foot strengthening routine, you may wish to invest in a chunk of rubber tubing or rubber sheeting (such as a theraband) to give you some resistance training. These sorts of materials are available very cheaply from medical supply stores. An excellent set of foot strengthening exercises using a theraband are detailed in the following articls:

Theraband Exercises: Three for your Feet"

Developing flexibility

Proper flexibility will help prevent painful injuries. While you want your muscles to be nice and stable to minimize the potential for rolling, you also want them to be supple enough to allow your feet to bobble and roll properly without pulling muscles or tearing tendons.

It is very likely that your dance and exercise activities, along with many daily activities, provide most of the foot flexibility you need. If you think your muscles are a bit tight, though, this YouTube video will give you some ideas for additional stretches. You can practice these with tennis balls or any surface that allows you to deeply stretch your feet. The individual in the video is using a more specialized type of equipment for her foot stretches, but anything that allows you to do that sort of exercise is just fine.



I also managed to dig up a very entertaining medical article admonishing tight-fitting shoes and their impact on foot flexibility. The article dates back to 1898, thus reinforcing the notion that the more things change, the more they stay the same!

The Flexibility of the Human Foot

Recently, I've noticed a reduction in the flexibility of my right big toe. For reasons that the folks at a local rehab and therapy clinic could not determine, my mobility in my right big toe is about 10 degrees less than in my left big toe. This makes training for Turkish drops rather difficult, as I simply can't bend my big toe far enough to make it all the way to the floor without snapping the wretched thing off. The occupational therapist who was examining my feet understood why I wanted to regain some flexibility in that joint, so he gave me this nifty looking contraption:



Because foot muscles and tendons are very, very tight and strong, I need to keep my toe in that flexed position for a very long time. Actually, I need to keep it like that for hours. This means I have to wear the splint to bed. Sexy! It doesn't really feel like it's doing anything when I'm wearing it, but we will see what the results are like in a few weeks. I can sleep through anything, so I'm certainly willing to give it a try.

More foot injuries, specifically for dancers!

I provided links to info about foot injuries in my last post, but I am a sucker for this sort of information. I came across a particularly good article that is geared towards us prancers, and it would be a shame not to share this gem:

Common Dance Injuries: The Foot and Ankle

Dancing Body Bits ‘n’ Parts: The Foot

Thursday, September 18, 2008

While checking out the Body Worlds exhibit (which is brilliant, highly educational, and a must-see for anyone interested in how their body works), I became absolutely fascinated with feet. The structure and working of feet have always been interesting to me, but being able to see that incredible tangle of nerves, tendons, ligaments, bones, and muscles up close and in such detail was positively inspiring. It provides a wonderful kick-off to what I plan on being a regular Healthy Belly feature: in-depth examination of the more visible body-bits integral to dancing well. So let us begin with the bottom-most bit: the foot.

Let us take a moment to appreciate the foot. People often malign their feet for being too coarse, too short, too wide, or too calloused. We curse them when they hurt, whine about our blisters, fret over the state of our toenails, and worry about developing bunions. Meanwhile, these beautiful appendages put up with an absurd amount of abuse as they get pounded, stretched, flexed, and twisted during our daily rounds – never mind during dance!


Basic Foot Anatomy

The following information is from The Podiatry Channel

Quick Facts:

- The foot has 26 bones, which is one quarter of the bones in your entire body.

- The foot has 33 joints, making it a structure that is extremely flexible in multiple directions. This degree of flexibility also means that the foot can be a bit unstable, as anyone who has twisted their ankle while walking normally down the street can attest.

- Your foot as over 100 muscles, tendons (which connect muscle to bone), and ligaments (which connect bones to bones).

- Your foot has three structural parts: the forefoot, the midfoot, and the hindfoot.

The Podiatry Channel’s page on foot anatomy is a great resource for basic foot anatomy. I’d highly recommend studying their gorgeous images of foot anatomy and getting acquainted with the bits of your feet. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Achilles’ Tendon – it’s huge, and has a sort of industrial, built-of-steel type elegance to it.


Foot conditions and injuries

While a belly dancer’s foot doesn’t usually endure the sort of potentially disfiguring strain that ballet dancers’ feet undergo, our tootsies still put up with a lot. Dancing barefoot on hard studio floors, scarred stages, and treacherous restaurant tiles takes its toll. Many of you have likely experienced some of these common foot conditions and injuries:

Calluses - Those thick pads of built-up dead and toughened skin are designed to protect areas that experience high friction and pressure. If they are allowed to get too dry or thick, however, they can crack painfully, with cracks running deep enough to draw blood. This opens us up to the possibility of infection. Also, they aren’t terribly pretty. There are lots of ways you can deal with sore, cracked, or just plain ugly calluses without spending a fortune. For hints, check out Corns and Calluses: 20 Ways to Soothe and Smooth

Bunions - This foot deformity is the bane of many a dancer’s existence. Happily, we belly dancers often have the option of dancing barefoot, although heeled performance shoes are sometimes necessary - restaurant floors can harbor nasty, gooey, and sharp surprised for unshod feet. Still, they can hurt. The link above will give you excellent info on what causes bunions (blame your parents, not your shoes!) , and how they can be treated. I am going in to be fitted with orthotics in about a week

Foot Sprain - Sprains are usually more associated with non-dance activities, but they’re common enough to make them of interest to dancers. We are kind of useless without our feet. The article I’ve linked to contains symptom and treatment info, and provides a nice breakdown as to where foot sprains usually occur.


Pretty, pretty feet!

Pedicures are luxurious. Pedicures are relaxing. Pedicures are also ridiculously expensive, especially if we are going to then go out and ruin our lovely polish with a good night’s dancing. We could just let foot grooming slide, of course, but our feet are as much on display when dancing as our hands or our hair. It behooves us to doll them up as much as we would any other part of ourselves.

Fortunately for us, there are lots of websites with hints for giving yourself a marvelous home pedicure. One of the best I’ve found is RealSimple’s Easy At-Home Pedicure Shortcuts. It has three different kinds of pedicures: the two minute, the five minute, and the thirty-five minute. Top it off with a pretty shade of polish that coordinates with your costume, or workout togs, or whatever, and you’ll have indulged in a bit of bodily appreciation worthy of your feet!

Now if I could only muster up the discipline to stay still long enough for the polish to dry…

Frugal Fitness

Monday, September 15, 2008

It is no secret that necessities indulgences* such as belly dance classes, workshops, DVDs for practice and performance, costumes, and so forth can rack up quite a charge. We dancers, of both oriental style and tribal style persuasion, do love our sparklies. It can be a fine balancing act to keep our budgets in check while still finding ways to afford those dance extras that make us smile so broadly.

As I tend to be rather hypervigilant with finances, I am well aware that keeping one's pocket book healthy helps to keep one's mind healthy. That, of course, translates into a healthier belly. My husband and I are currently saving very aggressively for a home down payment, so this term's class cost has got me thinking quite a bit about where I can cut back my dance costs. This term I decided to take three classes instead of the five that I originally wanted. I fully realize that taking three dance classes still represents a sizable investment, but axing those two other classes was still a conscious decision. Furthermore, out-of-town workshops are currently out of the question, and in-town workshops will only be attended if I am particularly impressed by the presenter.**

That being said, I think that it behooves everyone to find cheap, frugal, simple ways of working out. Simple training tactics and habits are the most sustainable, both financially and mentally. My primary workout tactics are to do most of my physical conditioning and training at home. I have found that this is the best way to make regular physical conditioning a habit: I don't have to drive to a gym, I don't feel guilty about fitness fees, I spend no time commuting. This saves me a packet in money and in time. Happily, my new workplace is within a reasonable cycling distance from my home, which saves me even more time and money by allowing me to save on transportation costs, bypass traffic jams, and turn my commutes into cardio workouts.

J.D. Roth, author of the fantastic blog Get Rich Slowly addresses the urge to spend on fitness gadgets/memberships in the post Frugality in Practice: Home Based Physical Fitness. There are plenty of links to more quality information at the end of that post, so I won't repeat them here. If you would like more inspiration and advice on starting and maintaining your own home fitness or dance conditioning practice, check out J.D.'s other blog, Get Fit Slowly.

You may even have the opportunity to have other people pay for your fitness efforts! If you have an employee benefit plan, I highly recommend becoming intimately acquainted with its features. With the increased awareness that fit, healthy employees are happy, productive employees, many companies have started offering fitness and wellness allowances. Because the university where I work has excellent benefits and development funds employees may apply for, they are currently paying for my two lunchtime yoga classes. Plus I have full access to the campus gym, which is something that I would never pay good money for but will happily use now that I have the access. If you have the good fortune to have benefits such as these, use them and use them well.



*Right, now most people consider dance classes an indulgance, but they've become what I would consider a "near-necessity." So does my husband, and my father for that matter. Classes help keep me sane, and that makes them a good investment.

**In case you are wondering, the decision to very carefully evaluate workshops before jumping in and forking over the fee (as I would normally do if one was on offer, assuming that I have the cash on hand) has led me to turn down one out-of-town workshop and two in-town workshops over the past three months. This has represented a saving of close to $500.

Idiotic diets

Friday, September 12, 2008

Prepare yourselves, Readers and Bellies, because today you get a heaping serving of long rant:

People love packaged, boxed-up diet plans. Putting together an eating regime that promises outlandish benefits and wrapping it up with a neat little bow drives a billion dollar industry and gives diet-fretters no end of ammunition to worry over. Personally, I prefer a very straight forward outlook on nutrition. Choose healthy foods from all four food groups that vary widely in taste, colour, and texture; eat primarily produce, round it out with sources of protein and carbs. Know your portions, have a vague idea about caloric and nutritional content, don't overeat, and have something sinful every now and then. With a little bit of food savviness, this approach will assure pretty much anyone a healthful and interesting diet.

Yes, certain factors need to be accounted for - your activity level, your age, individual food sensitivities, and, of course, health conditions. I've always been open to having a health practitioner put together a diet plan for me. Now that I have to take my thyroid and metabolic health into regular consideration, it seemed like as good a time as any to try it out. Here is what happened:

As part of my experiment with acupuncture and other more wholistic treatments to deal with my thyroid condition and overall health, I agreed with my acupuncturist's suggestion to consider dietary changes. My acupuncturist had me diarize my eating for one week and would provide me with a diet plan based on my eating habits. I'm up for trying just about anything, so I said that I was game provided that we weren't looking at cutting out entire food groups, such as dairy. I believe that we were given a variety of cutting and crushing teeth for a reason, and there is a purpose to having digestive juices specifically for the digestion of meat, fats, and animal proteins. In other words, I was not going to consider going vegetarian or vegan. My diet tends to be very healthy and produce-heavy anyway, so I was not expecting considerable changes.

As it would take far too long to show you my food diary for the entire week, I have provided one day's record - while I love trying new foods, I'm a very structured and predictable eater, so this day's record is very illustrative of my overall eating habits (and when I say one cup, I mean one measured cup. Yes, for the most part I do measure my food):

Breakfast: Kellogg's Raisin Bran (1 cup), Blueberries (1 cup), Milk 2% (1 cup)
Granulated White Sugar (3 teaspoons), Coffee (2 cups)

Lunch: Crunchy Peanut Butter (2 tablespoons), Strawberry Jam (1 tablespoon), 100 % Whole Wheat Bread (2 slices), Carrot Sticks, Raw (1 cup), Yellow Bell Pepper (1 whole pepper), Red Grapefruit(1)


Supper: Spaghetti (1 cup, cooked), One serving of home made spaghetti sauce which consists of: Basic Tomato Sauce (1 cup), Lean Ground Beef (1/4 cup), Red Onion (1/4 cup), Eggplant (1/4 cup), Shredded Carrots (1/4 cup), Olive Oil (1 tsp), and a bunch of dried herbs/spices.

Snacks: Miniature Candy Cane(1), Strawberry Jell-O(1/4 cup)

Water: about 7 cups

Total calories: approximately 1,726

My husband and I eat well balanced diets - although the leafy greens weren't too present in this particular day, we love to chow down on spinach salads chock full of veggies and nuts, small and lean portions of meat, whole grains, and the like. I have no food allergies and am mindful of my diet. Therefore, I was not anticipating huge changes.

The suggested diet modifications, therefore, came as something of a surprise. It wasn't precicely diet plan that was handed to me, but three different sets of diet guidelines. Italicized comments are mine.

The first was intended to improve my thyroid health:
___________________________________________
Thyroid diet information

Goitrogenic foods: block the intake of iodine, therefore if you have a diet high in goitrogenic foods, be cautious of your iodine intake levels.

AVOID: cabbage, kale broccoli, cauliflower, rutabage, turnips, mustard greens, spinach, brussel sprouts, peaches, pears, strawberries, millet, kohlrabi, watercress, radishes, pine nuts, canola, peanuts, cassava, and soybeans.

As an added note, I have also been instructed to avoid anything from the nightshade family, such as tomatos, peppers, eggplant, and zucchini - apparently they cause inflammation of the joints, and joint soreness is one of my hypothyroid symptoms.

Ensure that your digestion is functioning properly and regularily. Eat foods that have been lightly steamed, cooked, or stirfried. Drink 1.5 - 2 litres of water per day. Exercise a minimum of 1/2 hour every second day. Adhere to a dtrict daily schedule, this will hlep maintain mental and physical health as well as digestive health. Sleep 7 - 8 hours every night.
___________________________________________

First up, it is true that there are goitrogenic foods, and that cooking these foods lessens the goitrogenic effects. However, the degree of effect varies widely from person to person and I have never experienced adverse effects from eating any of these foods. Furhermore, there are very few people, thyroid condition or no, who will experience problems with these foods provided that they eat them in moderation.

Funny, really, how frequently moderation comes into play when talking about nutrition. There are so many compounds in so many foods that are absolutely necessary for existence but when eaten in immoderate quantities can become toxic. But nowhere in the information page I was provided is the idea of moderate consumption even approached.

Things get really funny once we start to look at the next portion of this three-part diet plan. This one is supposed to be for general wellness. It should be noted that it is based on Traditional Chinese Medicine theory, which actually does impact the effectiveness or reasonableness of the diet for a pretty significant portion of the population:

___________________________________________

Cooking Do's:

-Steam foods: Less nutrients are lost when steaming foods
-Boiling foods: lightly boil, too much will leach vitamins and nutrients out of food
-Baking and/or roasting foods: better than frying
The above statements are all true and can be chalked up to common sense in nutritional approaches. I've followed these sorts of cooking practices for years.

-Juicing

-Eating fresh organic whole foods

-Decrease salad intake and limit cold raw vegetables But I am encouraged to juice? Juicing fruits and veg is eating cold, raw vegetables and fruits except you've removed all the fibre and significant amounts of nutrition carried in things like skin, pith, and fibre. This is an interesting contradiction.

-Soups and stews: a quick easy way to make a healthy meal in a crock pot. But according to their own guidelines, foods should not be boiled or steamed for too long, which is exactly the cooking method that crock pots/slow cookers use. Again, another interesting contradiction.


What to avoid:
-Refined foods: sugars, white pastas and breads, etc

-Fried foods, saturated fats, trans fats

-Goitrogenic foods (peanuts, turnips, cabbage) Again, most people need to eat these foods in very large quantities to notice any effect, barring allergies. Nowhere is eating them in moderation indicated, and I'd be missing out on a wide range of very healthy foods if this was to be followed.

-Decrease your gluten intake. Unless you have gluten allergies or celiac disease - and believe me, you'd know if this was the case - there is no reason to limit gluten. It is a useful diet tool for some people because it does make people cut back on their simple carb and refined bread or bread-like product consumption. But I don't overeat on bread, so it is pointless.

-margarine, sugar, artificial sweetners

-shellfish, and ground dwelling fish There is the issue with heavy metal content in some fish, but again - barring allergies there is no reason to avoid these foods.

-Pork (no reason provided), organ meats (some of the healthiest cuts of meat available, considered to be the best part of the animal until recently, when people stopped eating them and decided they taste gross), fake meats, deli meats


Examples of good choices:

-Turkey, chicken (both with skin removed), organic grain fed meats. Fish such as sole, halibut, pollock, mackarel. Eggs may be eaten but limited to 1 per week (and whites only)! Many, many studies have proven that egg yolks to not raise "bad cholesterol", and should be eaten in moderation. The current thought is that if you eat eggs daily, you should stick to one a day. It is next to impossible to completely avoid eggs in your diet unless you never eat any kind of baking again, because the eggs are an important part of what makes baked goods rise.

-Dairy: avoid dairy completely. Use goat or sheep cheeses for alternatives if needed, as well as eat only yogurt with organic active cultures. WHY? If the individual has no dairy allergies or intolerances, why avoid it? It is one of the best sources of bioavailable calcium, and is loaded with the sort of fats and proteins we need to thrive! This is why I mentioned that this diet is not beneficial to a pretty big chunk of our population - lactose intolerance and dairy allergies are common among Indians and Asians, but not nearly as prevalent among those of northern European stock! Being caucasian, I am much more susceptable to certain ailments - thyroid conditions, for one - but lactose intolerance or dairy allergies is not one of them! Yes, there are caucasians with these ailments, but they are simply not as common among that particular ethnic background. Eliminating an entire food group with important and beneficial effects for no good reason is damned silly.

-Vegetables and fruits: Spinach and all greens (According to the first diet, I am not supposed to eat spinach and certain greens), pungents, beets, beans, squash, sprouts (no brussel sprouts, though), celery, cucumber, all berries (but I can't eat strawberries any more), apples, pineaples, grapes, avocado, plum, bananas.

___________________________________________

The third diet plan is intended to support the liver, which is apparently where a number of my problems (including a weird sciatica like thing that pops up whenever I have to sit for long periods, such as in class or at work) are originating. Keep in mind that whenever I'm pointing out something I cannot eat, it is something that appears in one of the two other diets posted above as something I should avoid.

-Foods that support the liver: broccoli (can't eat that), broccoli sprouts (can't eat those), other sprouts (can't eat those), kale (can't eat that), dandelion, salad greens (with a few exceptions), beets, red peppers (can't eat that - nightshade), carrots, onions, garlic, soy (can't eat that), spirulina, whole grains (except if they contain gluten), flaxseet oil, fish oil (but not from ground dwelling fish), olive oil, apples, other juicy fruits (except for pears, peaches, and strawberries), lemon juice, grapefruit juice, tumeric powder.

-Foods that remove liver stagnation - onions, leeks, garlic, mustard, greens (can't eat several varieities), tumeric, basil, bay, cardamom, cumin, fennel, dill, ginger, black pepper, horse radish, rosemary, cabbage (can't eat that), broccoli (can't eat that), cauliflower (can't eat that), brussel sprouts (can't eat that), beets, strawberry (can't eat that), peach (can't eat that), cherry, raw vegetables and fruit (but I'm not supposed to eat raw/uncooked vegetables), apple cider vinegar with honey.

-Sour foods that improve th liver: apple cider vinegar, lemon, lime, and grapefruit

-Bitter foods that cleanse the liver: rye, romaine lettuce, asparague, amaranth, quinoa, citrus peel

-Foods that cool liver heat (although apparently the other problems I have, especially with my thyroid, are because I do not have enough heat in my body, so I cannot see why this would be considered beneficial for my condition): mung beans, mung bean sprouts, celery, seaweeds, kelp, lettuce, cucumber, tofu (can't eat that - soy), watercress, millet, plum, chlorella, spirulina, daikon radish, rhubarb

-Foods that build liver yin and blood (again, according to my acupuncturist - who issued this died - my problems stem from an over abundance of yin and an absence of yang. How is this then supposed to be beneficial?) - mung beans, mung sprouts, cucumber, tofu (can't eat that - soy), millet, flaxseed oil, spirulina, chorella, dark grapes, raspberries, blackberries

___________________________________________

Now taking into consideration the raft of contradictions and downright silliness expressed in the above diets, how the hell am I supposed to take that seriously? Why on earth would I attempt to follow such a self-refuting, limiting diet like that? I am very consciencious of what goes on my plate and into my mouth, and aside from the odd day of indulgence, am a very balanced and healthy eater. After living extremely well for many, many years on a very good and very balanced diet, is my thyroid going to suddenly quit on it's own and kill a whole system of metabolism in the space of a month or two just because I eat strawberries, tomatos, and canola in moderation?

Forgive me, fellow Bellies, if I roll my eyes and chuck this diet over my shoulder. While I am looking into vitamin and mineral supplementation that will help me meet my new increased supplementation needs due to being hypothyroid, I will not go off the deep end and toss myself into such an idiotic eating plan.

Guilting shamelessly

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Health lesson of the moment: Stop putting up with unreasonable guilt.

This lesson applies to any of you who, like me, can be guilted over the tiniest or most irrational issue. The degree of guilt that I heap upon myself when confronted with a situation or circumstance that I think I could have either handled more appropriately or have potentially solved is absurd.

This morning, for instance, I was feeling lazy and unmotivated to cycle in to work. This led to a degree of internal conflict that had me change into my cycling clothes, take them off, put on my normal work clothes, and then stare at the cycling clothes while sipping my coffee and whinging about how I really should cycle in. After all, I get two good 25 minute cardio workouts from cycling and it is far better for the environment than driving. I kicked myself upstairs into the kitchen, kicked myself during breakfast, kicked myself as I sat in my car and watched cyclists zoom by, and am still kicking myself as I write this. I did cycle in to work once this week, was prevented from doing so two days in a row because of some after-work commitments that I had to drive to, and will cycle in tomorrow. I usually cycle in three or four days out of the week. I'm not as hardcore a cycle commuter as some may be or as I may wish to be, but realistically, I'm not doing so bad. Once the snow flies and cycling in isn't an option, I'll be doing my environmental bit by taking the bus every day. Realistically, I shouldn't be guilting myself into a tizzy every time I choose not to cycle in.

I know that many of you out there are of a similar guilting bend as I. A few of my friends could rival me in going on totally unreasonable guilt trips (sometimes for things that had nothing to do with us!). While I've got no scientific basis to back this up, I think that the habit of constantly accepting feelings of guilt is particularly harmful because it becomes habitual, and can carry on for days. It is a considerable source of stress, and as we all know stress is neither healthy for our minds or bodies.

The following article cites findings that the stress induced by guilt weakens our immune systems. It also mentions that guilt can be useful for modifying unwanted behaviour, but we're not talking about normal, reasonable, or positive levels of guilt. BBC: Guilt 'bad for your health'

The next article by medical writer Elaine Moore deals with feelings of guilt in relation to the presence of autoimmune disease. Now while the immediate relevance to individuals with autoimmune disease is obvious, there are some excellent statements contained therein that are much more broadly applicable: Guilt in Autoimmune Disease: Healthy VS Unhealthy Guilt

Moore's remark that guilt "can precipitate feelings of depression or prevent you from expecting and even demanding the best health care possible or treating yourself kindly" rings particularly true for me and for many guilters I know. We guilters are very, very hard on ourselves. We tend to not allow ourselves to make the same sorts of mistakes that we would considerable acceptable or even negligable in others. If someone misses a workout because they are sick, we would encourage them to take the time necessary to get better before pushing their bodies too hard. If we get sick, however, we will either attempt to struggle through a workout (and only make ourselves sicker) or languish on the couch with our blanket and box of tissues, berating ourselves for not mustering up the fortitude to get in our scheduled physical activity.

Ultimately, attempting to not burden yourself with feelings of guilt boil down to be able to reason the guilt away (much easier said than done), and learning how to deal with the stress that the guilt induces. Personally, I like beating up stuff in computer games and then going for a good solid strength training session. There's nothing like surging adreneline to put me in a good mood!

Article: addressing health myths

Monday, September 1, 2008

This article came through the MSN news-bit site today. I was actually gearing up to mock the article, but it's got some pretty good info in there. It's a little unfocussed in terms of health topic, but it's still a pretty solid article.

Soy? Sorry...

I was quite pleased to read the information given on soy; it is too often seen as the end-all, be-all of health wunderfoods. But that is a topic for another day (or at least, for another cup of coffee).

 
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