Red Bull May Give Heart Problems
Hmmm… the first time I saw Red Bull was on a trip to China when I was a teenager, about a dozen years ago. We saw the bus driver drinking these cans and thought he was getting drunk! It wasn’t until we inspected the can did we learn that these were energy drinks, which hadn’t become popular (other than Mountain Dew!) in the United States yet, and Red Bull was one of the most famous. I later turned to Red Bull for a pick me up whenever I needed to drive from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, a four hour trek, after a long day of work. Red Bull gave me wings… but apparently it can give heard problems too.
A study of 30 university students, aged 20 - 24, found that just one 250ml sugar-free Red Bull can increase the stickiness of blood and led to increased risk of blood clots forming.
“After one can it seemed to turn the young individual into one with more of the type of profile you would expect to see with someone with cardiovascular disease,” he said. “People who already have existing cardiovascular disease may want to talk to their physician before they drink Red Bull in future.”
It’s only 30 students but it’s still something to cause concern. I’ve stopped drinking Red Bull myself because I didn’t feel as though I needed it (I stopped needing to drive as much) but these types of things do worry me.
Red Bull gives you wings - and heart trouble? [Times Online]
Michael Phelps Consumes 12,000 A Day
The New York Post has an article today about the diet of swimmer Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps eats an amazing 12,000 calories a day (vs. a typical diet of 2,000 calories) and is well on his way to trying to beat mark Spitz’s record of 7 gold medals in an Olympics. The man has already won five of five with five World Records set and has a career gold medal count of ten eleven - which is itself a record. Simply amazing.
Now here’s a sampling of his typical daily intake:
Breakfast
- Three fried egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayo.
- Two cups of coffee.
- A five-egg omelet.
- A bowl of grits.
- Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar.
- Three chocolate-chip pancakes.
Lunch
- A pound of enriched pasta.
- Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread.
- 1,000 calories in energy drinks.
Dinner
- A pound of pasta.
- An entire pizza.
- 1,000 calories in energy drinks.
Damn that’s a lot of calories.
Phelps’ Pig Secret: He’s Boy Gorge [New York Post]
Myths About Coffee: America’s #1 Drink
The New York Times recently took a look at America’s #1 beverage, coffee, and the ingredient that makes people drink, caffeine, the most widely used drug. The article has a lot of facts but here were the ones that stood out for me:
- There’s a list of how many milligrams of caffeine is present in average beverages. 8 oz. of decaf coffee or tea has about 2 mgs, a 12 oz. Diet Coke has 35 mgs, 1 tablet of NoDoz Maximum Strength has 200 mgs, and a 16 oz. Starbucks Coffee Grand has 330 mgs!
- Caffeinated drinks are diuretics but it takes more than 575 mgs of the good stuff to make it a diuretic, but since to reach that you’ll have had to had two 16 oz. cups of Starbucks Coffee… chances are you would’ve needed to hit the restroom anyway.
- Many of the medical danger links with caffeine were recently refuted including heart disease, hypertension, and pancreatic cancer.
- Caffeine won’t help you lose weight. It will speed up metabolism but there’s no long term effect, 100 mgs will burn an extra 75-100 calories a day (better than nothing!).
Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions [New York Times]
Spinach: A Nutrient Packed Superfood
Popeye used to eat the stuff by the can when he needed a little ‘pick me up’ against that brute Bruno. I like to grab a whole bunch whenever I make a salad. What is this awesome leafy green? None other than Spinach. Spinach is a leafy green vegetable that is packed with an incredible amount of goodness and is readily available to most American grocery shoppers. It is low on the calorie count but high on important nutrients like Vitamin K, Vitamin A, Manganese, folate, magnesium, iron, and scores of others.
Are you a proponent anti-oxidants? If so, you probably already know about spinach because researches have identified at least thirteen phytonutrient flavonoids that act as anti-oxidants and the reason why researchers have created extracts to use in studies to investigate it further.
My wife and I have been trying to eat more vegetables and thankfully two of our favorites are spinach and broccoli, another superfood. If you’re a salad eater, skip the iceberg lettuce (which is mostly water), and instead grab some field greens and throw some spinach on there. That minor change will help improve your health even more so than before and helps reduce those hunger pangs that strike.
Roundup: Raw Diets? Fat Animals?
There’s a great post at Fat Man Unleashed: Why are we fatter than the animals at the zoo!? Part of the reason is that “cooking food makes us fat and unhealthy is that heating a food above 118 F destroys its precious enzymes.” I’ve been reading a lot about raw diets and how good they are for you and while I’m not ready to try it, it’s a compelling argument.
Lazy Man took a look at some more superfoods, this time the ones that help prevent lung disease.
Kevin at WeightLadder gave FullBar a try. “The idea behind the Fullbar is to provide a healthy and delicious bar when eaten with a glass of water fills your stomach and provides the felling of of being full.”
NCN is considering a new gym membership. “My old membership expired a few months ago, and I haven’t felt like renewing it. But, now that I’m in the mood to workout, I think I’m going to join a new place. They have an indoor walking track and an indoor pool, for year-round swimming. I think I’d enjoy swimming a few laps, instead of pounding away on the treadmill.” I think swimming is a great cardio workout, I should really swim more often than I do (which is never).
Volumetrics Diet: Fill Up To Lose Weight
Volumetrics is a diet plan developed by nutritionist Barbara Rolls, PhD, with one aim in mind - fill you up with food that is low in calories but high in volume (volumetrics! get it!?). She explains the Volumetrics diet in a 2000 book titled The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan and then in 2005 with The Volumetrics Eating Plan.
First, who is Dr. Rolls? She’s a professor nutrition, the director of the Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive Behavior at Penn State University, and author of over 200 research articles. She’s not some random Joe Schmoe with a crazy plan and a dream of riches. Her plan is based on her empirical research and I think it has some merits.
So, how does it work? The plan revolves around the concept of energy density - that is the number of calories in a specified amount of food. The denser the food, the less of it you should eat. High density foods include cookies, chips, crackers, oils, nuts, chocolate and candy. Low densite foods include non-starch vegetables, low fat milk - stuff with a lot of water content. Vegetables are 80-95% water, so the idea is that you “fill up” on low energy density foods to quell that hunger urge.
It’s not a particularly innovative diet, in that it’s not some blockbuster straight out of left field idea; it’s stuff nutritionists have been saying this entire time. Personally, I’m going to integrate more vegetables into our meals. I’m a huge fan of broccoli and recently we learned that spinach was remarkably good for you so we’ll be having more of those in the future.
Top Ten Things Only Men Can Do
For your Wednesday afternoon enjoyment, I saw this AskMen.com gem of a top ten list - Top Ten Things Only Men Can Do.
One of my favorites has to be #9 - Hold our liquor simply because the photo is hilarious. I have to contest this one though because even though we may be able to hold our liquor better drink for drink, I think men have a greater propensity to drink more and thus find us less likely to hold our liquor for the entire night. I like the biological explanation though.
As for #5 - play real sports, I have to say that I had a friend once tell me, in jest, that the women’s sports look like men’s sports played underwater. I didn’t say that, a friend did, you judge its accuracy.
My absolute favorite is #3. I’ll leave that up to you to discover which one that is.
Home Grown Vegetables Taste Better
This spring and summer, my wife and I have restarted our patio garden and planted some tomatoes, hot peppers, and bell peppers. So far we’ve only harvested a handful of patio and Roma tomatoes but they’ve tasted fantastic. We did it for several reasons:
- There is entertainment value out of growing your own fruits and vegetables,
- It’s a fantastically frugal way to enjoy freshly picked items,
- It’s cheaper than driving to the store and buying (we hope!),
- You get a lot of satisfaction from being self-sustaining (to a certain extend).
I recently posted a video update on the garden’s progress recently and are eager to pick the eggplants!
There are studies that have shown that organically grown fruits and vegetables, despite being smaller and more expensive, pack more nutrition (vitamins, minerals, and other good stuff) than the conventionally grown stuff. One thing we’ve empirically learned was that the vegetables tasted better than from the store. Now, we don’t know if it’s because we can taste the love and sweat we put into caring for the little guys or if it’s because they’re actually tastier, but they are tastier. 
Weekly Roundup: Dumbells, Thin Thinking & Unreal Biceps
Lazy Man reviews Bowflex SelectTech 552 Dumbbells, one of those “dumbbell systems” where you have one set and multiple weight configurations.
Fat Man Unleased has an unreal bicep routine that’ll teach you how to build the ultimate bicep. The image is chilling but the routine seems straightforward and effective.
Kevin at Weight Ladder shares the Beck Diet, which can teach your brain to think like a thin person.
NCN is looking for the best way to cook chicken.
The Good Avocado Superfood
As a child I never had the opportunity to eat much avocado. I’m Chinese and avocado simply didn’t make its way into many, or any, of the meals my mom prepared so I wasn’t exposed to the delicious treat until much later. I think my first try was sometime in college when I tried guacamole, the delicious nacho topper made mostly of avocado. Since then, while I’m not an avocado fiend, I do enjoy its rich creamy flavor both on salads (it makes a great contrast with the crispness of bell peppers and lettuce) and guacamole.
Later on, I discovered that avocado was remarkably good for you. It’s surprisingly rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, the same good stuff that’s in olive oil. Monounsaturated fatty acids has been shown to lower the bad LDL cholesterol levels while increasing the good HDL cholesterol levels. In addition to those benefits, avocados also contain fiber, potassium, magnesium, folate, and antioxidants.
I don’t know if the creators of salsa and guacamole knew this but combining the lycopene in tomatoes and the vitamin E in avocados heightens the positive health benefits of both (especially enhancing antioxidant effects). You add in some onions and the oligosaccharides will boost the tomatoes’ lycopene benefits. Seems like eating lots of salsa and guacamole is pretty good for you.
So, if you’ve never tried avocado, give it a try. If you love the stuff, good for you because it’s good for you too!
(Photo: avlxyz)
