The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

photo credit: AntonOlsen

It’s a fascinating thing - the less sugar I eat, the less I crave it. In fact, foods that used to be “just right” are now way too sweet. Take, for example, the bran muffins I make for breakfasts. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of white sugar and 1/4 cup of brown sugar (makes about 12 small-ish muffins). Only by leaving out all the sugar without substituting anything (not even agave) do these muffins taste right now. Here’s the full recipe:

AllBran Bran Muffins
Makes approximately 12 muffins

Ingredients:
• 2 Cups AllBran cereal
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• dash salt
• 1 tblsp baking powder
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/4 cup safflower/sunflower oil
• 1-2 mashed bananas
• Fruit and nuts to taste (I typically use cranberries, blueberries, walnutes, dates, plums and either peaches or pineapple)

Directions:
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Pour milk over bran cereal and let soak for 5 minutes.
• Add egg, banana, oil, fruit and nuts to milk/bran mixture.
• Separately, mix flour, baking powder and salt, then mix with milk/bran mixture. Mix together until well blended.
• (I skip this step and it works out OK) Grease muffin pan
• Bake for 25 minutes (time, of course, may vary with your oven and elevation)

Do you have a favorite bran muffin recipe, or have a suggestion for improving mine?

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I’ve been hearing a lot of hype about Joost lately, so I was anxious to give it a whirl. I received my invite (did you get yours?) and fired it up for the first time yesterday, fully expecting an underwhelming experience. Boy was I wrong - this is the future of TV.

First I tried running it on the laptop over the wireless network. I never properly negotiated a connection, but that makes since - Joost is P2P-based, and must be pushing a large amount of information both up and down. After installing it on my main machine, I selected a user name and password, and began experiencing the brave new world of video.

This is, after all, a fitness-related blog, so I began looking for fitness-related video content and found three of note - HealthiNation, The Fit Show and The Recipe Channel. You can see the entire lineup at Joost’s channel page.

HealthiNation is a collection of videos hosted by medical professionals (or, at least, claiming to be medical professionals) providing basic information on a wide range of topics, including asthma, blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, healthy eating and more. The videos are short enough to keep my attention, yet long enough to cover the basic information about a topic fairly thoroughly. I also appreciate the powerpoint-like timeline at the bottom showing upcoming topics within a video segment. I could see this becoming an excellent resource to accompany searches on Wikipedia or health-dedicated sites like MedlinePlus.

I didn’t spend much time watching The Fit Show, but I was intrigued with what I saw. The channel hosts a wide array of videos, spanning from training videos, event coverage, fitness news and topical instructional videos. Chapman Media Group, who runs this channel and the channel’s website at http://thefitshow.tv/ (where you can watch some episodes through a flash player), states “The Fitness Network’s mission is to provide fitness content in an entertaining, educational, and inspirational style who’s voice resonates with the diverse fitness enthusiast demographic.” Buzz-word-speak aside, I was impressed with the videos on offer - training videos were shot using live trainers demonstrating the use of equipment and exercises, individual episodes contained news and training segments, and the professional quality of all videos matched or exceeded what I would expect from a cable TV fitness show. I will definitely be exploring this channel more. Right after watching another episode of GI Joe.

I have to admit, I had high expectations after watching the first two channels. Unfortunately, The Recipe Channel was a little disappointing - I expected a cooking show like something I’d see on the Food network, with a host cooking and talking during the show. Instead, this channel hosts several videos (not yet the hundreds claimed in the description) that appear to be hand-held cameras swooping over ingredients, hovering over cooking bowls and accompanied by new-agey hokie music. While I don’t personally care for the videos, I do appreciate the thoroughness of the video example and the short video lengths. I see this channel being a great accompanying resource for a searchable recipe directory website, but not a channel I would regularly browse.

All in all, I’m pretty impressed with what Joost has to offer so far. It can only get better from here - as Joost adds channels and interactive widgets (which add features like chatting with others viewing the same channel, channel ratings and more), TV will move from a static armchair channel-surfing affair to a serious web2.0-esque overhaul. I can’t wait to see what Joost has up its sleeves.

Now, for more Transformers.

Thanks to Stumbleupon (wikipedia entry), I’m discovering a slew of useful sites hidden in the “invisible web”, which comprises an estimated 90% of all Internet sites. Here’s the latest interesting sites I’ve discovered:

How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise (stumble reviews) - while I typically ignore “lose weight fast” type articles, this one by Tim Ferriss was worth reading. I wrote a response, modifying Tim’s rules to be more compatible with lifestyle change.

CalorieConnect (stumble reviews) - nice AJAX-powered calorie lookup for common foods. The list doesn’t seem to contain many restaurant-specific items, but it’s a fast and easy resource for quick food lookups. It appears there might also be a nutrition and exercise journal service - if so, I’ll add it to the list of services I’m reviewing.

The Training Station (stumble reviews) - list of 100+ animated pictures demonstrating different exercises, grouped by muscle group.

The Full FATFREE Recipe Collection (stumble reviews) - huge list of recipes, nutrition information and more.

BrainReady’s Top 5 Brain Health Foods (stumble reviews) - Interesting article; also available at the site - daily puzzle worksheets, podcast and more.

CalorieLab (stumble reviews) - HUGE listing of nutrition information, including restaurant items. Site also has RSS feed for health news, calories burned calculator and more. Great find!

What happens if you drink a can of Coke right now? (stumble reviews) - chronicles how your body reacts to a Coke during the first hour after consumption. Fascinating article, I’d love to find more like it.

Mark’s Daily Apple (stumble reviews) - health blog with interesting, unique articles.

You never know what kind of health and fitness stuff you’re going to stumble across. I’m reviewing every site that inspires me enough to “like” or “dislike” it - you can follow my reviews and join up as a friend at http://charshman.stumbleupon.com/. Stumbling yourself? I’d be interested to see the interesting things you’re finding - leave ‘em in the comments, along with your stumbleupon ID so I can join your friends list.