Make Them Count

A pedometer can help you lose more weight than the foods that you eat. Pedometers count your steps, and some track the distance you go, the speed at which you walk or run, and the calories you burn. Used along with a fitness tracking spreadsheet or other journal, a pedometer can get you motivated to keep moving.

You wear a pedometer along your waistline, usually along your dominant leg. Pedometers are built to clip there; some also include a safety strap so that you don’t lose them. In general, pedometers have pendulums inside that move along with your hip; they record a step when the pendulum swings past a magnetic field each time you move. Electronic pedometers count a step when your foot hits the ground.

Most pedometers have a built-in display that tells you the basic statistics of how many steps you took. For a pedometer to know how far you walked, it needs to know your stride length, which you can easily measure by taking 10 steps, measuring how far that is, and dividing by 10. For calories burned, the pedometer needs to know your gender, age, and weight. Like a food diary keeps track of what you eat, pedometers keep track of the amount of activity in which you engage. After getting a pedometer, I parked my car farther from the office each day, walked a little more each evening, exercised more, and tried to take as many steps as possible each day. As a result, I lost weight without even trying. Experts say that you should aim for at least 10,000 steps per day for optimal fitness (the average American averages approximately 6,000 steps per day). For weight loss, I recommend at least 15,000 steps per day. One mile equals approximately 2,000 steps.To be useful, a pedometer must be accurate. Otherwise,
it either overestimates or underestimates your steps, which won’t provide you with the information you need to ensure that you’re exercising enough. This problem is similar to a food diary that underestimates the number of calories you’re eating. Pedometers are great for walking or running, using a treadmill or an elliptical trainer, or
engaging in a sport, such as baseball, soccer, or football. But you can’t wear one while swimming, and they are close to useless for biking. The price of pedometers varies widely. McDonald’s is giving away pedometers with their new Go Active! adult Happy Meals. You can also buy one for as little as $10. I recommend spending a little more than that and getting a pedometer that calculates your distance and speed during workouts, as well as counting steps. Some of the best pedometers come from vendors such as DIGI-WALKER, OMRON, and SportBrain. But there are others from Freestyle, Sportline, and Walk4Life that are also very good quality.

The really cool pedometers, of course, are those that work with your computer. To date, the only pedometer in this category is from SportBrain. However, there are many step-counting software programs that will provide you with the ability to keep a record of your steps no matter what pedometer you use.

Shopping Smart

Amazon has come a long way from its days as “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.” It still holds that title, but it also holds much more, as founder and CEO Jeff Bezos ventures to offer a selection of products as “wide as the Amazon.” Health and fitness aficionados will not be disappointed by a trip to Amazon’s wide range of specialty stores. Besides the thousands of health- and fitness-related books it offers, Amazon has a Kitchen & Housewares store, a Health & Personal Care store, an Electronics store, and a Medical Equipment & Supplies area to satisfy any gadget freak. Plus, Amazon’s Outlet store offers used and reconditioned products at a significant discount. Because some of these “stores” are managed by third parties, you don’t always get Amazon’s free shipping offer on orders of $25 or more. For example, at the Vitamin Shoppe in the Health & Personal Care store, shipping is free after you spend $40 or more.

To make things easy, Amazon uses the same structure for every page. If it can, it strives to make recommendations to you based on your previous purchases and/or searches. It offers specials on the home page as well as featured sellers, a list of bestsellers, and links to related stores. You can browse by section, just as you would in an offline store, and you can buy multiple items from separate stores using the same shopping cart. In general, Amazon discounts books by about 30% (although that varies). Its other discounts vary as well, so shop wisely.We found that their prices for health gadgets, such as body fat monitors and pedometers, were competitive but not great. But their selection was good, with offerings from many different vendors, although they were scattered throughout the site.

Amazon also sells other gadgets, such as heart rate monitors and body monitors. One fun new feature on Amazon is their Gourmet Food store. While many of the offerings are not the healthiest, being able to get foods from Dean & Deluca, Godiva, Harry and David, Legal Sea Foods, and literally hundreds of others all in one place is very convenient. And among the numerous vendors are a variety that specialize in low-carb and lowcalorie foods, so you can shop there guilt free. Amazon also offers an Outlet store, where reconditioned and closeout products are available. We found some great bargains there, but you have to shop carefully. Many of these products are offered by third parties. Check those third parties out before buying anything from them.

A Short History Lesson

Let me assure you that eating meat, fish and fowl isn't a health hardship-it's what humans have eaten for millions of years. People ate much the same way in the nineteenth century. They were beef and pork eaters and their use of butter and eggs was unrestricted. In fact, the two most widely consumed fats of all were lard and beef tallow. In the crucial sixty-year time span between 1910 and 1970, when coronary heart disease escalated from a yet-to-be-recognized problem to the killer of more than half the population, this is what happened to America's diet: The intake of animal fat and butter actually dropped a little, while the intake of cholesterol was not changed. Meanwhile, the intake of refined carbohydrates (mainly sugar, corn syrup and white flour) escalated by sixty percent 68.

To understand how the human diet in most of the world's developed countries has changed so drastically in the last century, let's take a short historical detour. Even before the onset of agriculture, the human animal was able, for millions of years, to remain strong and healthy in conditions of often savage deprivation by eating the fish and animals that scampered and swam around him, and the fruits and vegetables and berries that grew nearby. Without medicine, without expertise, without insulated housing or reliable heating, our species nonetheless survived. The fact that the dietary side of our primitive lifestyle was enormously healthy undoubtedly helped us. So what has caused the avalanche of degenerative diseases that now threaten the health of our species? Two hundred years ago the average person ate less than 10 pounds of sugar a year, and white flour was used much less commonly. About a hundred and ten years ago the lid blew off the sugar canister. In the 1890s, the craze for cola beverages swept the nation-which means that when we were thirsty and craved water, we got sugar as well. To make matters worse, the mills that could refine wheat into white, nutritionally barren flour were developed in the same decade. That was bad enough. But what's worse, once that flour met up with sweetness and saltiness, the junk food industry was off and running.