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Padded shorts might be the most important piece of weight loss equipment Peter Calcagni owns. He says theyve been key to the daily commute a 60-km round-trip bike ride between his Waterdown home and his office near Confederation Park thats helped him drop 63 pounds since 2010.

It started as a strategy to lose weight, but cycling has resulted in some considerable gains as well. Calcagni, 53, says he has increased energy. He saves money on gas. His doctor has decreased his cholesterol medications by half and reduced his thyroid treatment as well. He loves the quiet mornings spent cycling along East Hamiltons Beach Trail. Weight loss is still part of the plan, but hes realizing all kinds of additional benefits, too.

I feel a lot better, he says. Its just wonderful because I bike home and I feel good and kind of too tired to be stressed out about anything me biking to work has got nothing to do with getting to work and back. I really just enjoy the time in between.

The Motivation

In 2010, Calcagni turned 51. At the time he weighed 271 pounds and was on cholesterol and thyroid medication. I thought, OK, I have to do something, he says. If I dont do something now Im going to be 65 and Im going to be 300 pounds which isnt good. I figured I was in trouble,

Hed tried diets that worked, but only for a while, and hed been a member at the Waterdown YMCA for a year and a half, but his schedule wasnt always compatible with class times. In the end, he turned to cycling because it was something hed loved as a kid, and lost time for as the responsibilities of adulthood took over. Marrying young and shuttling six kids around to their own extracurricular activities meant he didnt have time for many of his own.

The Approach

Calcagni started small, taking his hybrid bike out for 15-minute rides. He tacked on additional minutes as he gained stamina. In the spring of 2010 he introduced cycling to his morning commute. At first it took an hour and a half to bike the 25 km to work and he had to walk up the Escarpment on his way home. Eventually though, he was making it to work in an hour and invested in his current Specialized road bike. He started riding every day instead of just twice a week and the pounds dropped off. In 2012, when he hit a point where he was no longer losing weight, he lengthened his daily route by 10 km.

Calcagni says cycling works better for him than simply focusing on diet or going to the gym because its something hes able to incorporate into his day-to-day life. He has to get to and from work anyway why not make exercise a part of the process rather than an extra task he does at the end of the day?

It helps that he honestly enjoys it. If you want to succeed at your exercise or at losing weight I think you have to get passionate about what youre doing, Calcagni says. You have to like what youre doing or its not going to work.

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Pedal power: Losing it with Peter Calcagni

Summer will soon be upon us and the realization that the itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka dot bikini hanging in your closet will be revealing all is more than a little daunting. Soon showing skin will be the norm. Pale tummies and thighs will be exposed for God and everyone else.

That work out and diet plan you set up at the beginning of the year has been long since forgotten and anxiety is setting in. Google quickly becomes your best friend as you search frantically for diets that will help you lose 20 pounds in a week.

First of all, darling, you look fabulous dont let anyone, even that stupid yellow polka dot bikini, tell you otherwise.

Second, losing 20 pounds in a week is just not healthy by any means or even physically possible. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying and only wants your money.

Third, all of those diet fads are a sham, especially if you have to pay for them.

An article by The Los Angeles Times detailed a recent study that was part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. In the study, fads were seen as less helpful than simple exercise and eating right. Of the two-thirds of obese individuals who try to lose weight every year, only 40 percent were successful because they ate less food and less fat, switched to foods with fewer calories or took weight loss medications that were prescribed by a doctor.

Of those who were not successful, diet regimes included drinking more water, eating diet foods or products, using nonprescription diet pills including herbal supplements, or sticking to a liquid-diet formula plan.

Liquid diets, nonprescription diet pills and fad diets show no correlation to losing the weight and keeping it off, according to the study, which was published by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine.

The study also mentioned that it helped participants to be part of a support group.

This in itself is achievable. It creates accountability between the members of the group, even if it is just you and a friend or two. Through joint encouragement and participation, success in your fitness is more likely.

Continued here:
Get that summer bikini body the healthy way

Carlos Boozer gets excited for his post-practice snack (Jesse D. Garrabrant/ Getty).

Professional athletes typically do whatever necessary to keep themselves in great shape, and they're willing to pay top dollar to do it. In many cases, that means spending time in hyperbaric chambers, or eating very healthy diets, or taking multi-hour naps. At bare minimum, they hire excellent trainers to design intense workouts and keep them at an elite level of fitness. (OK, in truth, the bare minimum is taking naps.)

These players usually don't like to take a chance with their bodies, or to hire trainers who don't have sterling reputations working with their peers. Chicago Bulls forward Carlos Boozer has taken that chance. And he's doing so with an unlikely partner: his kids' trainer. From Scott Powers for ESPNChicago.com (via Blog a Bull):

During the summer, Boozer sought out a new basketball trainer to help him develop him into a more all-around player and touch up on his fundamentals. While the Miami-based trainer, Devel King, was an unlikely choice for Boozer as King had no previous experience with NBA players, Boozer believes this season will turn out differently because of his work with King.

"I felt like the trainer I had before, things I was doing before wasn't getting me to be where I wanted to be at," Boozer said. "I wanted to switch it up a little bit. Ran into coach King. He was actually training my kids at the time. I loved what he was doing with them, a lot of fundamental work, which is great, a lot of footwork, jabbing, different things I thought that I need for my game.

"Sometimes when you play so long in the NBA, sometimes you forget some of the basic stuff, and he was able to re-teach me some of the basic stuff that helps my game a lot. It's simple, but it's super effective. ... I was in the gym a lot, in the lab a lot working on everything, man. Defense, offense, ball handing, shooting, rebounding, going to be a complete player."

King said he nearly crashed his truck when he received the call from Boozer to work him out. But as much as King was shocked, he never treated Boozer differently than any of his other clients, who range from kindergartners to college players. King was critical of Boozer when he needed to be.

You may remember Boozer's kids as the awesome little guys who rooted against their father during a Bulls/Heat game last January. Truth be told, if King could get them to listen, then he can probably do good work with Boozer, as well.

Plus, although it might seem weird for a highly paid professional athlete to train with someone who'd previously worked with children, it's not as if King spends all day having his athletes jump around on trampolines and play Around the World while he checks his Facebook account. King is a serious trainer, and I'm sure he understands the value of the opportunity that Boozer has given him. They'll do real work.

Still, for the sake of jokes, I'm probably going to pretend that King and Boozer spend all day practicing free-throws on eight-foot baskets. Maybe, if he's lucky, Boozer will get to buy a soda from the vending machine when they're all done.

Continued here:
Carlos Boozer is working with his kids’ trainer

Rabia Rahman is as much a detective as a dietitian when she works with her patients to help them avoid gluten.

"I had one patient who got really sick from licking an envelope," says Rahman, who's both a nutritional counselor and an instructor in the department of nutrition and dietetics at St. Louis University.

Ironically, gluten is used in the binders or coatings of some medications that patients may be taking to feel better. And many of Rahman's female patients are surprised to find out that gluten is sometimes an ingredient in makeup and lipstick.

Helping patients eliminate gluten from their diets is easier than ferreting out some of these more obscure uses, but it still poses significant challenges.

"We'll always go over food habits and cover the broad items like wheat, barley and rye, which means they shouldn't eat regular cakes, breads and pastas," Rahman says. "But then I work with them to go over ingredient lists on labels closely and avoid specific items hydrolized wheat starch, or anything that says malt, graham or spelt.

"There's often gluten where you really don't expect it. Soy sauce is a big one; broth soups, potato chips and even French fries, which are sometimes dipped in a starch to preserve them."

The medical reasons for going gluten-free, says Rahman, range from mild gluten intolerance to wheat allergies and celiac disease, an autoimmune disease in which consumption of gluten damages the small intestine. Blood tests can diagnose allergies and celiac disease, and Rahman calls a small-intestine biopsy the "gold standard" for diagnosis of celiac.

But there aren't any specific tests for gluten sensitivity.

"That diagnosis often comes after a patient has gone from doctor to doctor to find out why they just don't feel well," Rahman says. "Sometimes it's (gastrointestinal) symptoms, but many times the symptoms are less obvious tiredness, headache, or even sometimes depression."

Rahman has her patients keep a log of both their food consumption and their symptoms and eventually may recommend that they eliminate gluten from their diets. Or, in some cases, she may work the other way by having the patients go gluten free to see if it makes their symptoms go away.

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Going gluten-free gets easier

A major source of toxic mercury exposure, fish consumption appears somewhat protective against a widespread neurologic disorder in children

Web edition : 5:39 pm

For pregnant women, diets rich in fish can offer their babies protection against developing behaviors associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, a new study finds. Yet for most Americans, fish consumption is the leading source of exposure to mercury a potent neurotoxic pollutant that has been linked to a host of health problems, including delays in neural development.

Data from the new study, published online October 8 in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, demonstrate that low-mercury diets and regular fish consumption are not mutually exclusive, says epidemiologist and study leader Susan Korrick of Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. It really depends on the type of fish that youre eating, she says. In fact, some study participants had been eating more than two servings of fish weekly yet accumulated relatively little mercury.

As part of a long-running study of children born during the 1990s in New Bedford, Mass., 515 women who had just given birth completed a dietary survey. About 420 also provided samples of their hair for mercury testing. About eight years later, Korricks team administered a battery of IQ and other tests to assess behaviors associated with ADHD in the children.

The children spanned a continuum running from almost no ADHD-related behaviors to those with outright clinical disease. A moms hair-mercury level tended to be associated with where her child fell along this spectrum.

Although this study did not collect data on the species of fish eaten, Korrick points to work by others showing that tuna, swordfish and shark can be quite high in mercury, while salmon and cod tend to pick up relatively little of the toxic metal from their environment.

Among women with less than 1 microgram of mercury per gram of hair, fish consumption was associated with a lower risk of ADHD-type behaviors in their children. Over that threshold, increasing mercury levels were associated with an increased risk of ADHD-type behaviors in the kids, regardless of how much fish their moms ate.

Children of women with hair mercury levels in the top 20 percent of the study population showed a 50 to 60 percent increased risk of ADHD-related behaviors, Korrick says which is not trivial. However, she adds, most children showing ADHD-related traits were still considered to be within the normal range and not maladaptive.

On some tests, boys showed a greater sensitivity to mercury than girls. These tests included components of the IQ assessment related to attention and one computer test of attentiveness (where children had to press a button as quickly as they could when they saw the silhouette of a cat but not other animals).

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Fish in mom's diet may alter kids' behavior

Whats the hardest part of her body to work?

Her brain.

Bodybuilder Diana Dumas said overcoming exhaustion and tired limbs takes will power some just dont have.

Diets, weights, and motivation become a part of everyday life, Dumas said.

Not everyone can do bodybuilding. Its a lot of work, she said Saturday at the 2012 FouadAbiadOpen a Windsor competition that judges bodybuilding, muscularity, body condition, stage presence and personality.

The 45-year-old Dumas hasnt competed in a competition since 1998 but said this year she felt like the contest was calling her.

For almost two months prior to the contest Dumas cut dairy, salt and sugar from her diet. She trains two hours a day, lifting weights for one and doing cardio for the other.

She eats half a cup of oatmeal in the morning, six ounces of chicken, half a cup of white rice, half a cup of broccoli, two protein shakes throughout the day and a tablespoon of peanut butter at night.

Dumas said the hardest part of her diet is eating flavourless food. To cope, she adds mustard. A lot of it.

I dont know how many jars of mustard I bought. Every time I went to the store people would stare at me carrying all this mustard.

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Bodybuilders say sport often misunderstood

Scientists are debunking the myth that the rise in allergies is due to a modern preoccupation with cleanliness, suggesting rather that we've lost touch with microbial "old friends."

A report from the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene released this week challenges the claim that the epidemic rise in allergies is due to overzealous housecleaning and a fondness for bleach cleaners.

Co-author of the report and honorary professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Sally Bloomfield says: "The underlying idea that microbial exposure is crucial to regulating the immune system is right. But the idea that children who have fewer infections, because of more hygienic homes, are then more likely to develop asthma and other allergies does not hold up."

Rather than being "too clean," humans have undergone radical lifestyle changes in the past century, including to their diets and work and home environments, as well as in environmental stress factors, such as physical inactivity in the workplace, which can hinder immunity, noted the scientists. Additionally, they note that even the cleanest houses in modern times are teeming with bacteria, dust mites, viruses, and fungi.

Still, while there is no shortage of microbes in our lives, we are in touch with a smaller diversity of "friendly" microbes than we have been through the course of human history, noted the scientists.

"The rise in allergies and inflammatory diseases seems at least partly due to gradually losing contact with the range of microbes our immune systems evolved with, way back in the Stone Age," writes co-author Dr. Graham Rook. "Only now are we seeing the consequences of this, doubtless also driven by genetic predisposition and a range of factors in our modern lifestyle -- from different diets and pollution to stress and inactivity. It seems that some people now have inadequately regulated immune systems that are less able to cope with these other factors."

Bloomfield hopes this approach will lead to a solution: "One important thing we can do is to stop talking about being too clean' and get people thinking about how we can safely reconnect with the right kind of dirt."

http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2012/allergy_rises_not_down_to_being_too_clean__just_losing_touch_with__old_friends_.html

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Rise in allergies is not due to humans being 'too clean,' scientists say

LONDON, Oct 7 Scientists are debunking the myth that the rise in allergies is due to a modern preoccupation with cleanliness, suggesting rather that weve lost touch with microbial old friends.

A report from the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene released this week challenges the claim that the epidemic rise in allergies is due to overzealous housecleaning and a fondness for bleach cleaners.

Co-author of the report and honorary professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Sally Bloomfield says: The underlying idea that microbial exposure is crucial to regulating the immune system is right. But the idea that children who have fewer infections, because of more hygienic homes, are then more likely to develop asthma and other allergies does not hold up.

Rather than being too clean, humans have undergone radical lifestyle changes in the past century, including to their diets and work and home environments, as well as in environmental stress factors, such as physical inactivity in the workplace, which can hinder immunity, noted the scientists. Additionally, they note that even the cleanest houses in modern times are teeming with bacteria, dust mites, viruses, and fungi.

Still, while there is no shortage of microbes in our lives, we are in touch with a smaller diversity of friendly microbes than we have been through the course of human history, noted the scientists.

The rise in allergies and inflammatory diseases seems at least partly due to gradually losing contact with the range of microbes our immune systems evolved with, way back in the Stone Age, writes co-author Dr. Graham Rook. Only now are we seeing the consequences of this, doubtless also driven by genetic predisposition and a range of factors in our modern lifestyle from different diets and pollution to stress and inactivity. It seems that some people now have inadequately regulated immune systems that are less able to cope with these other factors.

Bloomfield hopes this approach will lead to a solution: One important thing we can do is to stop talking about being too clean and get people thinking about how we can safely reconnect with the right kind of dirt. AFP/Relaxnews

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Rise in allergies not due to humans being ‘too clean,’ scientists say

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Harlem resident and mother, Barbara Biscaino, presented a live cooking demonstration today preparing her favorite healthy dish -- corn and cucumber salad -- in front of a live audience that included Manhattan Deputy Borough President Rose Pierre-Louis; JoAnne Page, President and CEO of The Fortune Society; Sharon Dalton, Vice President of the Aetna Foundation; and Harlem families. Biscaino learned how to prepare the dish as well as dozens of other healthy meals while participating in The Fortune Societys Food & Nutrition Program for Families & Children. The cooking demonstration, which was held at The Fortune Societys LEED-certified, affordable housing facility known as Castle Gardens, highlighted the success of the food and nutrition program.

In December 2011, with a $25,000 grant from the Aetna Foundation and a supplemental grant from the New York State Department of Healths Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP), The Fortune Society launched the Food & Nutrition Program for Families & Children. Since the program began, approximately 800 Fortune families and children, which include formerly incarcerated adults and residents of Fortunes housing facilities in Harlem, have attended a series of nutrition education workshops, including Taste and Texture and Just Say Yes to Fruits and Vegetables. They also have participated in 35 cooking demonstrations, taking home bags of fresh produce after each one. The produce is provided by local suppliers Corbin Hill Road Farm and Brooklyn Grange Farm, which operates urban rooftop farms in Brooklyn and Queens. The two suppliers have distributed more than 4,500 pounds of fresh produce to Fortune clients and community members.

Since beginning the program, Biscaino and her daughter have learned how to convert their favorite foods into healthier alternatives; select, store and preserve fresh produce; prepare healthy, delicious and affordable meals; sanitize a kitchen; and write recipes.

Before enrolling in this program, my daughter and I would eat fast food three or four days a week, putting our health on the back burner. Now, our entire outlook on healthy eating has changed. Every day, we prepare and cook healthy meals together, making sure to include fresh fruit and vegetables into all of them. Because of this change, we both feel more energetic and will hopefully live longer. I have already lost a few pounds, said Biscaino.

Many of our Fortune families live on a tight budget, eating whatever food is most affordable and assuming healthy meals are too costly to prepare, said JoAnne Page, President and CEO of The Fortune Society. The Food & Nutrition Program shows our families that they can prepare healthy, affordable meals and equips them with recipes and culinary skills that will last a lifetime. We thank the Aetna Foundation and the NYS Department of Health Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program for supporting this program and helping our families make healthy eating a top priority in their daily lives.

In the upcoming year, the program will continue to offer regular cooking demonstrations and will increase the number of hands-on workshops so that more participants can learn by cooking during class. The class curriculum will have a greater focus on the participants needs, such as child and family nutrition, heart-healthy eating and diabetes education. The program also will include recipe selection workshops, nutrition-related activities and a field trip to one of the supplier farms.

Research shows that diets rich in fruits and vegetables can prevent obesity and its related diseases, which disproportionally affect low-income and minority populations, said Sharon Dalton, Vice President of the Aetna Foundation, who manages the Foundations regional grant-making program. By combining access to fresh, local produce with crucial nutrition education, The Fortune Societys program can have a positive impact on peoples long-term health and well-being.

About The Fortune Society

For more than forty years, The Fortune Society has been developing model programs that help former prisoners successfully re-enter their communities. The Fortune Society offers a holistic and integrated one-stop-shopping model of service provision. Among the services offered are outpatient substance abuse treatment, alternatives to incarceration, HIV/AIDS services, career development and job retention, education, family services, drop in services and supportive housing as well as ongoing access to aftercare. For more information, visit http://www.fortunesociety.org.

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The Fortune Society and Aetna Foundation Celebrate Food & Nutrition Program for Low-Income Families

Pitched against two hugely inspiring finalists, Craig Grant had some stiff competition. It is his forensic approach to every aspect of his poultry business, combined with a willingness to work with others to build knowledge and expertise, that marks him out as the winner.

Throw any question at him about his costs of production and he either knows the answer immediately - down to three decimal places in some instances - or can work it out in seconds.

He knows that when you are dealing with 40,000 free-range birds and supplying a major retailer that attention to detail and meticulous record keeping is what keeps you ahead of the game.

In just five years Craig has established a profitable poultry business on the 290ha arable and pig farm run by his father and uncle near Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire.

He runs the family's two 12,000-bird houses on a self-employed basis and also operates his own 16,000 Big Dutchman multi-tier unit which he built in his own right after securing grant funding in 2010. All the houses utilise grain grown on the main farm. Eggs are sold to Morrisons through its local packing station, Farmlay Eggs.

After 10 years travelling the world as an engineer in the oil industry Craig has seen what life is like away from farming and it is evident that it shapes his whole approach.

He says it gave him confidence in working with different people from different cultures and an understanding of how business in general operates.

It means he places a strong emphasis on the need for good communication with his buyer and is constantly looking for opportunities to tweak his system so he can increase efficiency, drive down costs or improve bird welfare.

He is not someone who is afraid to try out new techniques - for example modifying the speed of his egg belts to cut collection times and working with contacts in the feed industry to trial new diets.

"Attention to small details make all the difference with regard to profit at the end of the day," he says. The results are there to be seen - Craig's birds are all laying eight to 10 eggs over target, which translates to extra profit.

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