Health and Fitness for Geeks

We fear change!

Nov 062010

On Friday, November 5th, 2010, Weight Watchers made a pretty major announcement.

They are changing the POINTS system.They haven’t given out any details yet, but if the video below is any indicator this isn’t like the changes we’ve seen in the past where they have given you options other than POINTS to track your food intake (options such as Core or Filling foods). No, from the sound of it they are going to fundamentally change the way POINTS are calculated.

This scares the crap out of me.

January 21st, 2011, will mark my 10 year anniversary on Weight Watchers. While I have not yet hit my ultimate goal weight, I have managed to lose and keep off approximately 170 pounds. I know the POINTS system like the back of my hand, and I can tell you the POINTS values of many foods without having to look them up. Now? All of that may change. I’m going to have to re-learn the program all over again.

New EASPORTS Active 2 video revealed on Facebook

Oct 262010

EASPORTS really has cranked up the PR machine in anticipation of the November 16th release of EASPORTS Active 2. In the last few months they have announced that David Beckham and Venus Williams will be celebrity spokespeople for the product, and they have also been releasing a steady stream of promotional videos to drive player interest. The latest video, released last night on Facebook, reveals an impressive array of interesting and, perhaps more importantly, challenging looking exercises.

Thar she blows!

Merchandise, Review 2 Responses »

Sep 282010

You discover some interesting things about yourself when you are trying out a colon cleansing program for the first time. You’ll find out whether or not you have enough fiber in your diet, whether you’re drinking enough water, and (perhaps most interestingly) that you’re fully capable of taking a close look at the toilet to see if anything interesting is going on down there. When you’re doing this as a review for a web site, you’ll also find out that you’re going to have to write about that particular part of the experiment.

The things I do for you people.

I have completed my first two weeks of the DrNatura Colonix Advanced Internal Cleansing Program. From the point on the post may, at times, devolve into some slightly graphic discussion. I’m not going to get too terribly detailed in those sections, and as I promised before there will be no pictures, but I figured it was wise to get that particular disclaimer out of the way before we went on.

Back on the horse

Fitness Programs, Personal 1 Response »

Sep 232010

Look at your blog, now back to me...

We spend a lot of time talking about how to begin an exercise or healthy eating plan around here. A slightly cynical take on this phenomena is: The most popular day to start isn’t “Monday,” it’s “tomorrow.”

But what about the folks who have already gotten into good habits, but hit speed bumps in the course of living that knocks them off their stride and out of their routine? We’ve had our share here, as well – and not just the expected interruptions of convention season (I broke my hand in the process of putting together a backyard gym, talk about annoying irony). To be sure, Mike seems to have had a great time at GenCon, and all three of us enjoyed Dragon*Con, even if, between the three of us, we worked something like a hundred and forty hours in addition to being fans and guests over the long weekend. In the wake of stuff like this, or a business trip, or a nasty cold, or anything else that gets in the way, it might be hard to get back in the groove.

So, how do you get your mojo back?

Am I clean inside?

Merchandise, Review 1 Response »

Sep 142010

We’re back!

It took about a week after we got home to fully recover from the utter and complete madness that was Dragon*Con, but your staff here at ShrinkGeek has finally caught up on their sleep and gotten over whatever strain of Con Crud that was running around this year. Unfortunately, for me, there’s still a bit of lingering ick simply due to the fact that, despite my intention to do otherwise, I made some very poor dining choices while we were at the convention. In my defense I really didn’t have a heck of a lot of time to make sure the food I was eating was healthy, though. I was one of the Assistant Directors for the Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game track and I actually worked 55 hours over the course of the convention. It was fun, but hectic, and when I did have time to grab food I was more concerned with how quickly I could get it than how many calories I was consuming.

The upshot of all this is that I ate a lot of food over Labor Day weekend that I don’t normally eat and I ate way too much of it. I can definitely feel the impact of all that grease, salt, and fat. I’m sluggish, kinda bloated, and my mana bar is almost completely depleted. Now that my schedule is more or less normal again, I really need to buckle down and re-focus on taking care of my body.

Amusingly enough, I got an offer right before we left for the convention that may help me do just that.