Macrobolic’s BodyBlog

Dear Brett,

We are in a race against time to help the people and animal survivors of the massive China earthquake.

The numbers are staggering: over 65,000 people have perished, over 12.5 million livestock have been lost, and countless dogs and cats are homeless, injured, and starving to death. They desperately need your help.

Please give what you can today.

The assessment by IFAW’s Emergency Relief team in the earthquake’s epicentre reports dire conditions for people and animals:

• Drinking water is polluted and there is a critical need for water purification tablets.
• In one county alone, one thousand water pumps are needed immediately for providing water to animals.
• There is a desperate need for tents, fencing for animals, food for companion animals, and livestock feed.

We have authorized an initial animal relief fund of US$200,000.
Can you please help us reach this goal?

<strong style=”font-size: 12pt”>Helping animals and people

IFAW’s Emergency Relief Teams are providing food, water, vaccinations and other supplies to animals and their owners in need. Our first shipment includes 10 generators, 100 water pumps, 10,000 square metres of fencing, 150 tents, medical and surgical supplies, and water purification systems. This is a good start, but much, much more is needed.

Our biggest task now is to prevent the spread of epidemic diseases between humans and animals … and over 300,000 livestock are still waiting for help.

Please help China’s earthquake victims.

Agencies in the epicentre are in desperate need of more supplies: 100,000 tonnes of livestock feed are needed. There is an urgent need of rabies vaccine for both animals and people in mobile hospitals set up in the quake-affected areas.

<strong style=”font-size: 12pt”>The animals are counting on us

Relief workers cannot do it all — they must help sick, elderly and injured people. It is up to us to help the animals. For people who have lost everything, their pets are all they have left.

There is no time to lose. The animal and people victims of China’s massive earthquake simply can’t afford to wait. Please make your donation today.

Thank you, from the suffering animals who wait,

Olivier Bonnet

Wait … I don’t know … wait … why, yes, this is the cutest yet most unsettling thing I’ve seen all week. What’s not to love/fear about the juxtaposition of a fuzzy widdle puppy nuzzled against the tattooed face of a Hell’s Angel? Gives you a smile with a shiver.Actually, these ominous-looking, hog-riding, crime-fighting softies call themselves Rescue Ink and are the latest recipient of PETA’s Compassionate Action Award.

In New York City and surrounding areas, this burly clan responds to emergency calls day and night. And for no charge, they will show up at the doors of any would-be animal abusers to strike knee-knocking fear into what’s left of their hearts in behalf of voiceless animals.

In addition to making abusive animal guardians piddle themselves, their service to the community is far-reaching. From search and rescue missions to giving out free doghouses or simply providing the elderly with cat food, no animal is overlooked.

You can read more about these freedom fighters here. Note the tragic failure to make mention of our illustrious award anywhere in the piece. I suppose recognizing two heavyweight animal-defending groups in one article might imply that there’s a whole movement going on or something.—Missy

Posted by Missy Lane, Public Information Specialist

I thought that the letter was actually spot on and I would have loved to see the look on Masha’s face when/if she read it.

Update: E! online has the story

I don’t know whether or not LiLo actually stole some rich chick’s fancy fur coat, as the blogs have been suggesting this week, but I can tell you that a lot of the stories about this seem to have missed the real crime here. According to The Superficial, which is where I get pretty much all my important news nowadays, this girl called Masha Markova is accusing Lindsay of running off with her $10,000 fur coat after a party. Apparently, Masha only found out that this was where her coat had gone when she saw pics of Ms. Lohan sporting it in OK magazine. As soon as I’d gotten finished weeping about poor Masha’s terrible experience, I asked PETA Vice President Dan Mathews what he knew about the story, and he forwarded me a copy of this e-mail that he sent to Masha Markova this morning. It makes for pretty good reading:

To: Masha Markova, c/o Merrill Cohen

Dear Ms. Markova,

We at PETA have read with interest about your distress over Lindsay Lohan supposedly stealing your fur coat. Has it ever occurred to you that neither you nor Lindsay are the rightful owners? That coat belonged to dozens of animals who were electrocuted, gassed, strangled, drowned or beaten to death just so you could try to appear wealthy. Ms. Markova, people who wear fur simply show that having money and style don’t go hand in hand. Please take 5 minutes to watch this video, hosted by former fur wearer Martha Stewart, who had a change of heart about wearing real fur when she saw what the animals go through. Perhaps you, too, will find your conscience and consider donating your fur coat to PETA, as have Mariah Carey, Kim Cattrall, and hundreds of others who don’t want animals to be fashion victims. We give them to the homeless, and you would even receive a tax credit for the donation. We look forward to your reply.

Dan Mathews
VP, PETA
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=martha

P.S. I just realized that I missed an opportunity for a bunch of “Lindsay Lohan showing off her fur in public” type jokes. Please accept my humble apologies for dropping the ball on that.

She may play a beautiful but ruthless machine on TV’s hottest show, Battlestar Galactica, but in real life, Tricia Helfer (a.k.a. Six to her legions of fans) has a heart of gold and a soft spot for animals, particularly cats. That’s why she’s starring in PETA’s newest “Be an Angel for Animals” PSA in behalf of our feline friends.

Tricia Helfer’s ‘Be An Angel for Animals’ PSA

Tricia and the very handsome Mr. Nix appear beside the tagline “If you have to be human, at least be humane,” in an homage to the infamous Cylon character that has helped make Tricia a household name. And speaking of Cylons … if you don’t know what the frak we’re talking about or just can’t get enough of Battlestar Galactica, we’re giving away DVD copies of seasons one through three of the show—and the movie Razor—to one lucky winner. Complete the form below to enter.

An animal lover, Tricia took part in this campaign because she wanted to help spread the word. “I really just thought that this campaign ‘Angels for Animals’ is something that I feel is a good message to get out there, that they are part of the family and you should treat them as part of the family.” So say we all!

Mr. Nix and the other felines that share Tricia’s home are definitely treated like family, but not all cats are that fortunate. Every day, countless cats suffer cruelty and neglect at the hands of the people they trust to take care of them. Many are allowed to roam outside unattended, where they fall prey to other animals, get hit by cars, or become the victims of cruelty inflicted on them by evil people who get their kicks torturing animals.

Be your cat’s angel! Clean cats’ litterboxes daily, give them plenty of clean water, have them spayed or neutered, make sure they have a cozy window seat for gazing outside, never allow them outside without supervision, play with them, and give them lots of love and affection every day.

Tricia told us that all animal issues are important to her, especially animal testing, fur, ending the cruel seal hunt in her homeland of Canada, and caring for one’s companion animals. Find out what Tricia does to keep her cats happy and what she says about season four of Battlestar Galactica in this behind-the-scenes footage from our photo shoot.

Ok, so I didn’t find this anywhere else and thought that this should be made known.

I was well into my workout and got to bench press. I did my warmup sets and then my 1st workset. On the 2nd workset I did the full range reps and then a static hold near the bottom (I do these in my squat rack at home with the long pins at about chest height so I can drop the weight if needed and not kill myself LOL).

Anyways, I get done with the static hold and drop the weight. Almost immediately after doing so, I get an extremely intense pain that shot up from my lower neck up to the top of my head.

I slowly got up and and the pain eventually went away (about 10-20 seconds I would say). I checked to see if everything felt ok, I could move my arms, hands, legs, feet and didn’t feel dizzy or nauseous so I didn’t think anything of it.

Later on that night, I was looking up the symptoms on webmd.com and came across the end result, and there was only one, Brain Aneurysm!

I started to freak out as you may have imagined. So I called my parents and my dad said that I should have gone to the emergency room immediately after feeling that pain, but since nothing had happened up to then, I was probably ok.

So I go to the doctor’s office the next day and have my doc check me out and she said that it was more likely due to an intense, involutary contraction of the trapezius muscle as everything looked ok.

But I did find some symptoms to look for if you have the same type of issue. Go immediately to the hospital if you have the following symptoms as well as an intense headache (described on webmd as the worst headache ever):

Here it is directly from webmd:

and finally

Hope that can help someone out there. It was a scary experience.

Setting goals is a great way to improve athletic performance. Many athletes try to compete or endure blindly in their various sporting events with disappointing improvement. Setting goals allows athletes to make steps in becoming better. It is important not to group all goals together because by implementing different types of goals one can tailor an outcome by the goal process they use.

Recently, sport psychologists have researched the effectiveness of goal setting as a means to increase performance or meet personal goals within the sport and exercise arenas. Theories have assumed that goals will regulate human action which, in turn, will result in increased control over one’s performance (Kingston & Hardy, 1997). Goal setting has the potential to be an important factor in behavior modification (Shilts, Horowitz, & Townsend, 2004).

Sport psychologists have identified several types of goals: first, a goal may be proximal or distal (Shilts et al., 2004). Proximal goals are better known as short-term goals; while distal goals are long-term. Studies have attempted to determine if short-term or long-term goals are superior, but have been inconclusive (Getz & Rainey, 2001).

Second, goals can be described by who sets the goal. Three variations can be found: self-set, assigned/prescribed, or participatory/collaborative (Shilts et al., 2004). A self-set goal is one that is by the athlete/exerciser only. An assigned goal is one that is given by a coach or field professional. Participatory goal is one in which a professional gives the athlete/exerciser multiple goals to choose from and the exerciser then chooses their preferred goal.

Third, goals are described as how improvement is measured. Again, three variations can be found, namely outcome, performance, and process (Kingston & Hardy, 1997, Weinberg & Gould, 2003). Outcome goals focus on the end result of a competition while performance goals compare one’s performance against a previous performance. Conversely, process goals focus attention on what one must do during a competition (Weinberg & Gould, 2003). Weinberg and Gould (2003) explain that performance and process goals are easily measured and are within one one’s control, while outcome goals depend on not only one’s ability, but also on an opposing player’s ability. Kingston and Hardy (1997) hypothesize this is caused by social comparison. Getz and Rainey (2001) explain that if social comparison does happen, individuals may not strive to meet personal goals, but only to exceed the performance of others.

In a meta-analysis of 28 studies conducted on goals and goal setting, 4 studies compared the use of proximal (short-term) vs. distal (long-term) goal setting. One study found that distal goal setting lead to increased proficiency, but it also saw a higher rate of attrition (Shilts et al., 2004). The higher rate of attrition may be due to the distal goal not being immediately attainable; therefore, those types of goals lose their motivational power (Donovan & Williams, 2003). The other three studies found no difference in proximal vs. distal goal setting (Shilts et al., 2004).

Donovan and Williams (2003) argue that it is neither proximal nor distal goals that are superior, rather many situations require both proximal and distal used together. In their study of college level athletes, the researchers attempted to determine if athletes would set difficult goals, and if they would revise their next proximal and distal goals based on the achievement or failure to attain a previously set proximal goal.

They found that individuals whose performance did not meet their previously set goal revised subsequent goals downward to reduce discrepancy between actual performance and their goals. However, performers who met or exceeded their performance goals tended to revise goals upward making them more difficult to attain (Donovan & Williams, 2003).

Getz and Rainey (2001) also attempted to see what kind of proximal goals would be best used to attain a distal goal. Their study performed two experiments to determine if rigid or flexible, proximal goals would best achieve a long-term goal in free throw shooting. They hypothesized the group using flexible short-term goals would improve the most.

In the first experiment, they had research participants shoot regular free throws over five trials. This may have confounded the results in that participants had an average of 10 years experience in playing basketball in which free throw shooting is practiced often. In order to make the activity less familiar in the second experiment, the researchers moved the shooting area to the left.

In both experiments, the group using the flexible short-term goal had a higher rate of improvement than the rigid short-term goal group. Specifically, in the second experiment, the flexible goal group showed four times as much improvement than the rigid goal group. Another result from the second experiment was that the flexible goal group came close to reaching the previously set distal goal, while the rigid goal group had an insignificant improvement in reaching their distal goal. Researchers hypothesized that this was due to the fact that if the rigid short term group did not meet the first goal, they would need to make up the difference at the second trial, plus meet the new goal of the second trial. This may have caused the group using rigid short-term goals to give up and no longer strive to achieve the goals given to them (Getz & Rainey, 2001).

Shilts et al. (2004) analyzed six studies that compared the effects of self-set goals and goals set by a professional. The researchers determined that assigned goal setting was more effective than self-set goals, although they did not describe how they came to this conclusion or if the participants in those studies were familiar or unfamiliar with the activity. They suggested it may depend on the participant’s experience in that activity.

A participant’s experience level formed the basis of Elston and Martin Ginis’ (2004) study. They explained that while people new to an activity will do better if goals are assigned, experienced participants do better by setting goals for themselves. The study used an unfamiliar activity to most people, a grip-strength task. The 50 participants were evenly split into two groups, one with assigned goals that were moderately difficult and the other group self-set a goal. The participants who were assigned a goal were asked if they accepted the goal. The participants were asked this because researchers have found goals are only effective if the participants accept the goals. The study showed that participants who were assigned and accepted a goal, did better on subsequent trials than the self-set goal group. These findings suggest that if one is new to an activity, it is best to have a professional in the field assign them a goal rather than assigning themselves their own goals.

Kingston and Hardy (1997) tested the effect of performance-based versus process-based goals. Thirty-seven club golfers were put into three groups: performance-based goals, process-based goals, and a control group with no goal. The golfer’s were asked to fill out two questionnaires, the CSAI-2 and the SPSQ and their handicap was scored three times during an entire season of competitive golf. The study showed the process-goal group significantly improved performance from test 1, 2, and 3. The performance-goal group did not make significant improvements from test 1 to test 2. They did improve from test 1 to test 3. Both goal groups experienced lower cognitive anxiety than the control group. The process-goal group felt that the goal setting skills they learned had a beneficial impact on their performance. The performance based goal group did not feel that the goal setting technique had a significant effect though (Kingston & Hardy, 1997).

Goal setting is an important part in improving performance in sports and exercise. All types of goals have their place and some work better than others in various situations. Goals should be moderately difficult and specific. Flexible, short-term goals should be set with long-term, ultimate goals in mind. Process, performance and outcome goals can all be implemented in different ways to achieve peak performance. Goals should be recorded so that the athlete can receive feedback and further improve performance (Donovan & Williams, 2003, Getz & Rainey, 2001, Weinberg & Gould, 2003).

References:

Brobst, B., & Ward, P. (2002). Effects of public posting, goal setting, and oral feedback on the skills of female soccer players. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 35, 247-257. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Donovan, J. J., & Williams, K. J. (2003). Missing the mark: Effects of time and causal attributions on goal revision in response to goal-performance discrepancies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(3), 379-390. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Elston, T.L., & Martin Ginis, K. A. (2004). The effects of self-set versus assigned goals on exercisers’ self-efficacy for an unfamiliar task. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 26, 500-504. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Getz, G. E., & Rainey, D. W. (2001). Flexible short-term goals and basketball shooting performance. Journal of Sport Behavior, 24(1), 31-40. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Kingston, K. M., & Hardy, L. (1997). Effects of different types of goals on process that support performance. The Sport Psychologist, 11, 277-293. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Shilts, M.K., Horowitz, M., & Townsend, M.S. (2004). Goal setting as a strategy for dietary and physical activity behavior change: A review of the literature. American Journal of Health Promotion, 19(2), 81-93. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from the PsycINFO database.

Weinberg, R.S., & Gould, D. (2003). Foundations of sport & exercise psychology (3rd ed.). Illinois: Human Kinetics.

Reuters Health

Monday, June 27, 2005

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For the last 20 years, professional guidelines have advised doctors that there’s no evidence to show that an annual physical examination is necessary for someone who doesn’t have any apparent health problems.

The message does not seem to have gotten through. A survey finds that most primary care providers believe in the value of annual check-ups, and are performing them anyway.

A postal survey was sent to 1679 primary care providers in Boston, Denver, and San Diego, and 783 (47 percent) responded.

Sixty-five percent of respondents thought that an annual physical examination is necessary, Dr. Allan V. Prochazka, from the VA Medical Center in Denver, and colleagues report in the Archives of Internal Medicine for June 27. Moreover, 88 percent said they performed such examinations.

As an indication of the low awareness of official guidelines, 55 percent of the doctors disagreed with the statement that “national organizations do not advocate an annual physical exam.”

On the other hand, 63 percent of primary care docs said that the annual physical is of proven value, and 74 percent thought such exams improve detection of subclinical illness.

Also, more than 90 percent of the respondents believed that an annual exam provides an opportunity to counsel patients about preventative health, and improves patient-doctor relationships.

Seventy-eight percent thought that most patients wanted such exams.

So why the gap between guidelines and practice? Two editorialists suggest that there’s more to an annual check-up than meets the eye.

“We think there may be something valuable to the annual physical that patients and physicians are telling us indirectly,” they say.

That message could lead to healthcare improvements “in ways we might not even imagine,” write Dr. Patrick G. O’Malley, from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and Dr. Philip Greenland, from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science in Bethesda, Maryland.

“First, let us study (the annual physical), before we abandon it,” they conclude.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, June 27, 2005.

Sign the petition now and earn Minke Whale status!

Please sign this petition to add your voice to those calling for a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary.

Sign on to create a safe harbor for whales

Whales are not saved. Although commercial whaling has been banned for more than two decades, Japan, Iceland and Norway continue to fire harpoons into these gentle creatures. More than 30,000 whales have been killed since the 1986 ban on whaling. You can help make the world a safer place for whales by protecting one of the largest whale habitats.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) meets on June 23rd, 2008, in Santiago, Chile. The Commission members will consider a proposal to create a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary that will extend across the South Atlantic, from the coast of South America to the coast of Africa, and on down towards Antarctica.

IFAW will be campaigning vigorously to convince IWC members to approve the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary. But we can’t do it alone. Please sign the petition now to help create the sanctuary.

Sign on to help animals and people

IFAW’s goal in every one of its campaigns is to try to find solutions that benefit animals and people. The South Atlantic is an important whale conservation area because it provides the bordering nations with opportunities to develop whale-watching operations. The tourism income would be especially helpful for these developing nations. In addition, the sanctuary would provide a safe area to conduct humane scientific research.

The vote on the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary provides a vital opportunity for the IWC to show that it is committed to whale conservation.

IFAW’s S.O.S. for whales

In the weeks leading up to the IWC meeting, IFAW will be asking our supporters to complete a number of actions aimed at encouraging a YES vote on the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary. Signing the petition is the first step in our S.O.S. (Support Ocean Sanctuaries) campaign, and will earn you the status of Minke Whale. Work your way up to Blue Whale status by completing each step, and receive free gifts along the way.

Sign on to save whales

Together we can make the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary a safe harbor for whales, and in the process, help provide economic opportunities for the people in the bordering nations.

Thank you for signing on to save whales,

Fred O’Regan
President and CEO

P.S. Whales suffer awful deaths at the hands of whalers. Please help us create a safe habitat for whales in the South Atlantic by signing this petition.

Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD; Ronald J. Sigal, MD; Janet W. Rich-Edwards, ScD; Graham A. Colditz, MD, DrPH; Caren G. Solomon, MD, MPH; Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPH; Frank E. Speizer, MD; JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH

Context: Although many studies suggest that physical activity may reduce risk of type 2 diabetes, the role of moderate-intensity activity such as walking is not well understood.

objectives: To examine the relationship of total physical activity and incidence of type 2 diabetes in women and to compare the benefits of walking vs vigorous activity as predictors of subsequent risk of type 2 diabetes.

Design and Setting: The Nurses’ Health Study, a prospective cohort study that included detailed data for physical activity from women surveyed in 11 US states in 1986, with updates in 1988 and 1992.

Participants: A total of 70,102 female nurses aged 40 to 65 years who did not have diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or cancer at baseline (1986).

Main Outcome Measure: Risk of type 2 diabetes by quintile of metabolic equivalent task (MET) score, based on time spent per week on each of 8 common physical activities, including walking.

Results: During 8 years of follow-up (534,928 person-years), we documented 1419 incident cases of type 2 diabetes. After adjusting for age, smoking, alcohol use, history of hypertension, history of high cholesterol level, and other covariates, the relative risks (RRs) of developing type 2 diabetes across quintiles of physical activity (least to most) were 1.0, 0.77, 0.75, 0.62, and 0.54 (P for trend <.001); after adjusting for body mass index (BMI), RRs were 1.0, 0.84, 0.87, 0.77, and 0.74 (P for trend = .002). Among women who did not perform vigorous activity, multivariate RRs of type 2 diabetes across quintiles of MET score for walking were 1.0, 0.91, 0.73, 0.69, and 0.58 (P for trend <.001). After adjusting for BMI, the trend remained statistically significant (RRs were 1.0, 0.95, 0.80, 0.81, 0.74; P for trend = .01). Faster usual walking pace was independently associated with decreased risk. Equivalent energy expenditures from walking and vigorous activity resulted in comparable magnitudes of risk reduction.

Conclusions: Our data suggest that greater physical activity level is associated with substantial reduction in risk of type 2 diabetes, including physical activity of moderate intensity and duration.

Reuters Health

Monday, April 14, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids who eat better perform better in school, a new study in Nova Scotia fifth-graders confirms.

Students who ate an adequate amount of fruit, vegetables, protein, fiber and other components of a healthy diet were significantly less likely to fail a literacy test, Dr. Paul J. Veugelers of the University of Alberta in Edmonton and colleagues found.

While a healthy diet is generally assumed to be important for good school performance, there has actually been little research on this topic, Veugelers and his colleagues note. To investigate, they looked at 4,589 fifth-graders participating in the Children’s Lifestyle and School-performance Study, 875 (19.1 percent) of whom had failed an elementary literacy assessment.

The better a student’s eating habits based on several measures of diet quality, including adequacy and variety, the less likely he or she was to have failed the test, the researchers found, even after they adjusted the data for the effects of parental income and education, school, and sex. Eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, and getting fewer calories from fat, was also associated with a lower risk of failing the test.

To date, Veugelers and his team say, most research on diet and school performance has focused on the importance of eating breakfast, as well as the ill effects of hunger and malnutrition.

“This study extends current knowledge in this area by demonstrating the independent importance of overall diet quality to academic performance,” the researchers conclude.

“The consistency of this association across various indicators of diet quality gives emphasis to the importance of children’s nutrition not only at breakfast but throughout the day.”

SOURCE: Journal of School Health, April 2008.