enmaku

Decent. Decent. Terrible. NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THIS. Bell pepper is absolutely perfect. Thanks!

I've never had it, what is the flavor like and do I just chop it up raw or is there any preparation necessary?

One of the primary misconceptions I'm seeing from the Fitbit is that at any given time the "calories" view on the Fitbit itself will show total calories burned, including those from Base Metabolic Rate (BMR), starting at midnight. So when you see 1200 calories burned on the Fitbit that is probably representative of your…

I agree with the "balance in everything" completely. Of course... Diabetes is manageable, whereas a heart attack is somewhat less manageable... Still, there aren't too many valid excuses for not doing both :)

ThinkGeek.com sells chocolate inhalers. Sounds weird, I know, but they've got micronized particles of real chocolate that come out of an inhaler-like device in a metered dose. Because the particles are micronized they have a huge surface area and really intense flavor, but so little actual chocolate is in each whiff that…

I got a pair of Vibram Five Finger KSO's from my local REI. I must admit they're not for everyone and do take some getting used to, but it's probably worth at least trying a pair on. (They're the weird running shoes that look like toe socks)

Atkins is good for rapid weight loss but it's not a diet you can live with for the rest of your life. Even if it takes a bit longer you might be much better off simply eating a healthy balance of proteins, complex carbohydrates and plenty of veggies. Diets don't work because they're designed to be temporary, it sounds like…

I see the shake weight as being similar to those folks at the gym who are doing resistance training and let momentum carry the weight through most of the motion, then let gravity bring it back down without putting up a fight. I suppose it's better than doing nothing at all, but your best results will ALWAYS be from doing…

Add weight training to your workout - nothing drastic, I'm sure you don't want to look like a bodybuilder, but just a few pounds and a LOT of reps. Your goal for the biggest caloric expenditure is to feel a burning sensation in as many muscles as possible, and here's why: The burning sensation in your muscles is from the…

@beautymkt: Technically all a heart rate monitor does is monitor your heart rate. They're more for cardiovascular health than actual caloric intake/expenditure math. There are, however, a handful of devices that do more. 24 Hour Fitness, for example, has a device called the Body Bugg that they push heavily. In addition to…

There are a number of devices that monitor factors such as heart rate, galvanic skin response, surface temperature, etc to compile an accurate picture of your caloric expenditure. They range from 90 to 95% accurate, compared to laboratory testing, which should be more than enough to base a diet and exercise plan on. Of…

Absolutely eat before a workout, just don't have a three course meal with steak and potatoes. What you need pre-workout is a light, carbohydrate-heavy meal to provide the short-term energy boost you need to get through your workout - think pasta, trail mix, oatmeal, high-energy fruits like bananas or apples. What you have…

Oh and I can't help but agree with the person above me who said take a good multivitamin. If you're talking physically tired vs. mentally tired, physically tired would indicate some kind of nutrient deficit that you're trying to make up for with caffeine. Mentally tired would indicate a decreased effect of caffeine on your…

Well, yes and no. Your metabolism does change just about everything, but as you get healthier that usually moves in the opposite direction (more energy). If you're still actively losing weight you may be feeling your calorie deficit - you're running on empty and your body knows it, caffeine is a natural stimulant so it…

Over the course of a single day your body weight can fluctuate by as much as +/- 2 lbs. Assuming she had lots of water weight, food in her stomach, etc she could show as much as 4 lbs heavier on one day than on the other with no actual change in body fat. If she's wearing clothes while weighing then just throw those…

As long as it's between 120-140 bpm it should be fast enough to keep you moving at the right tempo. If you're a hardcore fitness nut, long distance runner etc you could probably handle a bit faster and if you need to ramp up you might want to start with slightly slower songs. If you use iTunes, check out "Tangerine" - it's…

There are huge numbers of "100 calorie packs" for nearly everything, but my favorite < 200 calorie snacks are granola bars. They vary in calorie density so for the same calories you can have something tiny or something rather large depending on appetite, and they usually survive backpacks, cargo pants and glove boxes quite…

You can quick-add a negative number of calories to one of your meals, maybe set up one of your custom meal names to represent wherever these miscellaneous calories are coming from? Where are they coming from, by the way, if not from exercise?

Not necessarily altitude, but certainly oxygen saturation. At 6,000 feet above sea level about 15% of the air you breathe is oxygen compared to about 21% at sea level. Since very few of your body's important metabolic processes are anaerobic, oxygen is a vital part of your metabolism. Your body is probably accustomed to…

There is a popular urban myth stating that tea and coffee dehydrate you and are worse than drinking nothing at all. There is a tiny grain of truth to this: they are caffeinated and caffeine is a diuretic, meaning that it stresses your kidneys and makes you have to urinate more, thereby reducing the amount of the water you…

Sounds like a lot of folks just need some better tools than the bathroom scale... I'm an engineer, which is something that permeates every aspect of my life, so I have an instinctual need to put the number on the scale into more mathematically useful models, I'll share what I do and hopefully it'll help some of the scale…

As an engineer I can definitively say that more data is usually better and there's nothing wrong with weighing every day. What IS problematic is expecting each day's number to be meaningful by itself. Your body weight will fluctuate as a percentage of your total body weight, most people are usually within +/- 2 lbs or so…